Through my father's grandmother, one line of my family runs back to two German families who walked to Jutland around 1760 and stayed. This page follows them down to my great-grandparents.
They are the Franks, from Eschelbach in the Kraichgau, and the Dürrs, from the Lauter valley south of Darmstadt. Both settled on Alheden, and around 1791 Michael Frank married Cathrine Barbara Dürr. The facts below come from church books, censuses, the colony's own records and Valdemar Andersen's history of Frederiks parish, and each one notes where it comes from.
For the colony's first decades, the main source is the yearly reports that the colony officials sent to the Rentekammeret in Copenhagen from 1763 to 1792. After that there is a gap until the colonies' tenancy register begins in 1810. Andersen worked through these records farm by farm, and his book is the backbone of this page.
The Franks of Eschelbach
Johann Jeremias Thomas Frank and Eva Magdalena Benz
My fifth great-grandparents
Johann Jeremias
Born 11 December 1713, Eschelbach
Eva Magdalena
Born 12 November 1721, probably Tairnbach. Still living in 1787, in Denmark.
Married
18 April 1741, Eschelbach
Eschelbach, now part of Sinsheim south-east of Heidelberg, belonged to the Electorate of Mainz, and in the Danish records the Franks are said to have come "from Mainz". Eva Magdalena's birthplace is written "Thaimbach" and "Thairnbach" in the transcriptions, most likely Tairnbach, Eschelbach's neighbouring village.
Eva Magdalena certainly came to Denmark: Andersen notes that in 1787 the colonist Georg Frank's mother, Magdalene Bentz, was still alive. Johann Jeremias is another matter. Andersen could not find the father's name in any Danish record, so he may have died before the family left, or soon after they arrived.
Hans Thomas and Georg Frank
Their sons, Michael's elder brothers
Hans Thomas
Farm no. 1 in Havredal from 1765. Died between 1774 and 1779.
Georg
Married his brother's widow and took over farm no. 1 before 1779, then moved it out to Aarestrup.
The colony records follow the Franks through the two grown sons. Hans Thomas Frank held farm no. 1 in Havredal from 1765 and died in the 1770s. His widow, Marie Magdalena Betzer, then married Georg Frank, who was also an immigrant and, Andersen thought, Hans Thomas's brother. When Havredal grew too crowded around 1779, Georg moved his farm out to Aarestrup in the valley to the south.
In 1765 Georg is recorded with one child, although by the 1787 census he had not been married before. Andersen suggests the child was his young brother Michael, whom he had to provide for. Henrik Frank writes that "Johann Thomas Frank med kone og børn", with wife and children, was probably among the 420 colonists who reached Fredericia on 1–2 May 1760. A man with a wife and children sounds more like the father, Johann Jeremias Thomas, than his son, so the father may well have made the journey, even though Andersen found no later trace of him.
Johann Michael Frank
My fourth great-grandfather
Born
19 December 1756, Eschelbach
Farmer
Farm no. 2 in Ulvedal, then farm no. 12 in Grønhøj from 1787
Office
Churchwarden, still in 1801
Married
Cathrine Barbara Dürr, about 1791
Died
6 January 1833, Frederiks parish
Michael, as he was known in Denmark, was three when his family came, so Alheden was the only home he could remember. By 1787 he had a farm of his own in Ulvedal, and that year he swapped it for Henrik Maul's farm in Grønhøj, 38 hectares of heath land.
In 1801 he was still a farmer and churchwarden, a position of trust in the colonists' own church. After that, in Andersen's words, things went downhill for him, and before 1810 the farm had passed to Johannes Hermann. He died in 1833, aged 76.
The Dürrs
According to Andersen, the Dürr colonist was Peter Dürr, "from Darmstadt", and his wife was Apolonia Schmuck, born in 1720. Peter had farm no. 4 in Grønhøj from 1763, and in 1776 his son Siegmund took it over. Chr. Jacobsen's Fra Alheden includes a plan of Grønhøj showing who lived in each of the new colony houses in 1760 and 1761, and the Dürrs are there, a few doors from the Kriegbaums.
