Brief Genealogy of the Rosenkilde Family

The first person known with the name Rosenkilde was Peder Litle.  When he became a professor of rhetoric at the newly established University of Copenhagen, he changed his name according to the conventions of the times and became Petrus Parvus Rosaefontanus, since he was born in the town of Roskilde.  He was probably born before the year 1500 and he died August 27, 1559.

He had followed King Christian the Second after his impeachment for the tragic killing of Swedish nobility in Stockholm, 1520.  Nevertheless, Peder Litle returned to Denmark in favor of the new "Reformation" of the country from Catholicism to Lutheranism, 1536.  He was named "Poeta Laureatus" by King Christian the Third.  The shield of the family is a branch of oak with two acorns on a silver background.

The parents of Peder Litle are unknown, but a person of the same name was "raadmand", city council member, in the city of Roskilde in the last 15th century.  A document in Rigsarkivet from February 7, 1470, describes transfer of property to a cloister in Roskilde; it bears the seal of Paeder Lillae.  With the naming convention of the times, he may have been the father or grandfather of Petrus Parvus.  Relations to the Litle family of Northern Zealand and Skaane in the 14th and 15th centuries remain uncertain.  One well-known member is Jon Jonsen Litle who died August 4, 1307 after serving the kings Erik Klipping and Erik Menved.

The original genealogical work was done by Marius Rosenkilde, 1883 and is available at Rigsarkivet, Copenhagan (www.sa.dk/ra/).  More recent family studies were done by Georg Rosenkilde, 1963.  Dr. Carl Rosenkilde is listed as 184.1 in the later list with last ancestor from the former work being his great-grandfather Jacob Nielsen Rosenkilde (born 1869, 68.5).

Most members of the Rosenkilde family reside in Denmark and Norway (Stavanger, Bergen, Kristianssand), but descendants from several waves of emigration are found in Bolivia, Argentina (Carl Julius Nielsen, 19.5, was a great-grandson of Diderik Rosenkilde, 9.12), California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stockton), Minnesota (Austin), Nebraska (Arlington, Kennard, Washington), Iowa (Audubon, Harlan, Mason City, Kimballton, Sioux City).