Making progress on my Genealogy Do-Over

I have been working on my do-over since 2015.  After 2 years and a few months, I have accomplished two very important goals.  I had an overwhelming amount of digital information that needed to be logged and added to my rootsmagic tree.  I am very please that I have complete not only 1 surname, but 2 surnames (out of four).  I'm still working on the remaining files but I also still have a lot of paper not digitized at all.  So sorting and scanning is still in the future.  But I am very pleased with my progress!  

Found this picture of my family and it made my day!

I was casually looking around for some genealogy stuff, switching between windows, when I needed to go to Family Search.  I have an account, of course, but I never really looked at some of the newer functionality of the site.  But this time when I logged in, it sent me to a photo screen based on a simple tree I had put up awhile ago.  The first picture totally got my attention and it was amazing!!  A cousin I didn't know, had this picture with her family genealogy and I had never seen it or even heard of its existence!!

As soon as I saw this picture, I knew which family.  The young man on the viewers left is my great-grandfather Ben.  The reason I recognized him is because I have a wedding picture of Ben and his bride, Emma, which would only be about 5 years from this photo.

So at this time of the family, the father, Minne had died 5 years before of "lung fever".  The only other direct family to pass away was one of the little girls, Klaaske in 1900.  Since Klaaske passed away from "strophia" (some form of muscle atrophy ), this picture is probably around the time of her death (before or after) in 1900.  The only other picture of the mother, Marie, is when she is much older and her face is shaded by a hat.  But you can see the lower part of her face and it does seem to resemble this picture too.

Now that I'm looking at the picture again, there is a weird blank spot between the boys.  May be this picture was altered?

Jumping on the DNA bandwagon pt. 4

Now it was my turn to take a test and my mother graciously paid for it.  I went with Ancestry.com (and now regret that) since that is where my mother did her test.  This way I could find out my father's family there too.

So this is my results.  Not surprised now by the Scandinavia.  But confused about the "Thousands of Years ago" heading.  Shouldn't these results be closer to home since my DNA probably doesn't have much left from my great-great-great grandparents?  And the other reason I regret using Ancestory.com.....I am now blocked from viewing public trees of my DNA connections.  When my mother did her test, this was still available.  And was one of the reasons I even liked this service.  But now I have to subscribe to the ancestry mega machine to even see how I might be related to a DNA match?  So not interested.

My next DNA goal is to upload raw results to other sites.  I know very little about this at this time so it will be another journey in my family tree quest.

Jumping on the DNA bandwagon pt. 3

We ended up getting three test kits from 23 & me.  One for my husband, one for my father and one for his wife, who does not know a lot about her biological father and was interested in seeing where she fit in.  Waiting for results can be painful and my father's results took a week or so longer than the other two.  But I was super surprised at the outcome. I seriously consider that the result may have been mixed up with another client.

Seriously???  29.8 % Scandinavian??  And my father wasn't fazed by this at all.  I personally had a bit of a identity crisis.  All my life, I was told "You are Dutch" and now I find out that I'm more Scandinavian?  What is up with this!

But since my father didn't panic, I am just going to keep looking into the dutch lines and see if I can find a Scandinavian transplant.  Because it turns out that a number of Scandinavians did migrate to the Netherlands and took dutch names.

Challenge excepted.

Jumping on the DNA bandwagon pt. 2

Time went fast because of all the holiday stuff.  But when January hit, I was ready to see the results!
(We only had to wait until February.)  My mother's result were significantly different from her brother's.  I knew they wouldn't be the same (not twins) but my mother's largest percentage (75%) was for Europe West. For the same region, my uncle's percentage was 36%.  What!?

This really opens up more questions that I expected.  I have done research on my mother's ancestor's but not much past 1830.  And all of them were from the Europe West region (Dutch/Bentheim) originally. But how does my uncle's results fit into the picture?  And who was born in England and moved to the Netherlands?

So this made me very interested in seeing my father's results.  Maybe I'm not as Dutch as I thought.  Luckily, my husband was open to getting a test for himself and my father.  But I decided to try 23&me instead to see how the two sites compared.

Jumping on the DNA bandwagon pt. 1

So it's not that I don't have any interest in DNA, because I am, but rather not sure how it would contribute to moving my family tree back farther.  Plus the $$ output could get out of hand if you are testing everyone with every kind of test.

