Introduction
In My Roots you will be assisted in recording your ancestry in a dedicated, but easy-to-use Ancestry Tree. The Ancestry Tree helps you to document where you are coming from with respect to your family background and roots.
Most of us obviously have a clear picture about our parents and to some extend about our grandparents, but the details about where they have lived, pictures from their childhood are often missing. Many of us only have a vague idea about our great grandparents. You can use the Ancestry Tree to compile detailed information about your family roots.
There are many dedicated web sites, which can help you to find historic data about your family, and we will take you through the most commonly used databases to assist you in finding the needed information. If you want to study your Ancestry in more detail, we strongly recommend that you use a more elaborate template for storing the data about your family roots. You can use among others the American website Ancestry.com where it is possible to generate a very detailed ancestry record for your family. You can start by using the ‘Create a free online Family Tree’ option and see if this function suites your needs. Since it is an American website, you will not have direct access to the relevant Danish databases, but their templates give you a excellent opportunity to record the detailed data of your family roots. You will however be able to search directly in the following database: Denmark Births and Christenings, 1631-1900s.
In this section, you will also get informed advice about how to supplement your Ancestry Tree with data from relevant up-to-date DNA tests.
Ancestry Template
The downloadable Ancestry Template below is a PowerPoint file that can be used by most PCs and Laptops.
In the first section, you can include the names, dates of birth and birthplace of your parents, grandparents and great grandparents. The second section give you the opportunity to include pictures of all your relatives from the first section.
You can share your Ancestry Tree with family members and let them add information to your Tree.
Download the Ancestry Template below:
In Denmark, you can search for missing information about your relatives in two important public databases.
The online Danish church records in ‘Dansk Demografisk Database’ include data on births, marriages and deaths for the last three centuries (1640 – 1953).
You can use the following entry point for starting your search in the database:
The other important database is the Danish Census Database, which you will find by using this entry point:
The Danish census database contain detailed information about each household in Denmark for close to two centuries (1787-1950).
If any of your relatives have lived in Copenhagen, it can also be relevant to search in the Police Registry that contain detailed information of people living in Copenhagen from 1890 to 1923:
DNA Tests
Three basic DNA Tests can assist you in finding relatives, identifying your maternal roots and for men more specifically identifying their paternal roots.
The autosomal DNA test record approximately 700,000 locations on your chromosomes. Both men and women can take this test and the results can assist you in identifying relatives from any branch of your Ancestry Tree within the last five generations. This test will also provide you with information about your geographic ancestry going back several centuries. It is highly recommended to have other members of your family tested since this will allow you to identify where your DNA is coming from on your maternal and paternal Ancestry Tree.
The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test allow both women and men to identify people in their maternal ancestry since mother’s pass their mtDNA to all children. Since the mtDNA is mutating more slowly than Y-DNA it will identify more people with similar test results, but it will often be more difficult to find common ancestors with this test. The mtDNA test will however provide you with information about your geographic ancestry going back many thousand years with respect to your maternal ancestry.
The Y chromosome test (Y-DNA test) allow men to identify men in their paternal ancestry since the Y chromosome passes from father to son with rare mutations. Since men usually use their father’s surname relatives or ancestors identified by the test will often share his surname. Women can have their father, brother, or father’s brother tested in order to identify people in their paternal ancestry. The Y-DNA test will also provide you with information about your geographic ancestry going back many thousand years with respect to your paternal ancestry.
If you want to take one of the three-mentioned modern DNA test there are many companies especially in the US performing the test. One of the companies with the largest database is FamilyTreeDNA. The tests will cost you between 100 to 200 USD for each of the basic tests. We recommend that you start with the autosomal DNA test, which cost around 100 USD plus postage. The DNA tests in general only make sense if they are used in conjunction with your Ancestry Tree. The modern autosomal DNA tests can also be used to identify an unknown father or half sibling with a very high degree of certainty.