Politiets Registerblade and Politiets Mandtal

[Alan Savin]

Why did Copenhagen have both the above registers running at the same time and not combine the return thereby saving administration?

[Lisa Petersen]

The Mandtaller were like censuses in that they provided counts of persons living at an address, in a parish, a quarter, etc.  Some government agencies need demographics of people in their jurisdiction, thus the efforts to produce the Mandtaller.

The Registerblade were compiled from the Mandtaller in order to create a card for each person and put their addresses every 6 months on it to track their whereabouts.  Then if there was a need to locate an individual, they could look in the index cards and contact them at their last known address. 

It was a lot of work back then that we can appreciate today when we use the Registerblade to find our ancestors on the Mandtaller.

Lisa Petersen
near Washington, D.C.