Re: Petersen/Olsen 1830. HELP PLEASE
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In reply to:
Petersen/Olsen 1830. HELP PLEASE
Dan in Canada Petersen 2/01/09
Dan:
Have you had any luck with your family since your last post?The border situation and the changing borders over time make it "interesting" when we try to find our ancestors in this area.
Take a look at the article at the following link for a good history of the area:
http://www.genealogy-sh.de/history/e/history.htmhttp://www.genealogy-sh.de/history/e/history.htm
For a discussion of what was going on in the mid 1800's (when so many of our ancestors immigrated to North America) take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein_Questionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein_Question
or
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Schleswig-Holstein_Questionhttp://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Schleswig-Holstein_Question
Ancestors on both sides of my family came from this region. On my father's side, a great grandfather was born in 1851 in what was then the Duchy of Schleswig but is now Denmark.He immigrated to the US and died in Iowa in 1913.Records in his home parish indicate he moved to Denmark and from there to the US. US records all refer to him as German and his obituary even says he was from "North Schleswig, Germany." The reason for this is that, even though the place where he was born is now in Denmark, from 1864-1918 it was German.
On my mother's side, almost all of my ancestors were Germans from what is now the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.Many of these people immigrated to Iowa in the mid 1800's and Iowa records often show them as being from "Schleswig" or "Holstein" or, after 1871, "Germany."
To add a further layer of complexity, Prussia as a separate state ceased to exist in 1871 when the various German states were united under Prussian rule to form Germany.There was, however, a separate state of Prussia within Germany which existed until 1947.
Did these people immigrate to North America?I ask because the other problem you will have is the commonness of the names (I have Petersens in my background and have spent hours sorting thru what seem like multitudes of Petersens to find mine).If they did immigrate I would suggest finding out what you can in North America (good sources are immigration, census, church records, death records/obituaries, military records etc). One or more of these records may even state an exact location of origin in Europe (though, don't be surprised if they just say "Germany" or "Denmark" or whatever).Armed with any new information you can uncover you can then re-post your query and see if that helps.
Good luck in your search
Paul