Thursday, March 14, 2024

My not so Dutch great-grandfather part 2

So perhaps I'm being a little bit unfair to the Dutch side of my Denhof line, as there is more Dutch than German.  For me, it really boils down to growing up believing they were 100% Dutch and then finding out that it's just not true.  

On Nick Denhof's father's side I've shown that his father's Denhof line goes back to Germany.  The records I find for his paternal grandfather's mother's family all point to the Netherlands.  Switching over to his maternal grandmother (Lammina van Heuvelen), her father's records all point to Großwolde, Leer, Lower Saxony, Germany, using the name Höveling (Robert didn't find available records for that area so it's unconfirmed).  Her mother's family also all point to the Netherlands.  

Switching over to his mother's side:  I wrote about Nick's mother Margaret and wrote a follow-up post about the DNA test that proved Margaret's father (as her birth record shows she was born out of wedlock).  As you can probably guess, we're going back to Germany with at least one of these families, although today I'm going to write about the Dutch and American records I have for her parents.  


Her father was born Bernardus Henderikus Kock (Americanized to Bernard Cook), born 2 Nov 1830 at Uithuizen, Netherlands.   

In the year 1830, the 2nd of November, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, appeared for me, Derk Nanninga, Civil Official of Uithuizen, Hendrikus Kock, 40 years old, profession weaver, who reports to me that a child of the male gender is born, here, in the house on number 183, today in the early morning at 3 o'clock from him, declarant, and Gesina Jans Schreuder, his wife. He stated that he wanted to give this child the first name Bernardus.
Whose statement has been made, in the presence of Cornelis Jiltes Keiser, 70 years old, without profession, Roelf Sleumer, 37 years old, profession carpenter, both living here, being neighbors and not related to the declarant. After reading aloud, this document was signed by them and me, with the exception of the first witness, who stated that he could not write.




Her mother was born Johanna Kuis 21 Nov 1834 in the neighboring city of Uithuizeermeeden.

In the year 1834, the 22nd of November, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, appeared for me, Albert Pieters Bouma, Mayor, Civil Registry Official of the municipality of Uithuistermeeden (nowadays Uithuizermeeden, Province of Groningen), Bernardus Kuis, 43 years old, profession weaver, living in Uithuistermeeden, who has introduced to us, a child of the female gender, born on November 21, 1834, at night at 1 am, from him, declarant and Grietje Jans Graftema, in the house at Number 93, in the village of Uithuizermeeden.
To which he has stated that he wants to give the first name of Johanna.This statement was made up in the presence of Bene Hindriks Baar, 38 years old, profession day laborer, and Jan Harms Deilen, 34 years old, profession weaver, both living in Uithuizermeeden.
This is how this document was drawn up, which after reading aloud, was signed by the declarant, together with the witnesses and us, on the day, month and year as mentioned above.








Bernardus and Johanna married 2 Nov 1859 at Uithuizen, making 2 of their children "legitimate".  

On November 2, 1859, appeared for us, Civil Registry in Uithuizen, District of Appingedam, Province of Groningen, in the town hall, to enter into a marriage;
Bernardus Kock, 28 years old, profession day laborer, living in Uithuizen, born in Uithuizen, Municipality Uithuizen, son of the late Hendrikus Kock, deceased in Uithuizen and Gesina Jans Schreuder, profession day laborer, living in Uithuizen, declarant has fulfilled his obligation to the national militia, according to the certificate attached to this.
Johanna Kuis, 24 years old, without profession, living in Uithuizen, born in Uithuistermeeden, municipality Uithuistermeeden, adult-daughter of Bernardus Kuis, without profession, living in Uithuizen and the late Grietje Jans Graftema, died in Uithuistermeeden.The two announcements have taken place here, without objections, on the 16th and the 23st of October 1859.  
And they have submitted to us, their birth certificates, the death certificate of the father of the groom, the death certificate of the mother of the bride, and a written consent/permit from the colonel commanding the second fortress artillery regiment. Furthermore, the fiancés told us, to acknowledge these two children, the first named Hendrik, born in Uithuizen on December 28, 1857, and the second named Margritha, born in Uithuizen on August 20, 1859, whose birth certificates are hereby submitted. The mother of the groom and the father of the bride, hereby present, declare to us, that they agree to this marriage.  After which we have publicly asked them whether they will take one another as spouses and will faithfully fulfill all obligations, that are linked by law, to the marriage, what they explicitly answered with YES, have we, in the name of law, pronounced that they are now married to each other, as husband and wife.  In the presence of Andreas Bulthuis, 62 years old, profession Inn keeper, living in Uithuizen, Willem Veldhuizen, 50 years old, profession secretary, living in Uithuizen, Roelf Pieters Hoff, 44 years old, by profession policeman, living in Uithuizen, and of Hendrik Bulthuis, 25 years old, baker's assistent by profession, living in Uithuizen.  And from this, we made up this document which, after reading aloud, is signed by the declarant, the bride, the mother of the groom, the father of the bride, the witnesses and us. The groom declared not to be able to sign the document because he has never learned how to write.

I don't know when Bernardus and Johanna came to America.  The first census record they're in is from 1 Jun 1870 in the 1st ward of Grand Rapids, Kent County Michigan.  On 10 Jun 1880 they're living in Chester Township, Ottawa County Michigan.  

