Knud Christian Hansen Skov, 4th Dragoon Regiment, Næstved, Denmark, about 1887

Let's take a closer look on how to find information in the military archive, in this case closing in a specific regiment and a specific conscript, my great grandfather, Knud Christian Hansen Skov. This post is about how I found some of the military records available regarding my great grandfather and hopefully it can be a kind of 'how-to' when you need to find information about your own ancestors.

I started out with nothing more than my great grandfather's name and an old photo of him in uniform as well as a general idea of when he served (my initial guess was 1890 +/- 5 years). Unfortunately noone in my family could give me anymore details than that, except of cource that everyone remembers my grat grandmother telling that "he looked so handsome in his uniform". Not much to go by, but lets see what we can find. Luckily the Danish archives have rather much information available and the resources are generally very well organized.

First step was taking a closer look at the photo. The photo shows my great grandfather mounted on horseback and wearing a dragoon's uniform (dragoons wear a characteristic helmet). Beneath the photo is the name of the photographer, Ed Langhoff in Næstved (in this case spelled 'Nestved').

The Judicial District of Koldinghus ("Koldinghus Birk") was in effect from 1719 to the 1765/67, and covered the districs of Elbo, Holman, Brusk, and Jerlev (Vejle County) and Anst and Slav (Ribe County). The Birk, also known as "Birketing" or "Ting" (see also Thing (assembly) from Wikipedia) where both a legislative and judiciary assembly. The term "Ting" is preserved in modern Danish, for example the "Folketing", the Danish Parliament.

The following extracts contains cases of alleged paternity, collection of rewards, illegal distilling of spirits, tithe not paid and even murder!