♂Peter Nissen Thomsen

Peter Nissen Thomsen (born 21 February 1851) was a farmer’s son of the village of Alslev in North Schleswig, who married in the neighboring district of Aabenraa in 1874, two years after his elder brother Anders had left for Chicago. He was the younger brother of Anders Hansen Thomsen (1847–1931), the great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007).

Early life

Peter was born on 21 February 1851 at Alslev, in the parish of Højst near Tønder, and baptized in Højst church six days later. The register calls him the lawful son of Peter Nicolai Thomsen, a farmer, and his wife Anna Magdalena, born Hansen. His first godfather was Peter Hendrik Thomsen, a farmer on Sønderløgum Mark, and another godparent, Maria Kirstine Nicolaisen, born Thomsen, was also of Sønderløgum parish. The shared surname suggests these were relatives on his father’s side, but the register does not say how they were related.

The family had not been at Alslev long. In 1845 his parents were living at Tirslund, in Tislund parish north of Tønder, where his brother Anders was born in 1847. By 1851 they were farming at Alslev. Peter was vaccinated in October 1852 and confirmed on Palm Sunday, 14 April 1867, in Bylderup church, a parish to the east of Højst. That was three years after the Second Schleswig War^W, when the duchy passed from the Danish crown to Prussia.

Marriage

On 28 September 1874 Peter married Magdalene Cathrine Lund at Egvad church, in the district of Aabenraa. The register describes him as a bachelor living at Hydevad, in the next parish of Hellevad. His bride was the daughter of Andreas Petersen Lund and Mette Dorothea, born Jespersen, and had been born on 21 June 1849. Before the wedding he produced a certificate of baptism from Højst and one of confirmation from Bylderup, and the marriage went ahead under a licence that allowed it without the usual banns.

No record of children or of his death has yet been found.

Notes

The published index of Danish marriages places the wedding at Hellevad. The entry is in the Egvad register: the two parishes’ books were filmed together, and the index took the wrong parish’s name.