Ancestors

Niels Simonsen

Niels Simonsen, kjøpmann, of Havnegaden in Østre Risør. The 1801 census puts him at fifty three in the second rode of the town, at the head of a household of seven, and records that he was on his third marriage.

The children in that house carry three different surnames, which is what a man married three times leaves behind. Jens Kraft, seventeen and already farer til søes, going to sea. Elisabeth Maria, fifteen. Daniel Barth, eleven. Magdalena Andrea, ten. All four are entered as huusbondens børn, the householder's children, meaning by earlier wives. Only the youngest, Simon Simonsen at eight, is deres børn, theirs together, by his present wife Christine Kraft, who was forty three and in her first marriage.

A son of Niels would be Nielsen under a living patronymic; the youngest boy is Simonsen, which means the family had already frozen Simonsen into a fixed surname, and the seventeen year old sailor entered as plain Jens Kraft would have signed himself, as an adult, Jens Kraft Simonsen.

If Niels Simonsen is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Niels Simonsen (b. 1748)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/niels-simonsen-1748-504805.