Baptism Record for an Illegitimate Child Born in 1781 in Ubberud, Denmark

A large part of genealogy is to document relationships, particularly parent-child relationships. We want to identify the right parents, and that requires correlation of the information about the persons.

A Marriage Record

My fifth great-grandparents Mads Nielsen and Anne Marie Hansdatter married on 11 December 1780 in Ubberud Church, Denmark. Their marriage record reveals little about Anne Marie:

Year 1780, on 11 December the widower Mads Nielsen of Weÿrup and the girl Anna Maria Hans Datter of Bisbierg were married in Ubberud Church.¹

A Baptism Shortly After the Marriage

About three months later, Anne Marie gave birth to a daughter, who was baptized Kirstine on 18 March 1781 in Ubberud. Kirstine was not born out of wedlock, but she was certainly conceived before the marriage, and careful examination of her baptism record shows that Mads Nielsen was not her father:

Year 1781, on the Third Sunday of Lent Mads Nielsen's wife in Veÿrup, namely Anna Maria Hands Datter, had a daughter to church, named Kirstine; - however, the son in Huusmose in Ubberod Parish, namely Jørgen Olufsen, was alleged as father of the child; because the child was bred before said Mads Nielsen's first wife had died.²

The image at the top shows a snippet of the record with the names of the three parties highlighted.

Information in Other Records

Evidence from other records correlates with the evidence in the baptism record:

• Mads Nielsen's previous wife died in August 1780 in Vejrup.³
• At the 1787 census, Mads Nielsen and Anna Hansdatter had the seven-year-old Kirstine Jørgensdatter in their household, where she was called "the wife's child, bred out of wedlock."⁴

Conclusion about the Parentage

The aggregate evidence points to Jørgen Olufsen as Kirstine's father, not Mads Nielsen.

I often see misattributed parenthood for illegitimate children – likely because every word of the baptism record was not examined. If you want your family tree to be accurate, do yourself a favor: Translate the entire record and correlate the information with that from other records to ensure that you have identified the right parents of your ancestor.

Source References

1. Ubberud Parish (Odense District, Odense County, Denmark), Parish Register 1715-1786, only copy, unpaginated, 1780, 11 December, marriage of Mads Nielsen and Anna Maria Hans Datter; image copy, the Danish National Archives, Arkivalieronline (https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=181775#181775,30861547 : accessed 11 December 2022). In this book, the minister recorded baptisms, marriages, and burials among each other in chronological order.
2. Ubberud Parish (Odense District, Odense County, Denmark), Parish Register 1715-1786, only copy, unpaginated, 1781, 3rd Sunday of Lent, baptism of Anna Maria Hands Datter's Kirstine; image copy, the Danish National Archives, Arkivalieronline (https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=181775#181775,30861548 : accessed 11 December 2022).
3. Ubberud Parish (Odense District, Odense County, Denmark), Parish Register 1715-1786, only copy, unpaginated, 1780, 26 August, burial of Mads Nielsen's wife; image copy, the Danish National Archives, Arkivalieronline (https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=181775#181775,30861547 : accessed 11 December 2022).
4. 1787 Census of Denmark, Odense County, Ubberud Parish, population schedule, p. 8 [ink writing], Veirup Bye: family 5, Kirstine Jørgensd. in the household of Mads Nielsen; image copy, the Danish National Archives, Arkivalieronline (https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/billedviser?bsid=533791#533791,90276710 : accessed 11 December 2022).