LDS Certificate…

To this point we have two documents that are written in Danish. They have been determined by Mr. Bjørn Graabek, of Denmark, to be a Danish Military document (1855) and a LDS Priest Ordination document, (1856). They are now over 150 years old.

I have reproduced them here as near full size as I could. Thus they are large downloads, but worth the effort. Both of these documents come from the Peter Sorensen side of the family. Peter is Nicolai Sorensen's oldest son. Our thanks to Bob Sorensen for making them available to all of us.

Peter Sorensen's LDS Document—

I received the following e-mail from Mr. Bjørn Graabek, of Denmark. I have included it here to share his thoughts on the above document. Prior to his translation I had no idea concerning the content. He states the following—

I was looking for information about Mormons in the Slagelse area when I found your web site. I am myself a member of the church, active in the Slagelse Ward. I saw your page with the old Danish documents. Unfortunately I don't have time right now to look closer and translate it all, but here is a brief description of the documents:

The first one is from the military. Everybody has to turn up to potentially be drafted into the national army. But it works as a lottery. You pick a number, and if its high enough you don't have to go. I went through the same process, and was quite surprised right now to see that it was done this way back then as well. The document says your ancestors number was high enough that he did not have to join the army. So the document says he's a member of the "Forstærknings-hær", basically the army that would have been used to strengthen the "real" army in case of war.

The second document is from the (LDS) church and says he has been ordained to Priest. It is signed by the "Presiding Elder O Larsen.

I hope this is of interest to you… Best Regards,(1)

1. Bjørn Graabek, Correspondence to Rodney J. Sorensen, January 24, 2002. (Thank you Mr. Bjørn Graabek!)