♀Metta Catharina Friis

Metta Catharina Friis (born about 1763) was the wife of Peter Thomsen, a smallholder (Parcelist) of Süderbrarup in Angeln, in the Duchy of Schleswig^W. She was the fourth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Thomas Hinrich Thomsen (1791–1850).

In 1803 the household at Lindau, a parcel district of Süderbrarup, was headed by Peter Thomsen, aged 53, a Parcelist. With him were his wife, aged 40, written Metta Cath. Fries in the census; seven children, aged two to eighteen; and his widowed mother, Anna Magdalena Thomsen, aged 80.

When Thomas Hinrich Thomsen died at Højst, in North Schleswig, on 13 November 1850, the Højst parish register recorded him as “en Søn af afdøde Parcelist Peter Thomsen og Hustru Metta Catharina født Friis i Süder Brarup i Angeln”, a son of the late Parcelist Peter Thomsen and his wife Metta Catharina, born Friis, at Süderbrarup in Angeln. Her surname is not entirely clear in the handwriting; the family record spells it Friis. A Parcelist held a parcel of land split off from a larger farm. The same entry gives Thomas Hinrich’s age as 59 years, 7 months and 18 days, which places his birth in late March 1791, and the census of 1845, in a published transcription, gives Süderbrarup as his birthplace. The entry calls her husband “afdøde”, the late, but does not show whether she was still living. Apart from the 1803 census, no other record of Metta Catharina Friis has yet been found, and her parents are not known.