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Kaae/Coe Family History

1.

Introduction

The Kaae family or rather what would later be known as the Kaae/Coe family, originated in country of Denmark on the island of Lolland. This island is east of the Jutland peninsula and south of the island of Sjaelland where the city of Copenhagen is located. I have traced them back to two parishes. They are the parishes of Östofte and Stokkemark which are now in Maribo county. The year is 1787 and that is the year of the first Danish Census. From this census I can get a good picture of the families relationships. With so many people in the parishes have the same names it is sometimes difficult to find the correct person. The census helps to clear this up. At any one time period you can find at least two people with the same name. Sometimes even four or more. This can cause serious problems if you are not very careful because in the earlier parish birth records the mother's name is not mentioned. More work needs to be done so that we can push this date farther back. At a later date I will be checking probate records and that may shed a light on some of the problems that have arisen. Due to the nature of genealogies the process of searching for ancestors is never really completed. There is always one more date, another record to look at, one more birth, one more death, or one more marriage to check out and add.
Denmark used the patronymic system for naming people until the later part of the nineteenth century as did Sweden and Norway. Iceland still uses this system. I have been told that because of the naming paterns that in the telephone books in Iceland people are listed under their first name rather than their last. You may know fifteen or twenty people with the same last name but their given name is different. Under this system the child takes the fathers given name as his surname. An example of this would be our Jorgen Jensen again. Two of this children were Hans and Karen. Instead of naming the child Hans Jensen as we would do they would name him Hans Jorgen's son or Hans Jorgensen and Karen would be Karen Jorgensdatter. There were not more than a dozen or so names in general use for boys or girls so there would be many people in a parish with the same first and last names. As stated before, this can cause great confusion even if you are careful in your research.
The name Kaae itself is interesting. I do not know its origin or the meaning of the word "Kaae" but it goes back at least to the mid 1700's in the parish records. It did not originate in the male line but it seems to have come from the family of one of the females that married in from Stokkemark parish. At times various people took on different surnames to distinguish themselves from other people of the same name. An example of this would be Jorgen Jensen. To distinguish himself from the two or three other Jorgen Jensens in the Parish he called himself Jorgen Jensen Kaae or Jorgen Kaae. He did not always use the surname Kaae. In some of the parish records he will be Jorgen Jensen and in some Jorgen Kaae. Their seems to be a number of families in Stokkemark that have used the name Kaae and their relationship to each other is not clear at the present time. The name may have been inherited by the oldest child, male or female, after the death of the father.
This genealogy is in the Register style of format that was developed by The New England Historic Genealogical Society for their publication called THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER. The original or the first ancestor will have the number one. His children will be given a Roman numeral in order of their birth. Then his children who had children will also be given a number. This means that they will be mentioned in the next generation along with their spouse and children. This will go on through all of the generations. This method may seem to be difficult to follow at first but it is a very good way of organizing a large number of descendants. This method will be easier to use with a little practice.
This genealogy was compiled and organized with the aide of a genealogical program or software called Brother's Keeper. This was written and produced by John Steed. It is an excellent program with many features and put out as shareware. This means that a person can try the program and then if they want to keep it they can send in the registration fee.
Last of all I wish to thank all of the family members who have helped in this project and have given their time. Most importantly they have given the information that was needed to clear up dead ends and avoid some pitfalls and help to locate living relatives. It is harder to get information on the living than it is on the dead.

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Kaae/Coe Family History

1.