Andersen lists Peter's children as Siegmund (1754–1819), Anna Cathrine (1756–1825), who married Jacob Brauner of Trehuse, Cathrine Barbara (1767–1815), who married Michael Frank, and Leonhard (1768–1822), a farmer in Grønhøj. He adds that Hans Jacob Dürr, a farmer in Grønhøj and Resenfelde, "was perhaps also a son of Peter D."
The family's German roots point to the Lauter valley in the Odenwald. Hans Jacob was born in Gronau and baptised at Reichenbach in the valley in 1749, and family records trace Apolonia's family, the Kriegbaums, to Schönberg and Gronau next to Bensheim. Andersen records another colonist, Peter Philbert, arriving in 1760 "from Gronau in South Hesse" with his wife and nine children. Etlar Kramer Johansen names the County of Erbach-Schönberg and the Lauter valley as home to many of the colonists.
Cathrine Barbara Dürr
My fourth great-grandmother
Born
1767 or about 1769, Frederiks parish
Married
Michael Frank, about 1791
Died
4 April 1815, Frederiks parish, buried 9 April
Cathrine Barbara was born in Denmark, the first in this line who was. Andersen counts her and her brother Leonhard, born in 1768, among Peter Dürr's children. If so, Apolonia was 47 and 48 when they were born. Family trees place both children one generation down, as the children of Hans Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine Märcher, who married around 1767. The Frederiks church books that can be read today only begin in 1814, so the question is still open. Either way, she was a child of the colony, and a daughter or granddaughter of Peter Dürr.
Her marriage to Michael Frank around 1791 joined the two colonist families. She died in 1815.
Hans Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine Märcher
Peter Dürr's son and daughter-in-law
Hans Jacob
Born 9 June 1749, Gronau, baptised 10 August at Reichenbach. Farm no. 16 in Grønhøj from 1774, Resenfelde from 1779, later Over Frederiksmose. Died 29 May 1816, buried 3 June at Thorning.
Anna Cathrine
Born 1745, recorded as Bodigheim. Died 25 April 1827 at Gammel Frederiksmose, buried 29 April at Thorning.
Hans Jacob, or Johan Jacob, was a boy of about ten when the colonists set out. He had farm no. 16 in Grønhøj from 1774 and moved out to a new farm at Resenfelde in 1779, but by 1787 that farm stood empty. He ended his days at Over Frederiksmose, part of the small colony at Gråmose south of Havredal, in Thorning parish.
Their burial records show how far the colonists' children had come in half a century. In 1816 the parish clerk wrote him down as Jacob Pedersen Döhr, Jacob, son of Peter, which fits Andersen's guess that he was Peter's son. In 1827 she was buried as Ane Cathrine Michelsdatter, daughter of Michael.
Michael Marcher
Anna Cathrine's father, and a colonist himself
From
Bödigheim in the Odenwald, "from Schwaben" in the Danish records
In Denmark
Farm no. 3 in Havredal from 1763
Died
Before about 1779
German records give Johann Michael Märcher's birth in 1720 at "Bodigheim", probably Bödigheim near Buchen, and his marriage to Anna Dorthea Gramlich at nearby Bofsheim in 1743. In Denmark he was Michael Marcher, with farm no. 3 in Havredal, and his wife there was Margrethe Gantzhorn, who had been married before. Around 1779 his widow exchanged the farm, and their son Mathias Marcher (1764–1835) farmed in Havredal after them. Marcher is one of the thirty family names on the colonists' memorial stone at Frederiks.
If Cathrine Barbara was Hans Jacob's daughter, Michael Marcher was her grandfather, and a third colonist family in this line.
