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From: "Jens Hansen" <>
Subject: Re: [DK] The Farmer in Denmark's History
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 18:21:44 +0200
References: <1db.39418710.2f89af07@aol.com> <002301c54dcf$5fc85260$02996b3e@hansen> <004b01c54e5c$163bc220$8d4266a6@sueschon>


Hello Sue

Just some short notes:

hegnsmand, gaardbestyrer: They have been farmers. A hegnsmand was a
nominated farmer in each village; he was responsible for the 'hegn' = the
fence around the fields; he had to check the fence and if it had to be
repaired he had to get someone to make the repair, but basically he was a
farmer. The fence should keep the animals out of the corn-fields!

Sue writes: "My grandfather's grandfather left the farm in
Keldby, Præstø with his older brother around 1851."
The farmers in keldby bought their farms in 1767-1769 from the king. The
farmers could not pay in cash so they were in debt to the king (the
government). As the farmers bought there farms they also bought a forest
(where they normally got wood for the fire), this forest = skov was located
in the southern = sønder part of the parish and was called Sønderskov. You
can still see this name on the maps of Møn, but it is farmland today, - no
more forest. The reason was that the farmers after 1769 started selling the
trees to Copenhagen to get money to pay their debt, so your grandfather's
grandfather have probably been growing up with this trade. And they have
also known all about Lars Larsen (born Lars Knudsen in the neighbouring
parish) who ran away from the island of Møn and established one of the
biggest companies in Copenhagen based on lumber trade and lots of ships with
trade on the West Indies, he reached to bee one of the most wealthy men in
Copenhagen; - but that is another story.

A 'skovløber' has normally been working on an estate, - sometimes it was a
farmers son who had this job until he could get a farm.

mvh
Jens Hansen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Schon" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: [DK] The Farmer in Denmark's History


From: "Jens Hansen"
> In spite of our democratic development we have not had success in getting
a
> vertical integration in the population. It is very clearly in our
education
> system, - children from homes where the parents are university-trained
more
> often get a university degree, then children from homes where the parents
> are having no education.

I've often wondered how my grandparents got together. Both had ancestors who
were mostly peasant farmers. On my grandmother's side, there were other
occupations like hegnsmand, gaardbestyrer, smed, and skovløber emerging in
the early 1800s. My grandmother's father was a blacksmith in the town of
Birkerød, Frederiksborg Amt. My grandfather's grandfather left the farm in
Keldby, Præstø with his older brother around 1851. They established
themselves as shopkeepers (dealing in lumber) in København. My grandfather's
father had a career in the Danish Army and my grandfather was in the Danish
Navy as a maskinist (and he was a ship's engineer in the U.S.).

I think my grandparents met in København. They both belonged to Godthaabs
Sogn, but they were married in Odense in 1913. The marriage record shows
their "home" parish to be "Godthaabs, Frederiksberg". My grandmother was a
"Pigen" in that record, whereas my grandfather's female relatives were
always "Frøken".

In my case, there was some "democracy" going on here. :-)

Sue


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