Nicolaisen?

I have found it very interesting that had we stayed in Denmark we would all have very different names. The military document above shows our "Peter Sorensen" as Ole Peder Nicolaisen. Some early church records show this (Nicolaisen) as the family name as well. This (the mid-1850's) is the time in Denmark that -son and -datter were replaced with -sen, and families took one name and kept it as directed by the Danish Crown.

This document also has the older spelling of Haverup, Søro, Denmak as well.

Peter Sorensen's Military Document—

On January 24, 2002 I received the following e-mail from Mr. Bjørn Graabek, of Denmark. I have included it here to share his thoughts on the 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.

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!