Rum City

               Back in Buffalo, N.Y. Alma Hildegard had married a young Schleswig-born carpenter in December 1883. They were both 20.

               Christian Martin Hansen in later years described himself as German, because that was a simple explanation of a complex situation. His birthplace, Flensburg, was located on a fjord along the coast of the contentious province of Schleswig-Holstein. When he was born in 1863, the area was still part of Denmark, but after the German-Danish War of 1864, it became Prussian territory.

               Flensburg was a “Rum City” and had a fleet of 300 trading ships involved in the rum industry.  More than 200 local distilleries processed sugar cane juice into grog, and a plethora of refineries, oil mills, and soap and tobacco factories handled other raw goods the traders brought home. It was a given that nearly every man in town would be somehow involved in the West Indies trade. Food, building materials and coke were transported from Flensburg to Christiansted on St. Croix, and bartered for sugar cane, color wood and spices.

  

Flensburg harbor

             Christian’s father Hans was born in Naestved on Denmark’s big island of Zieland, and his mother Dorothea came from Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein. Both his parents were ethnic Danes, which causes difficulties for anyone trying to trace their origins. Before 1828, Denmark practiced the use of patronyms and matronyms. For instance his father Hans Hansen, born around 1835, was probably Hans, the son of another Hans. Hans Senior might have been named something like Hans Gunnarsen or Hans Eriksen.

Likewise, we know Christian’s mother as Dorothea Petersen (or Jensen; there’s some confusion here). But her father might have been baptized Peder Olesen or Jens Ottarsen…or? And her mother would have been identified as someone’s daughter, as in Elsa Einarsdatter. Later in this chronicle, I’ll be able to trace some of our family branches back over a thousand years. But as for anyone thinking they can march into Naestved or Angeln and trace our forebears to the Viking Age, I wish them luck.