Unlocking the Vault: Danish Researchers Bring Virgin Islands' History Online
- Mar 27
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 30
John F. McKeon
Danish Archivists Asbjørn Hellum and Ruth Hedegaard are not your average tourists taking photos on vacation. The two historians are leading an effort to save Virgin Island history by digitizing records spanning from 1672 to 1917. They are photographing historical records ranging from plantation deeds to church records. Their intent is to communicate the silent voices of the enslaved. This work, funded by a private foundation and supported by the Danish National Archives, is aimed at rescuing the cultural memory of the Virgin Islands
The dedicated duo of retired Danish historians is quietly bridging a centuries-old colonial gap through the power of digitization. Armed with scanners and a sense of cultural stewardship, these scholars are meticulously converting fragile, hand-written ledgers from the Danish West Indies era into accessible digital formats.
Their work does more than just preserve decaying parchment; it democratizes ancestry and historical truth, allowing the descendants of the enslaved and the colonizers alike to reclaim a shared and painful narrative previously locked away in physical vaults across the Atlantic. The team is laboring to bridge a historical divide, digitizing millions of fragile colonial-era documents. The two face the obstacles of time and climate in their efforts to safeguard the archival material. The humid climate and many hurricanes that have hit the region make it difficult to physically preserve the fragile documents safely. Some of the records are already so damaged that they can no longer be read or handled.
Two meetings with Ruth and Asbjørn established an engaging and friendly dialogue. The following interview with Hellum and Hedegaard took place in Frederiksted. It offers a window into their efforts to rescue the fragile documents. We sat over a leisurely lunch and the questions and answers flowed quite naturally.
How long have you worked together?
“We have been a couple since 2003 and have never worked together professionally but of course supported each other in our work. Ruth as City archivist, at Frederikshavn in the northern part of Denmark and Asbjørn as City Archivist in the middle part of Denmark and later as the Director General/National Archivist of the Danish National Archives. When Ruth moved to Copenhagen in 2013, she went to the Greve Museum as archivist and vice director. For many years we have both been active in organizational work in the archives world”.
How long have you been doing this Research?
“Since we saw the archives here for the first time in 2009 we knew it was important to save the information of the past colonial time and get the usable and accessible items for the people in the USVI and Denmark. Only by having the records digitized will it be possible to transcribe and translate into English and become usable for others besides the Danes.”
What do you hope to accomplish?
“We hope our project will be an inspiration to the USVI to secure the records from the time after 1917. These records are just as important for the USVI as they are to us. The climate here is not friendly to the archival records, so digitization is one of the way we can preserve the important information as we have the capacity to maintain and preserve the digital data.”
How do you manage your time?
“We have organized our lives with two travels a year which means that we have a fine social life here. We also manage our social life in Denmark with family and friends. After two and a half months of photographing the records it is nice to go back for a while. We are here in wintertime with a short travel to Denmark over Christmas…around May we go back for a long summertime in Denmark. By the end of summer, we start longing to get back to the Islands again. In that way we avoid getting tired of the monotonous work, that otherwise could be tough if we were to do it all the time. Twice a year, we deliver the image files from the islands to the Danish National Archives”.
Why do you do this work?
“We are both very passionate about saving the information in these valuable records. They show in detail the life and condition in a slave society before and after the Emancipation in 1848… the earlier enslaved persons faced a hard and often miserable life. Moreover, Denmark has a tradition for documenting everything. In 2017 at the commemoration of the Centennial of the Transfer of the Islands to the US, the gift from Denmark to USVI was the digitizing of the material in the Danish National Archives… in all more than 8 million pages are now accessible on the website. It is a must for both of us to save as much archival documentation as possible to understand the common history and legacy between Denmark and the USVI …to understand the cultural bonds and contribute to the enhancement of the cultural cooperation between Denmark and the USVI.”
Why Are these records important?
“These records are unique and document life in a Caribbean slave colony. This gives them great international, and particularly Caribbean interest and research potential, Once they become accessible they can support teaching and research in the region. A significant portion of the material documents conditions in the years leading up to the abolition of slavery on the three islands and the period thereafter until the sale in 1917.”
What is the source of your funding?
“Our funding is generously provided by Knud Nørgaard (a Danish Civil Engineer) and Grethe Nørgaard his wife’s foundation. (Civilingeniør Knud Nørgaard og hustru Grethe
Nørgaards Fond). The Foundation has been satisfied with our work and achievement, and it has extended our funding. They pay for our travels, accommodation, equipment, car rental and other things that fit into the project.
We do the work as volunteers without payment. We received our first funding in 2023 covering two travels a year…each for around 2½ months. The main task was to get an overview of the old records from the Danish era, mainly taken care of in the library and archives in the USVI and to digitize as many records as possible during the two visits.
If we are not finished by then, and we still can manage, we may extend the project. We have previously expanded the project a couple of times, so it now incorporates the old records from the Recorder of Deeds Office we had not focused on in the first place and now we are working on church records before 1917.”
What other projects have you worked on in St Croix?
“Our work is not just in St. Croix. The records we digitize often fills the gaps in the Danish National Archives. For example, the police court registers from Christiansted for the years 1756–1841 are preserved in the Danish National Archives, while the volumes covering 1841–1917 are kept on St. Thomas…but also at home.
