Finding your Danish ancestors

First, find the parish, its county and its district

Danish records are filed by parish (sogn). Rigsarkivet says that to start you need a name, an approximate year and, above all, the parish. The archives also use the county (amt) and the district (herred) of the time: the levying rolls of 1789 to 1864 are arranged by county, and the census search on Arkivalieronline lets you narrow a search by amt and herred, although only the parish is required.

From place to parish. If you know where a farm or village lies but not its parish, Rigsarkivet points to DigDag, the digital atlas of Denmark's historical administrative geography: enter a year, choose the church division (kirkelig), click the place on the map and read the parish name. When checked, parts of DigDag were closed for technical reasons; the standard map and the place-name search still worked.

Æ, ø, å and aa. The letter å replaced the double aa in 1948, and since 1984 either spelling has been allowed, so the same town may be written Aarhus or Århus. In Danish alphabetical lists, aa is filed with å at the end of the alphabet: look for Aabenraa there, not under A.

Names. Most people used a patronymic formed from the father's first name: Jens Nielsen's daughter Maren was Maren Jensdatter, his son would be a Jensen. Rigsarkivet's English guide notes that the authorities abolished patronymics in law in the 1820s because they wanted fixed family surnames. Two Jensens in America need not be related.

Sønderjylland. If the family came from North Schleswig (Sønderjylland), remember that it was Prussian, then German, from 1864 until reunification with Denmark in 1920, and its records differ: see Sønderjylland below.

Church books (kirkebøger): the parish record

Some parishes have church books from the 1600s; the oldest surviving ones, begun at the end of the 1500s, are from Sønderjylland. Royal letters of 1645 and 1646 ordered priests throughout the country to record baptisms, betrothals and marriages, and deaths, and the Danish Law (Danske Lov) of 1683 repeated the rule.

Two copies from about 1814. Before 1814 each parish kept a single book (enesteministerialbog), and many were lost when parsonages burned. From about 1814 the entries were made on printed forms in two copies: the priest kept the main book (hovedministerialbog) and the parish clerk the counter-book (kontraministerialbog), and the two had to be stored under different roofs. If an entry is hard to read in one copy, look in the other.

What you will find. Births and baptisms, confirmations (from 1736), marriages and deaths. On Arkivalieronline the lists are marked F (births), K (confirmations), V (marriages) and D (deaths). In some parishes, from about 1814 to 1875, the priest also listed who moved into and out of the parish (af- og tilgangsliste): a moving-out entry can show where an emigrant went first.

Online. Rigsarkivet has church books from the whole country from the 1600s to about 2000. The books up to about 1960 are scanned on Arkivalieronline: Kirkebøger fra hele landet; search by parish name. Parts not scanned, mostly from 1961, are ordered to a reading room through Rigsarkivet's catalogue. Ancestry donated the colour images of the books up to 1892, and Rigsarkivet notes that you can search Ancestry's transcribed Danish church books of 1812 to 1918 free of charge, after creating a free account.

Blurred fields. Books after 1925 can contain personal (CPR) numbers and fall under a 100-year access period; those numbers are blurred on Arkivalieronline, and so are the remarks column of the birth lists from 1892 on. You can apply to Rigsarkivet to see a blurred field. For an entry about yourself in a book less than 50 years old, Rigsarkivet suggests asking the parish.

Other recognised religious communities and civil marriages have their own records; Rigsarkivet has separate guides for them.

Censuses (folketællinger), 1787 to 1940

Censuses list people household by household. The first one of interest to genealogists was taken in 1787; Rigsarkivet's English guide lists the following ones in 1801, 1834, 1840, 1845, 1850, 1855, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1901, 1911, 1916, 1921, 1925, 1930, 1940 and 1950.

• Online: every census of the kingdom up to and including 1940 is scanned on Arkivalieronline: Census lists. In the countryside they are arranged by parish; in towns you choose the street.
• Birthplace: recorded from 1845 on, except in 1906 and 1916, when it was given only in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg. The birthplace leads you to the parish where the baptism is.
• Later censuses: censuses are closed for 75 years. Those of 1950 to 1970 are not online; they are seen in the Copenhagen reading room, with permission.
• Name search: Link Lives searches transcribed censuses (1787, 1801/1803, 1834, 1840, 1845, 1850, 1860, 1880 and 1901) and links records of the same person from 1787 to 1923. The older Danish Demographic Database (Dansk Demografisk Database) is being phased out: Rigsarkivet announced in May 2026 that its data is moving to its catalogue, Search the Collections, most of it by 1 September 2026.

Sønderjylland: Prussian and German from 1864 to 1920

After the war of 1864 the Duchy of Schleswig passed to Prussia, and North Schleswig (Sønderjylland) returned to Denmark at the reunification of 1920. Its records follow their own rules.

• Civil registers from 1874. In 1874 civil registration of births, deaths and marriages began, run by the Standesamt, and it continued after 1920; priests regained the right to marry couples only in 1926. The personal registers (personregistre) are online: births 1874 to 1960, marriages 1874 to 1925, deaths 1874 to 1969. Each event was entered where it happened: a home birth is usually in the parents' parish, a hospital birth in the town's register.
• Church books. The books up to 1874, and the counter-books of 1926 to 1960/61, are scanned on Arkivalieronline.
• Censuses. The German census cards of 1885 for Danish subjects living in Prussia are online; most other German census material was discarded after use.
• Today. Civil registration in Sønderjylland is still done by registrars employed by the municipalities, not by the parish offices. Newer material is seen in Rigsarkivet's reading room in Aabenraa.
• South Schleswig. For parishes now in Germany, Rigsarkivet's reading rooms have microfiche of the church books up to about 1876, by agreement with the church archive in Kiel.

