Henrik Ibsen also had third parents in the best families without them or him knowing that they were related.

The myths and the wildest speculations have been allowed to build up freely around Venstøp and not least Henrik's quick departure after confirmation. Here there must have been a scandal that was the reason. And if you look in the church register for Skien, it is not difficult to find children born out of wedlock and even if the name of the child's stated father does not quite match Henrik Ibsen, he has probably been tricked into using another surname.

But there are no mysteries when it comes to Henrik Ibsen's upbringing and departure from Skien.

Knud had made a sensible choice for his son. His friend the pharmacist Mülertz had survived the crises that had broken Skien's patrician class. Therefore, it was a sensible choice for Henrik to become a pharmacist. Knud learned of a vacant position as an apprentice pharmacist in Grimstad and everything indicates that this employment relationship was agreed upon before the summer. Henrik just had to be confirmed first.

When Henrik Ibsen came to Grimstad, he came to a town where he knew no one. But even here, without knowing it, he had a third cousin, Cathrine von der Lippe. She was the fourth child of Bishop Jacob von der Lippe and was born in 1824. In 1844, she had married Morten Smith-Petersen (von Fyren), a lawyer, shipowner and later a member of parliament and mayor of Grimstad, founder of Grimstads Sparebank in 1842 and Agder Assuranceforening in 1854 and founder of Det norske Veritas in 1864. He was a descendant of Henrik Petersen who built Kvitsøy lighthouse and was therefore related to parish priest von der Lippe's first wife, Elisabeth von Fyren.

This means that in the same years that Henrik Ibsen was an apprentice pharmacist in the town, the husband of his third wife Cathrine established himself as the most powerful person in Grimstad and built up banking, insurance and ship control, which would become the basis for the expansion and modernization of Norwegian shipping that eventually made Norway the world's third largest shipping nation.

If Knud Ibsen had not been deprived of his cultural heritage, the knowledge of his own lineage, Henrik Ibsen's time in Grimstad could have been completely different. Norway has probably therefore missed out on a successful pharmacist. Now we have something else to be proud of, but it was a long road before he got there. But on this path too, he had a three-generation family that preceded him.