Hans Adolf Nielsen was a son of Hans Hinrich and Margaretha Dorothea (Möller). He was born in the village of Rabenholz (Schleswig-Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) that belonged to the feudal estate of Röst. In that day, the area was controlled by Denmark.

Hans Adolf married Anna Margaretha Henningsen in 1819 in Töstrup, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Hans worked the family farm in Rabenholz his entire life. Hans and Anna Margaretha had six children:

1. Hans Christian, b. 16 Mar 1821, d. 6 Apr 1821

2. Margaretha Dorothea, b. 2 Apr 1822, d. 31 Oct 1866, married Asmus Thomsen

3. Hans Nikolaus, b. 22 May 1831, d. 1898, suffered a brain disease as a child that left him mentally incapacitated.

4. Adolph Hinrich, b. 22 May 1831, d. 19 Feb 1884, never married, lived w/ brother Dietrich & family.

5. Dietrich August, b. 25 Oct 1836, d. 20 Feb 1908, twin brother of Conrad

6. Conrad Peter Heinrich Nielsen, b. 25 Oct 1836, d. unknown


As is typical of most German cemeteries, there are no marked graves of this era due to the custom of "recycling" burial plots every so many years. The evidence for locating Hans' final resting place at this cemetery is based on a family history of Christian Nielsen and his descendants published in 1997 by Ernst-August Martensen, 4th-greatgrandson of Catharina and Christian Nielsen. In that history, Hans' daughter Margaretha writes that her father was buried 3 Jan 1858 and that the Danish pastor Jacob Hansen conducted the funeral. The family history does not identify the cemetery where Hans was buried, but I assume it would have been the same one where other members of the Nielsen family were buried over the years.

For more on the descendants of Christian Nielsen, visit this online family history.