Danish Lægdsruller Workspace: Difference between revisions

Lægdsruller are records of the men who could be listed for service in the army.  These rolls have many different uses.  For genealogical purposes they are used mainly to follow the mens movements or to find which military unit they were assigned and when they completed their obligation.

The word lægd comes from the word sammenlægning or combination.  Since 1600 the word has been used to indicate the number of farms that together would provide one soldier.  The countrys militia was established in 1701.  At that time the land was divided into lægder of 20 barrels of hartkorn.  Each lægd should in priciple make a soldier available.

In 1788 the countrys conscription rules were changed and the country was divided into 1656 different lægder.  Each lægd was virtually identicál to a parish and from 1843, in the cities the same as a town.  Each lægd was sequentially numbered within each county.  This means that the first lægd in each county were lægdsnummer 1 and so forth.  Soldiers were no longer conscripted based on the lægds production of hartcorn but rather on the lægds population.

Changes to the miltary obligation law of March 6, 1869 established 6 districts instead of the county subdivsions or lægds.  Here after the lægds were sequentially numbered in each of the 6 districts.  After reunification in 1920 the 7th district (Sønder Jylland) was established.