But it started Thanksgiving 2016.  My mother's youngest brother had results back from his DNA test.  (His wife had done one also, so thanks to her!)  It was interesting because he was a real mix of European with the largest (put not over 50%) percentage actually British rather than Netherlands.  This does make sense because his surname isn't very Dutch. (Naber = German, British, etc.)  This got my mother very interested to do a test as well.  So she ordered one and sent it out right away.   [They both used AncestryDNA.]  Then we just had to wait for the results.

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.

Tombstone Tuesday: Great-Grandparents #5

Ben and Emma Groenhof are buried in the Borculo Cemetery, Blendon Township, Michigan.  Berend Groenhof was born November 25, 1881 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Friesland, Netherlands.  Ymkje Steigenga was born September 7, 1883 in Hemelumer Oldeferd, Freisland, Netherlands. They immigrated with their families to Michigan and were married in Borculo, Michigan on May 10, 1905.  Together they had four children.  Ben died August 15, 1967 in Cutlerville, Michigan and Emma died January 26, 1938 in Zeeland, Michigan.

Tombstone Tuesday: Paternal Grandparents

Agnes and Martin Groenhof are buried in the Restlawn Memorial Gardens in Holland, Michigan.  Agnes Stremler was born in 1909 in Zeeland, Michigan.  Martin was born in 1906 in North Blendon, Michigan.  They were married in 1929, North Blendon, Michigan.  They had three sons and Agnes didn't remarry after the death of Martin.

Organizing Genealogy Photos: Part 1

some of the photo boxes plus the slide box

Organizing photos is actually pretty personal in that everyone has their own system.  I had been scrapping and scanning my own pictures since I had kids but there was a lot of pre-kids pictures that was just stashed in boxes. Then my mom gave me a ton of photos that she had from her mother and I needed a system.  I did search the internet but not a lot really seemed helpful.  Then I asked my father-in-law for his pictures because I knew they were just in boxes in the top of the closet and I wanted to discover that side of the family.  Now I really had a problem and needed to find a solution fast!

First off I don't have a lot of extra money so I knew I had to do all the scanning and organizing myself. So the first problem I had to tackle was where to put the pictures after I scanned them.  I just could not return them to the plastic bags or boxes or old albums since they would get more damaged that way.  I knew I needed to get archival boxes (and already had gotten 1 box for old slides) but how many?  At this point I decided that I needed to divide into four groups.  My parents are divorced so having their family pictures separate works and my mother-in-law had also died so that seemed to work okay as well.  So I purchased four regular size boxes for each family surname (Groenhof, Naber, Green, Vorce).  But I also had quite a few pictures that were bigger than the standard size picture box.  So I purchased three boxes for pictures up to size 12x9.  (The reason I went with three is because my side just didn't have a ton of large pictures so I could easily store them in one box.)  But I also had some really large pictures of my kids as well as heritage pictures that needed a bigger box. So I purchased one box (19.5 x 13) to hold all those really large pictures that would not be brought out much.

I wrote on the side of each archival box the size so I would know which box fit which picture and added initials of the family (G/N for my side).  Plus I labeled the four small boxes with the family name as well.  So now it was time to start scanning!

Scanning Update

A corner of my room circa 1982

So I realized the other day while looking for older Tulip Time pictures, that I have been doing so much scanning for other people that I hadn't scanned my old photos.  Now I don't have THAT many.  My personal pictures start about the time I was in middle school and received my own camera.  (And a lot of those photos are really not that great.)  But now that I have the Flip Scanner, I can go through them pretty fast.  So that is what I have started to do!  I'm just going to scan, crop and dump into the correct years folder and deal with them later (probably).

This picture shows the turtle I made in shop (which I don't remember doing), the pot I painted (and don't remember) and the dolls I collected (and still have) which are sitting in an old shelf which I wonder where it went!

Tulip Time 1987

This is one of my favorite Tulip Time pictures!  I have been putting together a simple album featuring the yearly Tulip Time picture with the nieces & nephews.  This is one of the earliest ones I have right now but I hadn't looked at them in years!  This picture was taken during my very first year dancing during the yearly Tulip Time Festival.  My (future) sister-in-law is on the far end and my sister standing next to her are also dancers.  This would have been their last year dancing since they were both seniors.  My oldest sister is wearing her costume as well but might have been in the alumni dancers.  I am in the center holding my oldest niece.  She was about 18 months old at the time.  My mother made all the adult costumes.  I am not sure if it was my sister or my mom who made the little dress which was made to match my sister's costume.

