Her life

Sidsel Rolandsdatter was born on the road, grew up among beggars and spent her twenties in and out of jail. She lived her middle years among the night-soil men of Aarhus and died after a fire in the poorhouse at Storring.

A beggar's child, 1786–1803

On 2 April 1786 the priest at Nors, north of Thisted, confirmed the home baptism of a little girl. The register describes her only as en betlerskes barn, a beggar woman's child: en betlerskes barn Sidsels dåb konfirmeret. She was probably born at Vorring in Nors parish.

Her mother was Anne Marie Hansdatter, a travelling beggar who was said to have been born in Viborg Tugthus, and whose family had been in and out of prisons and workhouses. Her father was a soldier, Roland Christiansen, who also called himself Roland Christian Møller. Her mother had been with him since about 1779.

The first time Sidsel appears in a court record she was six. In 1792 her mother was arrested at Holstebro with her three daughters and a group of other vagrants, and they were held in the town hall jail for about six months. At the hearing Anne Marie gave her age as 48. She said she came from Stautrup in Thy, that she had been married to the soldier "Rolland Christian Møller", and that she had lived by begging for eight or nine years.

On 14 December 1792 the court found that they had all lived as beggars and vagrants. Two of the men were sentenced to a year and a month in Viborg Tugthus. Anne Marie also earned a year of forced labour, but the court judged her too weak to serve it: her eyes were badly diseased. Her eldest daughter, Juliane, 17, was close to giving birth. Anne Marie was sent back to her home parish, and the two younger girls, Birgithe Catrine, 12, and "Zidsel, in her sixth year", were to be taken home with her.

Prison and three daughters, 1803–1809

Sidsel was about seventeen when her first child, Christian, was born at Odby in Thy in March 1803. The father she named was a soldier, Christian Sørensen of Aalborg. The baby died of measles that December and was buried at Års. A daughter, Anne Marie, followed in December 1804 at Terndrup in Himmerland, by a recruited soldier called Christian Sørensen Thornbye.

She kept moving, with her children, through Lovns, Sæby, Læsø, Lønstrup, Aalborg and Søndervrå. At Søndervrå a theft led to her arrest. Her third child, Johanne Cathrine, whose father was the soldier Lars Jensen, was born while Sidsel was held in the jail at Sæby, and baptised there in July 1807.

That autumn she was sentenced to a year's labour in Viborg Tugthus. The prison register gives her number as 1433 and her age as 21, and records her release on 19 September 1808. She later said she had spent a short time with her sister at Hoel, near Hvalpsund.

Her two little girls stayed behind in Sæby with Christoffer Kamp, a brandy distiller, and his wife Anne Magdalene. Someone had to pay for them, and because their mother had been born in Nors, the bill went to Nors. From 1810 the parish paid the Kamps eight skilling a day for each girl until she turned twelve, more than 800 rigsdaler in all.

Her father died in the town hall jail in Aalborg on 9 August 1807, a few weeks before she was sentenced. Eight months after her release she was in Aalborg herself, and again in custody. On 16 May 1809 she gave birth to a daughter, Ane Marie, who was baptised at home the next day. The parish register of Budolfi church calls the mother Arrestantinde Sidsel Rolandsdatter, a woman under arrest, and names the father as Peder Olesen. Ane Marie is my third great-grandmother.

Among the night-soil men of Aarhus, 1810–1825

On 19 December 1810 Sidsel married Christian Peder Christiansen in the Church of Our Lady in Aarhus. He was a natmand, a night-soil man, one of the men who emptied the town's privies by night and lived outside its gates. They had a daughter, Berith Catrine, in 1811, and a son, Peter Christian, in 1814. That same year Sidsel was caught up in a court case together with her half-brother Poul Rolandsen and a man known as Tater-Adam. Christian Peder died in Aarhus on 28 September 1815.

By then Sidsel had another man in her life: Lars Laursen Andrup, called Laus, a glazier who did the same work as her husband. The children kept coming, all born in the same parish of Aarhus. In 1818 she was in Viborg Tugthus again.

In 1824 Laus was divorced from his wife by royal licence, and on 21 October he and Sidsel were married in the Church of Our Lady, by another royal licence. The marriage register gives a rare picture of them. He was 51 and lived by Renovations- og Natmands Arbeide, refuse and night-soil work. She was 39, the widow of the late night-soil man Christian Peter, and both of them lived in the night-soil men's house outside Mølleporten, one of the town gates. Their three youngest children born in Aarhus all died as babies between 1824 and 1826.

Storring, 1825–1837

Some time between 1825 and 1827 Sidsel and Laus left Aarhus for Storring, a village west of Aarhus. They lived in a house by the village pond. Their daughter Kathrine was baptised in Storring church in May 1827.

That year Ane Marie, now 18, was confirmed in Storring church, entered in the register under Lars Larsen Andrup and Sidsel Rolands Datter. In April 1828 she married Jens Poulsen, a cottager's son born in the village. Ane Marie was to spend the rest of her life in Storring, close to her mother.

Storring was a base, not a place to stay. From there Sidsel and Laus travelled the farms of East Jutland, and her trade as a cunning woman went with them. It brought her money, and in the end it brought her before the court in Viborg. That story is told on The cunning woman.

The last years, 1838–1854

After the verdict of December 1837 Sidsel was taken to Viborg Tugthus. She was still there at the census of 1840, and in 1841 she was in Odense Tugthus. The census of 1850 finds her back in Storring with Laus.

In their last years they lived in the Storring poorhouse, though they never received poor relief from the parish. Laus died there on 26 February 1853. He was said to be 90, though his age at the 1824 wedding makes him about 80.

In the winter that followed, fire broke out in the poorhouse. Sidsel was carried out badly burned and taken to the county hospital in Aarhus, where she lay for months. She died there on 30 April 1854. Her burial entry in the Storring register calls her the widow of the late glazier Lars Andrup, of Storring poorhouse, and adds: she was badly burned in a fire in Storring village and was therefore taken to the county hospital, where she died; but she was buried in Storring. The funeral was on 3 May 1854.