♀Anna Jespersen

Anna Jespersen (dates unknown) lived at Rørkær, a hamlet in the parish of Hostrup near Tønder in the Duchy of Schleswig^W, and is known only as the mother named in the burial entries of two of her children. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Jacob Andersen (1712–1775).

Family

She married Anders Jespersen, and in her children’s records she appears under her married name, Anna Andersen, formed from her husband’s given name. Jespersen was her birth name. Their daughter Trincke Andersen was born about 1701 and their son Jacob Andersen about November 1712, so the couple were raising children for at least eleven years. Both children ended their lives in the nearby parish of Højst. Jacob became a Bohlbesitzer, the holder of a bol farm, at Vesterhøjst, and died there on 13 May 1775, aged 62 and a half. Trincke married Sören Hansen, a quarter-Hufner (the holder of a quarter farm) at Østerhøjst, and was buried at Højst on 3 February 1782 as his widow, aged nearly 81.

The two burial entries, written in German, agree on the parents: Jacob’s in 1775 names his father as Anders Jespersen and his mother as Anna Andersen of Rørkær, and Trincke’s in 1782 names the same couple of the same place, calling the mother “Anna Andersen geborne Jespersen”, Anna Andersen born Jespersen. Both speak of the parents in the past tense (“ist gewesen”, “was”), which suggests they had died by 1775. Nothing else is known of Anna: the dates of her birth, marriage and death and the names of her parents are all unknown.

Notes

• The register writes the place “Rohkarr”; it is Rørkær, in Hostrup parish.
• From 1781 the Højst register adds a woman’s birth name after geborne, “born”, which is why only the later of the two entries gives her name Jespersen. Her birth name and her husband’s patronymic are the same; the records do not explain the coincidence.
• The 1782 entry writes the daughter as Trincke Sörens: in this register a married woman or widow is named with her husband’s given name, here Sören Hansen’s, not her father’s.
• The children’s dates come from their ages at burial: 62 and a half in May 1775 for Jacob, and just under 81 in February 1782 for Trincke.