Leaving the heath
Leonhard Frank
My third great-grandfather, baptised Niels Christian Leonhard
Born
About 1802, Frederiks parish
Married
Marie Cathrine Hansdatter, 30 September 1837, Kragelund church
Work
Farmhand, then smallholder and day labourer
Died
1 April 1860, buried 9 April at Balle
Leonhard was also the name of his mother's brother, Leonhard Dürr (1768–1822), a farmer in Grønhøj, and it was the name Michael Frank's son went by all his life. He left Alheden for the country south-east of it. In 1837 he was a farmhand at Charlottenlund when he married Marie Cathrine Hansdatter, born in 1814 at Funder in Kragelund parish. Ten years later they had a smallholding at Ellingehedehuse in the same parish.
A local diarist, Jens Peter Aaboe, noted the sale of their house:
Leonhard Franks Hus, Syd for Kragelund, med en ussel Bygning, uden Tørvejord og i ussel Drift, er i disse Dage solgt for 500 Rdl., og man siger, det er over 800 Rdl. værd.
Leonhard Frank's house south of Kragelund, a poor building with no peat land and poorly run, has just been sold for 500 rigsdaler, and people say it is worth over 800.
The census of 1860 finds the family at Hvinningdal in Balle parish, near Silkeborg: Leonhard Frank, 58, day labourer, born in Frederiks parish; his wife Marie Cathrine, 47; and three children, Jens, Ane Marie and Mette Marie Frank. A hundred years after the colonists came, the family name was still Frank. Leonhard died two months after the census.
Thrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank
My second great-grandmother
Born
11 January 1848, Kragelund, baptised 5 March
Married
Niels Jensen, labourer, born 1848 in Storring parish, on 25 June 1875 in Funder parish
Died
8 July 1926, Silkeborg, buried at Vestre Kirkegård
Thrine carried two names at once: Leonhardsen, daughter of Leonhard, in the Danish manner, and Frank, the colonists' surname. When she married Niels Jensen in 1875, the Frank name left this line of the family.
Jensine Kristine Jensen and Jens Julius Hansen
My great-grandparents
Jensine
Born 26 April 1880, Søby parish, baptised 1 August
Jens Julius
Born 20 January 1879, Søvind parish, baptised 14 April. Electrician.
Married
24 October 1908, Silkeborg church
When they married in Silkeborg in 1908, Jens Julius was working as a fitter in Odense. According to the family, he was born Koch or Kock Hansen and later dropped the middle name. Their children took the surname Hansen.
From Frank to Hansen
The Frank name lasted a century in Denmark. Danish patronymics, names formed from the father's first name, ran alongside it, and in this line it finally gave way through marriage.
FrankHans Thomas and Georg Frank, colonists in Havredal, 1760s
FrankMichael Frank, farmer and churchwarden, in the 1787 census
Leonhard Frankhis son, in the 1860 census with children Jens, Ane Marie and Mette Marie Frank
LeonhardsenThrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank, "daughter of Leonhard", born 1848
JensenJensine Kristine Jensen, daughter of Niels Jensen, born 1880
Hansenher husband Jens Julius Hansen, married 1908
The line of descent
Johann Jeremias Thomas Frank and Eva Magdalena BenzFrom Eschelbach. Eva Magdalena and her sons settled at Havredal.
Peter Dürr and Apolonia SchmuckFrom the Lauter valley. Farm no. 4 in Grønhøj from 1763.
Possibly through their sonHans Jacob Dürr and Anna Cathrine MärcherDaughter of the colonist Michael Marcher
Johann Michael Frank and Cathrine Barbara DürrMarried about 1791
Leonhard Frank and Marie Cathrine HansdatterMarried 1837 in Kragelund
Thrine Margrethe Leonhardsen Frank and Niels JensenMarried 1875 in Funder parish
Jensine Kristine Jensen and Jens Julius HansenMy great-grandparents, married 1908 in Silkeborg
The tree on this site stops with my great-grandparents. Later generations are left out.
