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Link-Lives: A New Database for Denmark Genealogy

Lene Dræby Kottal
Link-Lives: A New Database for Denmark Genealogy

A New Free Database For Denmark Genealogy Is Out!

The Danish research project called Link-Lives aims at "reconstructing life-courses and family relations of almost everyone who lived in Denmark from 1787 until the introduction of the modern Danish Civil Registration System in 1968."1 I have explored the database to see if it is as amazing as it sounds.

To see what the database has to offer and whether the information is correctly liked, I searched for a relative I know a lot about: My fourth great-grandfather Mads Clausen, who was born in 1784 in Ubberud Parish, Odense County, Denmark. He married my fourth great-grandmother Ane Madsdatter on 26 October 1816 in her birth parish Sanderum.

The search for Claus Madsen born 1784 in Ubberud turned up one life course with six index entries as shown below.

A screenshot from the Link-Lives website, which shows six linked events for Claus Madsen of Ubberud.

The entries are not yet linked to the images, but that is the intention. The project is a work-in-progress. Anyhow, I examined the six linked index entries for Claus Madsen: a marriage record and five census records.

Are Events Linked Correctly?

Some persons have highlighted mistakes in Link-Lives life courses, but in this case the records are linked correctly, and even events, which require a bit more correlation, are linked:

  • The index of the marriage record does not provide Claus Madsen's birthplace because that was usually not recorded at that time. However, the Link-Lives system still managed to tie the marriage in one parish to the census records in another parish.
  • Ane Madsdatter died in 1855, so she is not listed in the household at the 1860 census, but the system still tied the 1860 census index to Claus Madsen. There was only one other person in the household in 1860, namely his granddaughter, who was not in his household at the 1850 census.

This was a relatively easy case, and I look forward to testing some more difficult cases – perhaps someone named Jens Jensen. I wonder how well the system distinguished all the men named Jens Jensen from each other.

Meanwhile, you can try the Link-Lives system yourself. Unfortunately, the search page is not yet available in English, so you need basic knowledge of Danish genealogy words to use it. If the page automatically changed to English when you open it, choose "Dansk" in the upper right-hand corner and thereafter "Søg" in the upper right-hand corner. That will take you to the search form.

Tutorial Coming Soon

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Source References and Attributions

1. Link-Lives (https://link-lives.dk/en/about-link-lives) > About Link-Lives.

2. Thank you to the contributors at freepik.com for supplying the icons used for the genealogy network image at the top of the post: