Ellen Poulsdatter Christensen

In 2003 we traveled to Denmark to see the country of our Christensen ancestors. We spent a wonderful day in Copenhagen. The next morning we headed west from Copenhagen to Soro where we went (with help) to the equivalent of the forestry office to try to find more details about the place which Ellen Poulsdatter inherited and

which two of her husbands helped her to take care of. We didn't have enough information to make real progress so we decided to drive into the countryside just to get a sense of it. As we traveled, we carried a picture of a white tudor home that we had copied from Allen Christensen's book. On the road to Vedbysonder, we came to a home much like the one in our picture. I knocked and a woman in her forties answered the door. We were immediately drawn to her. Her spirit is the one that I carry with me as a memory of our "kind" of ancestors. She so wanted to help us find "the real" white, tudor home. And in her careful English she said, "I know how you feel. We went a year and a half ago to find my husband's grandfather's home in Sweden."

We drove on through the beautiful farm land to Slagelsee. Time was slipping away. Our plane left Denmark early the net morning. We had so few leads that I opted to have us go back to Ottestrup--an important place listed on our family records. It was there in the beautiful, old church and cemetery that we felt we were standing in places our ancestors would have walked.

With Ellen Poulsdatter Christensen and her sons Poul and Niels and her second husband Hans Christensen in mind, we looked at the beautiful surroundings of Denmark and counted with better understanding the gratitude we owe them to have been willing to join the Church and then leave all that we saw behind them for the gospel's sake.

On the side bar is a short history devoted to Ellen.