♀Els Petersen

Els Petersen was the mother of Kirsten Hansen of Rørkær, in Hostrup parish near Tønder, in the Duchy of Schleswig. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her daughter Kirsten Hansen.

Family

Her husband, Hans Arentzen, lived at Rørkær, and the couple had a son, Matthies, baptized at Hostrup on 7 August 1737, and a daughter baptized on 14 August 1740 whose name the register leaves blank. Three further daughters are known only from their burials. In little over ten months, between April 1740 and February 1741, the couple buried three daughters. At the August 1740 baptism the register names the mother as “Els Hanses”, the parish’s usual way of naming a wife by her husband’s first name.

Her daughter’s marriage to Wolle Wollesen in Hostrup church on 29 September 1764 names the bride as the daughter of Hans Arentzen and “Els geborne Petersens”, the entry that gives Els her own surname. The baptism of their daughter Kirsten at Hostrup on 16 April 1743 names her husband but not her. Hans and Els married before the parish’s surviving registers begin in 1734, so their marriage is not recorded there. No record of her birth or death has been found.