Facing My Ancestors

Since late january this year, I have been digging away at the former city cemetery in Holstebro, Jutland. The place went out of use as a graveyard in 1865, and the medieval church was demolished (with dynamite, no less!) in 1906. I have blogged about this otherwise not particularly exciting dig before. But the working circumstances have suddenly changed for the more exciting.

It all began with a trip to the local museum in Holstebro. In the exhibition hall for recent city history I noticed a nice wooden travelling chest that had apparently belonged to the Lind family, a line of local goldsmiths. The chest bore the initial of one Mathias Lind and the year 1656 and it has been used by generations of Linds on their travels through Europe as journeymen, or as we say in danish: navere, travelling craftsmen (I myself am some kind of travelling craftsman, only I’m an archaeologist).

Then it struck me, that not only is my mothers family name Lind, but she is in fact a trained goldsmith, as were both her paternal grandparents, and their parents before them. So I went home and called her, thinking that even though she is from Copenhagen (which is in the exact opposite end of Denmark) there might still be some kind of family ties to Holstebro.

Indeed! It turns out that my great great grandfather was a goldsmith named Mathias Lind, and that he came to Copenhagen from, you’ve guessed it: Holstebro. His mother, another goldsmith, was named Olga Lind and her father (his grandfather) was in turn a goldsmith named Mathias Lind, and some of their silver work is actually on display in the Holstebro Museum.

And we all share a common ancestor, one certain mister Mathias Lind from Holstebro, who in 1656 set out from Holstebro as a journeyman goldsmith, sporting his beautifully carved and brand new travelling chest.

Then another thing struck me: Until the churchyard in Holstebro was abandoned in 1865, every single deceased person in the parish would have been buried there. I’m excavating that very churchyard. Hey, wait a minute - am I digging up my ancestors!? This must be some kind of bizarre joke!

Well, now that i know about this, it is as if I do my job just a little more carefully than I used to…

After all, it is not that often you get to exhume your own family!