Family tree of
Søren Nielsen & Lene Dræby Kottal

News: The Dræby Family

More details regarding the Dræby Family are now in place

My 5 x great-grandfather Frands Dræbye was actually christened Frands Madsen and was the son of the distiller Mads Frandsen, but managed extremely well and for instance received the honorary title "etatsråd" by the Danish King Christian VII. The title means councilor of state, but it was purely honorary and did not entail any posts. Furthermore, Frands translated the book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. It was written by the British economist Adam Smith, whose capitalistic theories about free competition are still acknowledged by several present governments.

Frands held a post as councilor of justice, and so did his son Johan Christian Dræbye. Johan Christian studied law and thereafter held a number of posts within that area. For instance he was an alderman and a justice clerk in the Danish city Fredericia, meaning he assisted the local judge in the administrative work.

Johan Christian and his wife Elisabeth Bjørn had a son named Frederik Dræbye. Frederik was apparently a very charming man, or else it was the fortune of the Dræbye family, which attracted the women. Anyhow, he had four children outside wedlock, which was highly unusual in Denmark in the 1800s.

The first of Frederik's illegitimate children was my great-great-grandfather Frederik Christiansen. His mother Dorthea Magrete Rasmusdatter was merely a peasant's daughter and was not good enough for marriage into the Dræbye family, so the parents were never married. Whether father and son had anything to do with each other is unknown, however, both Frederik Christiansen and his son Anders Hvissendal Kristiansen were always called Dræby. Furthermore, Anders gave all his children the name Dræby as a middle name, and as such the name has been carried on to present generations.