This summer I was researching information for a client and unlocked a mystery to their family's past using the information from a Ship Passenger List, a census record, a memorial on a website, and a Danish baptismal record. Searching these four sources, family secret came to light. I have changed the names to protect the confidentiality of my client's family.
A young Danish girl was listed in the 1900 Census with the surname of her "supposed" father. However, the census record showed her age as five and that her parents had been married for three years. It also showed that she had emigrated from Denmark three years before at the age of two the same year as her mother but her father had emigrated ten years previous. I began to question, at that time, if he was a stepfather and that perhaps her mother had married previous to her emigration to the United States. Further researched proved this theory incorrect.
The New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 listed her mother's maiden name, age 30, and gave her name, age two, with, of course, the same last name. The findagrave memorial site for her mother (maiden name listed) matched the name given on the ship passenger list. Their last name was not the same as the father's surname in the 1900 Census. This census record would indicate that Louis was a stepfather to Sophia, the couple having married shortly after her arrival to the United States. (Louis had emigrated about 10 years prior.)
Further research included a search of the Danish baptismal records and marriage records. I could find no marriage record for the mother. I could find no baptismal record for the young girl born in 1895. I did, however, find a baptismal record for her mother and the name on the baptismal record matched the name on the ship passenger list as well as the memorial on the findagrave website!
So the young Danish girl was born out of wedlock. She and her mother emigrated to the United States where her mother was to work as a servant heading for Colorado as their destination. Shortly after her arrival, she married and over the years had more children. At some point in time, her husband may have adopted her the Danish girl. His obituary referred to her as his daughter and rightly so because he raised her from the time she was a toddler until adulthood.
All along the family thought that the man in the census record was her father; after all, he was an Danish emigrant too! But looking at all of the details of the census records and then delving into more sources, I discovered that he was not her father after all. There is another mystery to solve but no one alive to tell the true story.
