Genealogy Resources

Welcome

Genealogy & Education Center staff and volunteers are happy to assist visitors to the museum with their family history research. To ensure you get the most out of your visit, advance appointments for research are preferred, but walk-in patrons are also welcome. Information about many of these resources appears on this page.

How to Research Your Danish Ancestors

Researching immigrant ancestors is done the same way as researching non-immigrants - by working backward, generation by generation from the present to the past. To start, you will want to collect as much information as possible on the children of the immigrants, the immigrants themselves, and any known siblings. This information will create your foundation for research.

 

Typical information sources on Danish Americans include the following resources:

• death, burial, marriage, confirmation, birth and baptismal records; also marriage applications
• obituaries and tombstone inscriptions
• 40th or 50th anniversary newspaper articles
• newspaper articles for ‘round’ (80, 90, 100) birthdays
• funeral home records
• church records (Lutheran records are especially valuable)
• federal census information, beginning in 1940 and working backwards
• state census information (Some states have excellent mid-decade state censuses)
• declarations of intent and final naturalization petitions for foreign-born males over 21 (before 1920) and all foreign-born individuals after 1920. Before 1920 minor children and wives automatically became citizens when the male head of household did; children who had reached majority before then had to apply in their own names.
• county and town histories in the area(s) of settlement
• Danish Brotherhood Records (found at the Genealogy Center and at the Danish Immigrant Archives & Library at Dana College in Blair, Nebraska)
• Social Security applications
• WWI and WWII draft registration records
• land records, including homestead files
• online sources, such as the Ellis Island passenger arrival records (NYC arrivals 1892-1924), and the USGenWeb for the area(s) in which family members lived

Once the above materials have been checked, family documents such as correspondence (including letters, postcards, diaries, or photographs from relatives in Denmark) can help to form a picture of when immigrants came to this country, where they settled, and often where they came from.

Must-haves For Independent Research

To see the top five free sites we use to research, a guide on how to create Danish letters, and a recommendation on some online archives suggestions, check out our Genealogy Resource Handout.

For lists of common Danish genealogical terms, visit FamilySearch's:

• Denmark Occupations
  
• Danish to English Genealogical Word List

The Genealogy & Education Center also has an experienced and dedicated group of researchers who will be happy to answer questions. To request paid research see the Translations and Research Services page.

Fees for Doing In-Person Research at the Genealogy & Education Center

Members

Independent Research: free
Collaborative Research: $20/hour

Non-members

Independent Research: $10/hour
Collaborative Research: $30/hour

Collaborative research is one-on-one assistance with an experienced genealogical researcher, i.e. paid or volunteer staff.

Resources at the Genealogy & Education Center include:

• Museum of Danish America Wall of Honor files
• Danish immigrant biographical files
• Danish-American obituary collections
• Over 800 family histories, biographies and memoirs of Danish immigrants
• Copenhagen Police Emigration index (1868-1911)
• Danish-American church registers and indexes
• Danish Brotherhood in America lodge records (1881-1995) and death indexes (1882-1995) -- see below
• Danish maps, gazetteers and local histories
• Bien (newspaper), 1893-present**
• The Danish Pioneer (newspaper), 2000-present**
• Scandinaviens Stjerne (newspaper), 1851-1900
• Many Danish-American organizational newsletters
• Ancestry LibraryEdition™
• Newspapers.com™
• Cemetery transcriptions
• Indexes to Elk Horn-Kimballton and area newspapers
• Microfilmed and print Iowa county histories
• General genealogical reference materials
• Handouts for getting started and suggested research resources
• Internet workstations and wireless access

**Digital version of these newspapers may also be viewed here.

J. Brent Norlem Memorial Fund Educational Videos and Activities at the Genealogy & Education Center

The J. Brent Norlem Memorial Fund was founded for the purpose of supporting educational activities at the Genealogy & Education Center. The videos found here are part of a series started in 2021 to provide guidance on how to navigate and understand various resources used for genealogy – specifically, Danish genealogy. If you would like to contribute to the J. Brent Norlem Memorial Fund, you can do so through the donation page on the website. Be sure to select the Genealogy & Education Center in the "Donation Designation" box and indicate it's for the J. Brent Norlem Memorial Fund in the "Notes/Comment" box.

Thank you.

Church Books

The Genealogy & Education Center has copies of church books from both Danish Lutheran and some Baptist congregations in print, microform and digital formats. Below is a geographical listing of our current holdings for various congregations. Information about how to request searches of particular church books may be found on our Translations and Research Services page. Click here to see church book holdings. Note: DELC = Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, LC = Lutheran Church, etc.

Danske i California Index

Danske i California og California historie: beretninger om de danskes liv og virke fra de tidligste pioner dage, by Sophus Hartwick. 2 vols. (San Francisco, 1939)

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^*Click to view PDF

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Danske i Amerika Index

Danske i Amerika. 2 vols (Minneapolis and Chicago: 1908,1916)

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^*Click to view PDF

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North American Recipients of Scandinavian Medals

A listing of U.S. and Canadian residents on whom the Order of Dannebrog or other royal Danish medals have been bestowed. Medals from other Scandinavian countries have been noted when known. Please send additions or amendments with documentation to the Genealogy and Education Center.

• North American Medal Recipient Index
• A 1903 listing of Dannebrogsmænd only may be found here.

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Genealogy Links

For useful books and other items of interest to genealogists visit our Design Store.

For information on Omaha's Springwell Cemetery, and Springwell Burial Listings by Last Name visit our detailed page.

Helpful Facts

Be aware that many Danish immigrants Americanized their names, and consequently their original names in Denmark may have been different. One must have some idea of what the original names were before searching in Danish records. This is sometimes simple (Jørgen and Marie/Maren often became Jorgen and Mary in North America), but is sometimes more difficult to figure out (Jørgen changed to George, Kjeldgaard to Kelgor; Østerbro to Easterbridge, Bruhn to Brown). In addition, not all family members may have kept the same surname or surname spelling.
Prior to about 1850 many Danish surnames were patronymic and not ‘fixed,’ particularly in rural areas, and most women kept their birth names throughout life until late in the 19th century. In addition, there are 3 Danish letters not found in English - æ, ø and å (commonly found as ‘aa’ in older records) – which get rendered in various ways in English.

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Websites for Genealogical Research

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Research in Denmark:

Danish websites usually require the correct Danish spelling of place- and personal names. The following is a key for making the three Danish letters of the alphabet not found in English on many PCs: Hold down the Alt key (or Fn+Alt on many laptops) + the following 4-digit numbers:

Danish Letter	Keyboard Code
Æ	alt + 0198
æ	alt + 0230
Ø	alt + 0216
ø	alt + 0248
Å	alt + 0197
å	alt + 0229