PREFACE 383 



vocabulary of more than 400 words, -which was published by School- 

 craft in his fourth volume. 



From a letter written February 27, 1923, by Dr. Rudolph Denig, 

 of 56 East Fifty-eighth Street, New York, N. Y., the following in- 

 teresting biographical matter relating to the ancestry of Mr. Denig 

 is taken: 



The Denigs, or " Deneges," trace their descent from one Herald 

 Ericksen, a chieftain, or " smaa kongen," of the Danish island of 

 Manoe in the North Sea, from whose descendant Red Vilmar, about 

 1460, they derive an unbroken lineage. They were seafarers, com- 

 manding their own vessels, and engaged in trade in the North and 

 Baltic Seas. 



About 1570 Thorvald Christiansen changed the tradition of the 

 family by becoming a tiller of the soil, having obtained possession 

 of a large farm near Ribe in northern Slesvig, which to this day 

 bears its ancient name of Volling gaard. Christian Thomsen, 1636- 

 1704, was the first of the family to take up a learned profession; he 

 studied theology, and being ordained a minister in the Lutheran 

 Church, he was also the first biographer of the family, in that he left 

 a kind of genealogy inscribed on the flyleaves of his Bible. 



His grandson, Frederick Svensen, took part as corporal in a 

 Danish auxiliary corps at the age of 17 in Marlborough's operations 

 in the Netherlands in the war of the Spanish Succession. Following 

 the disbanding of his corps he took up his residence in Cologne, and 

 after a few years he found a permanent home, about 1720, in Biebrich- 

 Mosbach, opposite Mayence. 



The two branches of the family at present are the descendants of 

 Philip George and Johan Peter, both sons of Frederick. Johan 

 Peter emigrated to America in 1745, leaving among his descendants 

 Edwin Thompson Denig, the subject of this treatise; Commodore 

 Robert Gracie Denig, United States Navy, his son; Major Robert 

 Livingston Denig, United States Marine Corps, a distinguished 

 soldier of the World War, and Dr. Blanche Denig, a well-known 

 woman physician of Boston. 



The descendants of Philip George include Dr. Rudolph C. Denig, 

 professor of clinical ophthalmology in Columbia University, New 

 York, N. Y. 



Ethnologically, it may be of more than passing interest to know 

 that the name Denig was originally Denek(e), then Deneg, which 

 was taken as a family name by Frederick Svensen at the time he left 

 Denmark in 1709. Until then the family had followed the old Scan- 

 dinavian custom of the son taking his father's first name with the 

 suffix sen or son as his family name. 



