♂Peter Nielsen

Peter Nielsen (died 21 February 1793) was an Inste, a landless lodger, and a joiner, living at Rørkær in Hostrup parish, near Tønder in the Duchy of Schleswig^W. His youngest son, Peder, was born six and a half months after his death and bore his name. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his daughter Catharina Peters (born 1784).

Marriage and family

His marriage is the Hostrup register entry of 26 January 1782 (no. 3), in which Peter Nielsen of Rørkær, son of the Inste Niels Lorentzen and Annmary, née Petersen, married Agnet Caspersen of Rørkær, daughter of the Halbbohlsmann (half-bol farmer) Caspar Andersen and a mother née Peters; the register writes the bride’s name “Agnet”, the Agnetha of the baptism entry. His own baptism has not been found.

Their daughter Catharina was born on 13 August 1784 and baptized a week later. The register names her parents as “the Inste Peter Nielsen and Agnetha, née Caspersen” of Hostrup and enters the child as Cathrina Caspers Petersen, Petersen after her father’s given name in the Danish patronymic custom. The couple had two more children, Nicolaj and An Botilla, whose births have not been found; they are known from their father’s burial entry. An Botilla carries the name of her mother’s mother, Botilla Peters.

Death

Peter Nielsen died at Rørkær on 21 February 1793 and was buried at Hostrup on 27 February, aged 38. The register calls him a cottager and joiner of Rørkær (Tischler in the German of the entry), names his widow Agnetha, and lists three surviving children: Nicolaj, Catharina and An Botilla.

A fourth child followed. On 4 September 1793, six and a half months after his death, his widow bore a son, baptized on 8 September; the register enters him as Peder Nielsen, son of the late Inste Peter Nielsen and Agnetha, née Caspers, of Rørkær. The first godfather was Peter Caspersen of Rørkær, Agnetha’s brother.

Catharina was eight years old at his death. When she married at Rørkær on 9 December 1815, the register called her the daughter of “the late Inste Peter Nielsen”, and called her mother the late Agatha, the Agnetha of the other entries.

Notes

• His 1782 marriage entry names his parents as the Inste Niels Lorentzen and Annmary, née Petersen. The Hostrup register has one marriage of such a couple, Niels Laußen and Anmari Peters on 1 February 1754, and the baptism of their son Laust on 2 July 1754. When Anmari was buried in 1771, the register recorded that she left one son, Laust, at a time when Peter, going by his age at death, was about sixteen. No baptism of a further child of that couple appears in the register between July 1754 and March 1756. He is kept here as their son on the strength of the 1782 entry.
• His baptism is not in the Hostrup registers: the parish name-index has no Peter Nielsen born there between 1748 and 1769.
• The register writes his posthumous son Peder Nielsen, with his father’s surname rather than the patronymic Petersen.
• A family chart compiled in 1994 spelled his surname Neilsen; the Hostrup registers write Nielsen.