Levying rolls (lægdsruller), probate and population registers

Levying rolls. The levying rolls (lægdsruller) list the men who could be called up for military service. From 1789 they let you follow men's moves across the country as long as they were liable for service. From 1788 to 1849 boys were entered from birth; until 1848 the rolls cover the peasant population, because people in market towns and the higher classes in the countryside were exempt, and from 1849 they cover all men. An entry gives the name, age, birthplace, residence and moves, height and the father's name (the mother's if the man was born outside marriage). The rolls of 1789 to 1864 are arranged by county (amt), then by year and by levying district (lægd); Rigsarkivet's parish list gives each parish's lægd number. The rolls of 1789 to 1864 and of about 1860 to 1930 are scanned on Arkivalieronline. Bornholm kept no levying rolls.

Probate. A probate record (skifte) is an inventory of a dead person's belongings, assets and heirs; the oldest surviving ones date from about 1650. Before 1851 the town judge (byfoged) handled the estates of townspeople, landowners those of their tenants, and the county or, from 1793, the district judge (herredsfoged or birk) those of other country people; from 1919 the probate court of each judicial district. Most probate material, up to about 1919, is scanned on Arkivalieronline; probate records are closed for 75 years.

Population registers and CPR. From 1924 to 1978 the municipalities kept population registers (folkeregistre) of people's addresses. Rigsarkivet has received the cards of some municipalities, but far from all; they are closed for 75 years, and Rigsarkivet can search them for a fee if you know the name and date of birth. The central personal register (CPR) was created in 1968, with address history from 1972; a person's address at death can be ordered on borger.dk.

Newer records: the parish office and Rigsarkivet

Outside Sønderjylland, births, baptisms, marriages and deaths are still registered by the parish: the registrar sits in the parish church office (kirkekontor). Since 2002 to 2004 the registration has been digital in every parish. Find a parish office's address, telephone and e-mail on sogn.dk, which covers every parish of the Danish national church.

Certificates from Rigsarkivet. Rigsarkivet issues certificates (attester) of baptism, confirmation, burial, church wedding and civil wedding from the church books, marriage registers and personal registers. Your order must say what you need it for, give the person's name and date of birth and the date of the event, and state your relationship to the person. A certificate for other than legal use costs 614 kr., with nothing to pay if Rigsarkivet cannot issue it; it aims to answer within 10 working days, digitally. Order with the certificate form. If the church event took place less than 110 years ago, Rigsarkivet sends you to the parish.

From the parish. The parish offices issue certificates mainly to living people about themselves (or their child under 18), ordered on borger.dk with MitID. For someone who died in Denmark, a personal certificate confirming the death can be issued by the parish where the person lived or was buried.

Searches and closed records. Rigsarkivet does not do genealogy for you, but offers searches at an hourly rate. To see a record still within its access period, apply for a dispensation; Rigsarkivet normally answers within 15 days.

Emigrants: the Copenhagen police lists and the numbers

From 1868 to 1959 the police registered the contracts for passage that emigrants bought from emigration agents. Up to 1934 the Copenhagen police kept the protocols and registers. They give the name, occupation, place of residence in Denmark and birthplace, age, destination and the date the contract was shown. Everyone who emigrated directly from Copenhagen is registered, and so are many who travelled indirectly on a contract bought from a Danish agent in Copenhagen. Emigrants who arranged their own passage from foreign ports such as Hamburg are not.

• The protocols of 1868 to 1911 are transcribed and can be searched by name in the emigration database of the Danish Emigration Archives (Det Danske Udvandrerarkiv) in Aalborg, Denmark's national collection on emigration, founded in 1932.
• The 1868 protocol and the protocols of 1911 to 1919 are scanned; others are ordered to Rigsarkivet's reading room. Travel records are closed for 75 years.
• Agents in Vejle (1873 to 1894) and Ribe (1881 to 1888) sent emigrants via Hamburg; the Horsens agent's records (1892 to 1922) are in the Danish Emigration Archives.

The residence and birthplace in the protocol lead you to the parish; then look for the moving-out entry in the church book.

The official tables shown on this site's map count:

Figures: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2019, table 2 (country of origin before 1906, of last residence from 1906); Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs, Historical Migration Statistics (November 2025); Argentina, Dirección General de Inmigración, reports of 1904 and 1925; Quebec immigration ministry (MIFI), tables of permanent immigration; Historical Statistics of Switzerland online, table B.21. Each country uses its own definitions: compare with care.

Writing to the parish office or to Rigsarkivet

Most emigrants were born more than a century ago, so first read the church book yourself on Arkivalieronline: books up to about 1960 are there, free to view. If you need an official certificate of a church event more than 110 years old, order it from Rigsarkivet with its certificate form (614 kr.), giving the purpose, the person's name and date of birth, the date of the event and your relationship. For an event less than 110 years ago, write to the parish church office (kirkekontor) of the parish where it took place; find its address on sogn.dk. Give the full name, the date, the parish and the parents' names, say that you are a descendant, and ask the fee. In Sønderjylland, civil registers are kept by the municipalities. Rigsarkivet does not do genealogy, but will search at an hourly rate. Write your letter in Danish with our free generator.

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