| Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Protector |
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| __________________________________________ PRINT PAGES OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW. The Danish Immigrant Museum 2212 Washington Street P. O. Box 470 Elk Horn, Iowa 51531-0470 Telephone 712.764.7001 Fax 712.764.7002 |
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| The staff and volunteers at the Family History & Genealogy Center (FHGC) provide research services for interested individuals.
Research Fees: • $20 per hour for members of The Danish Immigrant Museum. Become a Member! • $30 per hour for non-members. • A $5 postage/handling fee will be added to all requests. Research avenues available through the Family History & Genealogy Center (FHGC) include: • the Danish Immigrant Museum Wall of Honor files • over 600 family histories, biographies and memoirs of Danish immigrants • Danish maps, gazetteers and local histories • Danish Brotherhood in America lodge records (1881 - 1995) • research files on immigrants to the U.S. and Canada • HeritageQuest™ Online • Ancestry LibraryEdition™ • indexes to Danish-American obituaries • biographical indexes • microfilmed 1900 census records from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Montana, North and South Dakota • Iowa state censuses 1856 - 1925 for Audubon, Cass, Pottawattamie and Shelby Counties • select Iowa Lutheran church records • Ancestry LibraryEdition™ following HeritageQuest Online™ • local cemetery transcriptions • materials on loan from the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah • Copenhagen Police Emigration index (1868 - 1911) • microfilmed and printed Iowa county histories • general genealogical reference materials • Internet workstations and wireless access Researching Danish-American Ancestors: Researching immigrant ancestors is done the same way as researching non-immigrants - by working backwards generation by generation from the present to the past. Collect as much information as possible on the children of immigrant ancestors, the immigrants themselves, and any known siblings. Typical information sources for Danish-Americans include the following resources: • death, burial, marriage, confirmation, birth and baptismal records; also marriage applications • obituaries and tombstone inscriptions • 40th or 50th anniversary newspaper articles • newspaper articles for ‘round’ (80, 90, 100) birthdays • funeral home records • church records (Lutheran records are especially valuable) • Federal census information, beginning in 1930 and working backwards • State census information (Some states have excellent mid-decade state censuses) • declarations of intent and final naturalization petitions for foreign-born males over 21 (before 1920) and all foreign-born individuals after 1920. Before 1920 minor children and wives automatically became citizens when the male head of household did; children who had reached majority before then had to apply in their own names. • county and town histories in the area(s) of settlement • Danish Brotherhood Records (Found at FHGC and at the Danish Immigrant Archive at Dana College in Blair, NE) • Social Security applications • WWI draft registration records • land records, including homestead files • online sources, such as the Ellis Island passenger arrival records (NYC arrivals 1892 - 1924) and useful websites for Genealogical Research and the USGenWeb for the area(s) in which your family ancestors lived. Once the above materials have been checked, family documents such as correspondence including letters, postcards, diaries, or photographs from relatives in Denmark can help to form a picture of when an immigrant came to this country, where they settled, and likely, where they came from. Be aware that many Danish immigrants Americanized their names, and consequently their original names may have been different. One must have some idea of what the original Danish names were before searching Danish records. This is sometimes simple (Jørgen and Marie often became Jorgen and Mary in North America), but is sometimes more difficult to figure out (Kjeldgaard changed to Kelgor; Bruhn became Brown). In addition, not all family members may have kept the same surname or surname spelling. Prior to about 1850 Danish surnames were patronymic and not ‘fixed,’ particularly in rural areas, and women kept their birth names throughout life until around the turn of the 20th century. In addition, there are 3 Danish letters not found in English - æ, ø and å (commonly found as ‘aa’ in older records) – which get rendered in various ways in English. The FHGC has an experienced group of researchers and will be delighted to assist in your searches. |