One exercise I practice in my study of genealogy is tracking the connections between me and my various DNA matches. I found one DNA connection recently who is descended from the great-aunt of my second-great-grandfather Peter Christian Christensen (see Finding Peter Christian, The Biography of Peter Christian Christensen, and An Orphan’s Legacy). This is significant because Peter Christian Christensen and his descendants had so far been the only members of that family line that I had been able to find in the United States. This DNA match who I was newly tracking was born in England, but he and his parents have lived both in England and in the United States. The mother of this DNA match is my fifth-cousin-once-removed. Her husband, the father of this match, was a well known rock star in my younger days.
The Ancestors of Peter Christian Christensen
My second-great-grandfather Peter Christian Christensen (1849–1928) trekked across the American plains as a three-year-old orphan. His mother, Margrethe Hansdatter (1826–1853), had died from dysentery just as the ship they sailed on from Denmark was reaching New Orleans; and his father, Christian Christensen (1819–1853), and infant brother, Johann Erastus Christensen (1852–1853), had died from dysentery shortly after the steamship they rode up the Mississippi River docked in Saint Louis. Peter Christian Christensen traveled to Utah in the company of strangers.
Christian Christensen was the son of Christen Christiansen (1797–1840) and Karen Jacobsdatter (1793–1853), and the grandson of Christian Ludvig Jensen (1771–1827) and Johanne Kirstine Nielsdatter (1767–1848). Ane Cathrine Christensdatter (sister of Christen Christiansen, aunt of Christian Christensen, and great-aunt of Peter Christian Christensen) was the fourth-great-grandmother of my DNA match.
Ane Cathrine Christensdatter and Jens Sorensen
Ane Cathrine Christensdatter was born in 1799 in Gevninge, Roskilde, Denmark, and she died May 24, 1881, in Ørslev, Sorø, Denmark. Her husband, Jens Sorensen, was born in 1798 in Gevninge, and he died May 5, 1875, in Ørslev. They were married December 6, 1823, in Gevninge, and they had eight children together. Christen Jensen was the youngest of these children.
Christen Jensen and Ane Katrine Andersen
Christen Jensen was born March 10, 1841, in Ørslev, and he died January 6, 1904, in Haslev, Sorø, Denmark. His wife, Ane Katrine Andersen, was born December 15, 1843, in Haslev, and she died April 11, 1905, in Haslev. They were married December 10, 1864, in Haslev, and they had twelve children together, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Ole Soren Jensen was their fifth child, the fourth to survive.
In this family, you can see the Danish naming convention changing. Christen’s wife had the last name of Andersen rather than Andersdatter as she would have in the patronymic system of the earlier decades; and their children had the last name of Jensen rather than Christensen as they would have in the patronymic system of the earlier decades.
Ole Soren Jensen and Christiane Randrup
Ole Soren Jensen was born March 8, 1872, in Terslev, Sorø, Denmark, and he died May 20, 1937, in København, Denmark. His wife, Christiane Randrup, was born March 28, 1876, in Romlund, Viborg, Denmark, and she died May 17, 1932, in Tårnby, København, Denmark. They were married May 9, 1895, in Roskilde, Roskilde, Denmark, and they had five daughters together. Ane Kirstine Jensen was their second daughter.
Christiane Randrup’s last name seems to be a geographic name that had been carried through several generations of her family. Randers was the name of several cities in Denmark, and subsequently also several homesteads, but its original meaning seems to be elusive. The website Scandification suggests that it might mean “home” or “the place where someone belongs,” but there is no documentation of this. In my old Danish dictionary, rand means “edge,” “border,” or “margin,” but I cannot find any explanation for the rup ending of the word. The Randrup Family website offers various theories for the origin of the name, but there is no definitive answer to that question.
After the death of Christiane Randrup, Ole Soren Jensen married his second wife, Helga Helene Jensen on October 30, 1934, in Tårnby. Helga was born March 31, 1910, in Elmelunde, Præstø, Denmark. I could not any additional records for Helga, but I would assume, since she was so much younger than Ole, that she probably remarried after his death.
Ane Kirstine Jensen and Edvin Laurits Henry Larsen
Ane Kirstine Jensen was born August 23, 1897, in Haslev. Her husband, Edvin Laurits Henry Larsen, was born April 4, 1895, in Frederiksberg, København, Denmark. I could not find death records for either of them (Danish records from the mid-1900s are not as easily available due to privacy concerns). They were married July 6, 1919, in Vanløse, København, Denmark, and they appear to have had only one daughter together, but I could not find them in any censuses past 1925. Inger Sofie Jensen Larsen was their daughter.
Inger Sofie Jensine Larsen
Inger Sofie Jensine Larsen was born May 27, 1920, in Solbjerg, København, Denmark, and her death was recorded in July 1996 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England. Her first husband, Poul Emil Rex-Henriksen, was born June 2, 1913, in Sankt Nikolai, Holbæk, Denmark. I don’t have a marriage record for them, but she was his second wife, and after their divorce on February 9, 1945, they both later remarried. They had one daughter together named Kirsten.
After her divorce from Poul, Inger moved to Greater London, England, with their daughter Kirsten. Inger married Raymond L. Wright there. I could not find a record of their marriage, but they can be seen as husband and wife in the London Electoral Registers from 1951 through 1965. I can find neither a birth record nor a death record that can be verified as this Raymond Wright.
Kirsten Wright and John Charles Lodge
I could not find a birth record for Kirsten, but it is difficult to know what location to look for and what last name to look for. Her father’s last name, Rex-Henriksen, is a hyphenation of his mother’s last name and his father’s last name, and records show that he sometimes went by just Henriksen, sometimes by Rex-Henriksen, and sometimes by just Rex. Kirsten seems to have taken her stepfather’s last name in England, because her marriage record shows her name as Kirsten Wright. She was married September 10, 1968, in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, to John Charles Lodge during his early years as bass guitarist, singer, and songwriter for The Moody Blues. They had two children together. Their younger child, Kristian, shows up on ancestryDNA as a DNA match with me, confirming my genealogical research on this line of the family.
It is always fun to find a celebrity on the family tree.
Eric Christensen
Eric’s Roots 