We have held many lectures in Denmark and here in St. Croix and St. Thomas… we often get questions about the archives and the use of them, and we always try to help people the best we can. We are trying to digitize all of the records up till the transfer to the US from the Danish Authorities. Recently we have been given permission from our funder to incorporate the records from the religious congregations. Ruth has been chair, and secretary in the International Library Association IFLA, dealing with the archives.
Together we have travelled to conferences and meetings all over the world, and are still doing that. We are going to a conference in Puerto Rico in June.”
Describe your current work with Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Frederiksted “The project of finding and digitization of church records froml the churches that may have archival material before 1917 has only just begun. We are nearly finished digitizing the records of Holy Trinity Lutheran church in Frederiksted, and we hope to find much more material from the Danish era of the other religious congregations such as the Church of England, Moravians and others older than 1917. If someone knows of church records prior to around 1917, we would be more than happy to hear about it and make arrangements for the digitizing of the records. That will be our next effort together continuing the work we started in 2023.”
How long will this project take?
“We have funding until 2029 with two yearly travels of 2 1/2 to 3 month each.”
What is the greatest joy or satisfaction you get from this work? “To know that every time we have pressed the foot-pedal and take a photgraph, we are viewing a perfect digital image of a record and know we have secured unique information about an important period of history…and records prior to 1848. We are saving unique documentation reflecting of the lives of the enslaved and the conditions not only in the Danish West Indies but in the entire Caribbean. Many of the volumes that we have digitized and will be digitizing fill holes in the collection of the Danish National Archives and bring new and important information about the islands.”
About The Work:
These initiatives are not merely technical exercises in scanning paper; they are complex socio-political endeavors aimed at providing equitable access to those whose histories are intertwined with the enslaved. The transforming of deteriorating gothic-scripted documents into a searchable digital database helps uncover the complex, sometimes painful realities of Danish colonial rule for future generations.
The most prominent Danish records in the US are those originating from the Danish West Indies. When Denmark sold the islands to the United States the archival history became split between the Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet) in Copenhagen and various repositories in the US Virgin Islands. Recent initiatives like the retired archivists as well as volunteers work on St. Thomas and St. Croix to digitize police court records, land documents, and administrative files from 1841 through the 1880s.
Technological Innovation:
Paleography is the academic discipline of historical writing systems. It encompasses the historicity of manuscripts and texts, deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, as well as the analysis of historic penmanship, handwriting script and printed media. These projects utilize advanced tools like Transkribus for AI-driven recognition of Danish Gothic handwriting, a major hurdle for modern researchers. For highly unique or difficult scripts, researchers can "teach" the machine by providing roughly 75 pages (15,000 words) of manual transcriptions. The AI then learns that specific writers style to achieve higher accuracy.
Emerging research explores using Large Language Models (LLMs) like Claude Sonnet-3.5 to post-process and correct transcriptions generated by Transkribus. This pairing has reached modified error rates as low as less than 2% by correcting historical spelling and punctuation. Platforms like the Danish National Archives' Crowdsourcing Portal integrate AI outputs for volunteers to review and refine, ensuring the highest possible accuracy before records are published online. As of early 2026, over 84,000 pages have been digitized, with the goal of making them available via the Arkivalieronline platform by 2029.
Beyond colonial records, significant efforts have also targeted the cultural history of Danish-Americans within the continental United States. One landmark project involved the digitization of Den Danske Pioneer, the oldest Danish-language newspaper in the US. This project rescued deteriorating print formats and made them searchable for genealogists. Other collaborative projects at museums have focused on digitizing the records of the “Danish Sisterhood,” a vital social organization for immigrant women, ensuring their specific contributions to the American fabric are preserved.
Denmark’s approach is characterized by a "Nordic Model" of archiving, which prioritizes open data and public access. However, the digitization of records in the US brings unique challenges. Digitizing colonial records is often viewed as an "archival encounter" that must address ethical questions of provenance and the limitations of colonial perspectives in historical data. Funding frequently relies on a mix of government support and private foundations, such as the Novo Nordisk Foundation, which has also funded AI-based digitization of related historical health records.
The work of retired Danish archivists on St. Croix is more than a technical effort to preserve aging paper; it is a vital act of restorative history. By digitizing records that were once inaccessible to the local population, these volunteers are bridging a century long gap in the collective memory of the US Virgin Islands. As these once-hidden police, court, and church records become freely available online, they offer descendants of both the enslaved and the colonizers a chance to reclaim their past and understand the complex evolution of St. Croix' society.
This project, led by former archivists like Asbjørn Hellum and Ruth Hedegaard, is expected to continue through 2029. Their voluntary dedication ensures that the "shared history" of Denmark and the Virgin Islands is no longer a distant or difficult-to-reach concept, but a tangible resource for education and personal discovery. Ultimately, these digital archives serve as a bridge across the Atlantic, transforming centuries of colonial records into a tool for community empowerment and historical healing.
Explore the new digitized material:
*Although the original records are not physically part of the Danish National Archives’ collections, they are being registered in the archival database and incorporated into the detailed registry:
https://en.rigsarkivet.dk/news/retired-archivists-patch-gaps-in-colonial-history-of-u-s virgin-islands/
Historian John F. McKeon lives on St. Croix and Southampton NY. He holds degrees from Trinity College Dublin,(MPhil with Distinction).St. Joseph's University in NYC (BA Summa Cum Laude Degree) East Asian History with a Philosophy Capstone Minor in Labor, Class and Ethics. John earned a certificate from the Oxford University Epigeum Research Integrity Center. He is a member of the Society of Virgin Island Historians and writes for The St. Croix Times.
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