Knitting

So another thing I have neglected over the last few years is knitting.  I actually like to knit quite a bit although not during the summer.  In the winter time it is great to have some yarn and needles in your hand!

It is actually a family tradition to knit!  My mother (plus sister), my mother-in-law and both my grandmothers either knit or crochet.  Both my grandmothers crochet'd (is that right?) until they were quite old since it kept their fingers nimble!  I was actually surprised to see some samples of my paternal grandmother's rather delicate crochet samples.  I have a hard time picturing her doing this type of work since I don't remember her ever doing it in front of me. I do have a couple of ornaments she gave me.  My maternal grandmother actually made wash clothes which is why they are a favorite of mine.  Ever christmas we could pick one out.  Now I wish I had saved one...

So I have to get back into knitting, learn how to crochet and spend less time on the computer.  Good luck with that right?!

Birthdays Through the Years

Grandma and her oldest granddaughter

So I worked on a "secret" project last year (2012) for my older sister Deb (not pictured).  My sister has done many many birthday cakes over the years for the kids of her siblings, plus others.  My job was to help her find a new cake each time so I had a ton of different cake ideas on my computer.  So I printed out recipes for all these different cakes and then made prints from all the kids birthdays.  We did parties from when they were 1 until they were 10 years old.  I actually was able to find almost all of them except for the three oldest because that was before I was regularly taking pictures.  I had the project done by Christmas time and gave it to her then.  She was so surprised!  She said it was her favorite gift and she really enjoyed looking at the book, as did everyone else at the party.

So that got me thinking that it would be really cool if I could find a picture of myself for every birthday.  And if I could, I would make a little photo album and it might be fun to get out every year.  Of coarse, I am almost positive I didn't celebrate every birthday as an adult.  So what would I do for those years??

People of Borculo Addition

So here is my own people of Borculo picture from my collection.  This is a picture of my grandparents, Martin & Agnes (Stremler) Groenhof.  They worked at the Borculo gas station during the depression era.  The gas station was located where the road use to curve around but now is under the pavement, or so I was told.

While my grandfather is wearing the traditional overalls typical of a gas station, my grandmother is rocking the dress, shoes, jacket and hat!  Plus I cannot get over how much my grandmother looks like my aunt Hazel and they are not even related!

Photo Discovery

Yes, I know I have totally failed at keeping up on blog posts in the later half of last year.  But that is behind me and I can try again this year!  I just have to stop ignoring the blog page and just do it :)

By chance I found a picture of my great-grandfather on a web page.  BUT the picture looked familiar..

BECAUSE I have a copy of the same picture!  Above is our family copy and the other is on the People of Borculo site!  (Luckily it isn't the People of Walmart!)  So now I know which person is actually my great-grandfather since my picture wasn't labeled.  In the back: John TenBroeke, Gerrit TenBroeke, Henry Wesseldijk, Joe Wesseldijk, Albert Bosch and Ben Groenhof - in the front: Minnie (Wesseldijk) Bosch, Cecilia Bos, Catherine Bos, Alena Bosch, Ruth Bos, Louise Gahan, Catherine Bosch, Dorothy Geurink with Henry Geurink out in front.

1940 Census Again

Ancestry.com finally has 1940's Michigan indexed so I was able to located my other grandparents.  I had looked through a number of sections for Holland but wasn't able to find them before.  Above is page two with Martin being on the first page.  This page has my Grandmother Agnes, their first son and then a brother from each.  Art's mother had passed so he was living with his older brother during high school.  Herman Stremler is the brother of Agnes and I hadn't know he was living with them at that time.  I am curious about that but not sure anyone alive would be able to explain!

Last Day of May

It is hard to believe that today is the last day of May!   This picture is from the Holland Tulip Time Festival's, stem festival. My daughter and two nieces are the only ones who still want to have their pictures taken.

I have once again been waylaid to a different task.  I started scanning photos but now my computer is acting up so I am afraid to add more files.  So now I am digitizing videos.  It is actually a lot of fun to see some of those old videos!  But now I am using up the memory on the other computer.  I just cannot win.  What I need is a new computer with a HUGE amount of memory!

Next week is the last day of school for the kidos.  That will guarantee that I will not be able to get anything done all summer.  Well it is exciting for them to be moving to different schools in the fall, I will miss my free days!