CHAPTEE 11. 



BERING'S NATIVITY. — NORWEGIANS AND DANES IN THE 

 SERVICE OF PETER THE GREAT. — FOUNDING OF THE 

 RUSSIAN NAVY. 



"VTITUS BERING was a son of Jonas Svendsen and 

 ' his second wife, Anna Bering of Horsens, at which 

 place he was born in the summer of 1G81. On the ma- 

 ternal side he descended from the distinguished Bering 

 family, which during the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries flourished in various parts of Denmark, and in- 

 cluded a very respectable number of ministers and judi- 

 cial officers.* 



Our hero passed his childhood in a Christian family of 

 culture in the Jutland seaport town of his birth. Here 

 for a series of years his father filled several positions of 

 trust, and was closely associated with the leading men of 

 the place, as his wife's sister, Margaret Bering, had mar- 

 ried two consecutive mayors. He was, however, far from 

 being considered well-to-do. He had many children. 

 One of his sons had caused him much trouble and ex- 

 pense, and was finally sent to the East Indies. In the 

 probate record of his estate, made in 1719, there is a deed 

 of conveyance from himself and wife in which the following 



*Some details of Bering's genealogy, which can be of no interest to the 

 American reader, the translator has taken the liberty to omit. 



