Tombstone Tuesday: Great-Great-Grandparents #10

Jacob and Allie (Vander Meer) Steigenga were married May 24, 1877 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Friesland.  They had ten children together.  Jacob was born April 7, 1853 in Hemelumer Oldeferd and died July 30, 1923 in Borculo, Michigan.  Allie (Aukje) was born December 30, 1856 in Workum, Friesland and died March 20, 1916 in Blendon Township, Michigan.  They are both buried in the Borculo Cemetery in Michigan.

Brick Wall Comes Tumbling Down, Pt. 2

After locating the birth records of Jan De Vries and Luiktje Mulder, I felt fairly confident that this was the correct couple.  But how could I be positive since there had been mistakes made before?

Based on family naming practices in the Dutch tradition, the first born son would be named after the paternal grandfather, the first born daughter named after the paternal grandmother, the second born son named after the maternal grandfather and the second daughter after the maternal grandmother.  Looking at the children of Jan & Luiktje should reflect the family names that I found on the birth records.

Jan De Vries's father was Kornelis Geerts de Vries and his mother Jantje Geerts.  (The Geerts should reflect the previous generations first names.  I wonder why Jantje doesn't have a last name listed?  Maybe because it was 1816 and she was married before the whole "pick a last name" mandate came down?)  Jan and Luiktje did have a daughter Jantje born 1860 and died in 1881. She was the only daughter that we know about so that does fit with her grandmother's name.  There is also a son named Cornelius but very little is known about where he fits into the family.  Since there were no dates, he always fell at the end of the family but it makes sense if he was the first born son. The only record he can be found in is the burial records at the Beaverdam Cemetery.  There is no stone for him while Jantje does have one.  And he is not listed in any of the census records I have seen.  So he must have been born and died somewhere between census records.  Plus the couple immigrated in 1854 so there are a number of years between then and 1860 where a child (or two) would fit and there are very few records from that time.

Luiktje Mulder's father was Jakob Hendriks Mulder and her mother Pieterke Lammerts Jolman.  As soon as I saw her father's name I knew it fit!  My ancestor Jacob was born 1861 and died 1949.  His marriage record has his name spelled as Jakob.  He should be the second born son so having Cornelius before him works out with the naming practices.

My other ancestor is the third son, Johannes was born 1863 and died 1943.  He was probably named after his own father.  I will have to do more research around Kornelis and Jantje to see where the name Jan fits in.  Jan K. must have older brothers otherwise he would have been named after the grandfathers Geert.

Brick Wall Comes Tumbling Down, Pt. 1

I finally had a big break through on one of my double family tree lines after many years of frustration!  I am related through BOTH my parents to a pair of brothers, Jacob & Johannes De Vries.  From a family tree created by another family member, I knew their parents were Jan Kornelius De Vries & Luikje Ebels.  I never questioned that information.  Why not?  I guess I figured they had documentation to back it up.

But now I have new information and it came about because I wanted to correctly source my main tree.  As many newbies do, I was so excited collecting information that I didn't source anything.  Maybe this is because there is SO MUCH information coming at you at first that it is just so overwhelming.  Whatever the reason, I wanted to make sure my sources where documented.  I started with my own birth & marriage records and started going back, looking for birth, marriage and death records for each ancestor.  This finally brought me back to the Johannes De Vries & Jacob De Vries brothers.

Johannes De Vries's marriage record in 1887 to Gertrude Bos lists his parents as Jan De Vries & Luikje Mulder.    Jacob De Vries's marriage record in 1887 to Agina Marlink does not list parents.  It actually was a few years ago that I looked up the marriage records and I really hadn't given it much time since then.  I figured that it was a mistake.  But recently that old block was haunting me again.

In past years, I had done numerous searches on Genlias (now WieWasWie) for a De Vries married to an Ebels, coming up with nothing.  I looked for any name close to Luikje Ebels in birth records and found nothing.  Yes, there were a lot of Jan De Vries's but I only knew the father was Kornelius so I wasn't able to pin point the right record.  But guess what happened when I tried De Vries and Mulder?  Yep, it came right up!

From this record, it was an easy search to find both birth records.  Jan De Vries was born November 13, 1816 NOT February 1816.  (I think the February date came from his death record which listed is age as 75 years 11 months.)  Luiktje Mulder was born February 29, 1822 to Jakob Hendriks Mulder & Pieterke Lammerts Jolman.

Tombstone Tuesday: Great-Great-Grandparents #9

Minne and Maria (Kool) Groenhof were married June 7, 1878 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Netherlands.  They had 8 children together.  Minne was born March 10, 1850 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Netherlands.  The family immigrated together in 1890 with six of their children.  Minne died October 22, 1895 in Olive Township, Michigan at the age of 45.  Marijke Kool was born April 28, 1852 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Netherlands and died April 8, 1932 in Blendon Township, Michigan.