Blest be the ties that bind

Second cousins Mark Clemens (from left), Flemming Hansen and Don Clemens visit in the historic St. Peter’s Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sheffield last week. The men recently became acquainted through a genealogical Web site, and had the chance to meet when a Danish filmmaker chose Hansen for a documentary project.

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SHEFFIELD — Summers are a time for family reunions, when children now grown bring their own children back to the scenes of their childhood, for one more visit with a cherished aunt or uncle.

But picture traveling more than 4,400 miles to meet some second cousins you have never laid eyes on?

Last week, Flemming Hansen of Bornholm, Denmark, did just that, meeting second cousins Mark and Don Clemens at St. Peter’s Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sheffield.

It was a small, quiet meeting ... well, not really. The reunion was witnessed by several reporters, Sheffield residents, and a film crew from Denmark.

It was a long route from Denmark to Sheffield, a route full of twists and turns and not a few surprises.

It all began a few years ago when Terri Clemens of Bloomington got interested in genealogy and posted her family tree on the Web site www.ancestry.com. Clemens included her information and information about other family members, such as her cousins, Mark and Don, and their grandfather, Harald Johnsen, who emigrated to the United States from Denmark.

Time passed. Finally the day came when Hansen was searching for information on his family tree and came across a Harald Johnsen on Terri Clemens’ listing. Hansen had a great uncle named Harald Johnsen who had emigrated to the United States, so he sent Clemens an e-mail.

“He wrote, ‘I think we’re related,’” Clemens said.

Well, not quite, but Hansen turned out to be related to Clemens’ cousins, Mark and Don,
once of Ottawa and now of Elgin.

The men got in touch through e-mails and Facebook and a relationship sprung up. Hansen sent a picture of great-grandfather, and it was the spitting image of Mark.

Hansen was pleased to have found some family members, and that led to the next part of the story.

Hansen said one day he was “bragging” about how he found his family, and that led to his meeting with Danish TV producer Palle Bruus Jensen. Jensen was doing research about Bornholm emigration for a documentary, and when he heard Hansen’s story, he asked him to take part.

“He said to me, ‘Would you like to go to America?’” Hansen said. “If I wasn’t sitting down, I would have fallen on the floor.”

So the two men, accompanied by a Danish film crew and Christl Vang, another distant cousin and a representative of Bornholm’s official “Island Archiv,” left Denmark July 9.

Hansen and the crew retraced Harald’s steps, entering the United States through Ellis Island, where Hansen met another cousin, Mark and Don’s sister Karen.

After visiting with more descendants of Bornholm emigrants in Pennsylvania and New York,
Hansen and the crew came to Sheffield, yet another strand in the story.

That strand began in May, when Terri Clemens came into the Sheffield Historical Society Museum.

“Terri came in and said, ‘I’m to meet a man from Denmark here,’ and I said, ‘Oh, OK,’” said Sheffield Historical Society Director Margaret (Peg) Schmitt. “Finally he (Jensen) came in, and he called me Lady Margaret — the Danes do since I’ve been knighted — and he said, ‘Lady Margaret, don’t you remember me?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t think I do.’”

It turned out Jensen had visited the historical society more than 20 years earlier, and now he was back to ask a favor.

“He said to me, ‘Peg, will you take my Danes into the museum and show them around and then all of a sudden say, ‘I think we’d better go to the church,’” Schmitt said, referring to the Danish church across the street from the historical society.

And that’s exactly what happened. Last week, Schmitt took Hansen, Vang and the others on a tour of the historical society while the Clemens brothers took up their positions in the church. And then, under the lights and the cameras, the cousins met, face to face, for the first time. There were quick hugs, and then the words started to flow, catching each other up on the events of several lifetimes.

Watching her cousins, Terri Clemens beamed from ear to ear.

“Those kind of things make your life good,” she said. “I feel really good to have them be the beneficiaries of my hobby.”

Mark Clemens was focused on what his mother and grandmother would have thought.

“You lose contact with people, and to have a second chance at making acquaintance, it’s pretty cool,” he said. “I feel lucky.”

Don Clemens was more philosophical.

“About all Americans come from somewhere else and to realize the connections can be discovered and to know there’s a commonality there,” he said. “There are instant friendships.”

Hansen said the whole trip had been wonderful.

“I’m still speechless,” he said. “It’s been so great.”

And as far as his visit to Sheffield?

“I could live here,” he said. “It’s like being home.

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