♀Annmary Petersen

Annmary Petersen (dates unknown) was the wife of Niels Lorentzen, an Inste or landless lodger, in Hostrup parish, near Tønder in the Duchy of Schleswig^W. They married at Hostrup on 1 February 1754, and their son’s 1782 marriage entry names them as his parents. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Peter Nielsen (died 1793).

On 26 January 1782 Peter Nielsen married Agnet Caspersen, and the Hostrup parish register’s entry for that marriage (no. 3 of the year, written in German) names the groom as Peter Nielsen of Rørkær, the legitimate son of the Inste Niels Lorentzen and Annmary, née Petersen, and the bride as Agnet Caspersen of Rørkær, the daughter of the Halbbohlsmann (half-bol farmer) Caspar Andersen and a mother née Peters. Her given name, written “Annmary”, is a form of Anna Maria; that spelling is probable rather than certain, and the 1754 marriage entry writes it “Anmari”. That entry is the only record of her under that name. The Hostrup parish register’s marriage list for 1754 records, on 1 February 1754, the marriage of “Niels Laußen und Anmari Peters”; Laußen (Lausen) is most likely a patronymic formed, like Lorentzen, from the name Laurids or Lorenz, and the entry gives no parents, village or trade, so it is taken to be this couple on the names, the parish and the fit with their son Peter’s marriage in 1782. No record of her parents has been found, and her own baptism has not yet been traced.

Notes

• She was probably the Anmari Nielsen buried at Hostrup on 1 July 1771, aged 42, whom the register calls the widow of the late (sel.) Inste Niels Laust[sen] of Rørkær. This is probable on the names and the place, not certain.
• That 1771 entry records that she left one son, Laust, baptized on 2 July 1754, and does not name Peter, who would have been about sixteen. Peter Nielsen is kept as their son on the strength of his 1782 marriage entry.