1870 living with Bernardus' brother Henry's family.  Gesiena was Nick's godmother

1880 living next door to Nick's parents Nick and Margaret.  Their son Ben is incorrectly listed as a daughter.  

Bernardus passed away of heart disease 20 Nov 1891 at Grand Rapids.  I don't know if the family moved back to Grand Rapids, but he was buried at St. Andrews Catholic Cemetery. 

 
Johanna was living with Nick and Margaret in the 1900 census of Chester Township.  They lived next door to Ida Cook Vander Laan, niece of Bernardus. 


Johanna passed away 3 Oct 1907 at Chester Township, allegedly of epilepsy.  She's laid to rest near her daughter Margaret.  

You'll notice that both Bernardus and Johanna's death records indicate parents from the Netherlands.  As you probably guessed, that's only partially correct.  More on that in my next post.  

The Kock/Cook/Kuis lines have frustrated me greatly due to the lack of photos.  If you're reading this and have any photos, please let me know.  






Wednesday, March 13, 2024

My not so Dutch great-grandfather - part 1

Five years ago I wrote a blog about my great-grandpa Nicholas (Nick) Denhof's father Nicolaas Denhof.  I mentioned that Nick was proud of his Dutch heritage but that his grandfathers listed Germany as their place of birth on some of their records (I doubt he ever knew that).  Having not been able to verify the German with actual records I included what was listed on the records, but I've always kind of discounted it, especially since I couldn't find the alleged cities listed anywhere.  

I have mentioned in multiple posts working with Robert Albert Jr. of California for several of my German lines (he's done some amazing work for me and broken down several brick walls).  I decided to work on the Denhof line some more and reached out to him to see if he would be able to find anything.  I (again) couldn't have been happier with the results.  I titled this post "part 1" because I couldn't possibly squeeze everything he found into one post.  There is so much German in my grandma's (Nick's daughter) ancestry, that I hesitate to even claim her "Dutchness".  

Let's start with the direct Denhof line.  I've been able to establish with actual records that Nicolaas Denhof was born 30 Apr 1854 at Uithuizen, Groningen, Netherlands to Jacobus Jacobs Denhof and Lammina van Heuvelen.  I briefly mentioned them in the above blog link.  Jacobus was born 17 Apr 1819 to Jacob Klaasens Denhof and Elisabeth Hendricks Sprik.  He married Lammina 24 Apr 1841 at Kantens, Groningen Netherlands, and died at Uithuizen 12 Feb 1896.  So we have Nick's grandpa Denhof completely Dutch.  What about his great-grandpa Denhof?

Jacob Klaasens Denhof was found in the Dutch records when he married Elisabeth 5 Jun 1812 at Uithuizen, and when he died at Kantens 29 Sep 1840.  So his birth?  We're back to the 1700s and birth records aren't available in the Netherlands but his marriage record lists his birth at Uithuizen 8 Feb 1772 at Uithuizen.  Then why does his death record list birth at "Waan Duitsland"?  I searched high and low for "Waan" and never found anything.  He listed his parents as Klaas Jacobs and Aaltje Stevens when he married Elisabeth and I had a bit of information about them in my tree as well.  

I hired a researcher in the Netherlands in the late 1990s (before the records were so readily available online) and they had Klaas' death 4 Jan 1823 at Uithuizen (having been born at Zandeweer, Netherlands).  His wife was listed as Hindrikje Harms, and that marriage record was also found.  As I paid a reputable researcher in the Netherlands I took this information as gospel, added it to my tree, and moved on.  

When Robert and I started discussing this Robert found a possible city in Germany called "Wahn" (which from this post doesn't exist anymore).  Of course a possible city doesn't mean anything without records.  Robert hunted down the marriage bann for Jacobus and Elisabeth and noted if you go and look at the MARRIAGE BANN record from 1812 for Denhof/Sprik, you will see that it states that his father is Klaas Jacobs, and he is living in Werlte, a town near Sögel in Germany, and that his wife Aaltje Stevens is deceased by 1812. Will keep you posted. I am hoping to find some more clues, and fyi, the Werlte parish has lots of folks from Sögel and Wahn and area listed in that church, so I may have to expand catholic church searches in this area. Fortunately they list when catholic churches were built over time, so for instance on the Sögel main page it tells me that Wahn got a catholic church in 1869. Werlte is an oldie that goes back to the 1600's too.

So now we have a likely town, we just need records to prove it's correct.  Given that I already had a death record for Klaas Jacobs I was finding it odd that Klaas was born in the Netherlands, moved to Germany and had a family, lost his wife and moved back to the same area of the Netherlands and remarried.  We're not talking a simple road trip in the late 1700s - it wasn't making sense to me.  Then Robert found the actual birth record:

BIRTH1772JacobKlaasensSögelCathChurchPg33of66

Even if I'd have had access to these records I'd have never found this one as I can't read it without it being pointed out to me but there it was: I went back and just started to go through the entire year of 1772, when I got to the SEVENTH of OCTOBER I found it. Jacob Klassens and his wife Adelheid Steffens are the parents, and Joannes Steffens and Catharina Nordberg are the witnesses. You will see on the entry above his, that person's record is the 30th of a month. Right below you see 8ber. That is Acht ober, or October. They use this abbreviation frequently for 7ber, 8ber, 9ber, 10ber, for Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec. It was also on the next to last page of the records of births for that year, so no clue as to how they got February out of it, and the day is clearly listed as the 7th. I'm just glad it was there.

MAR1771JacobsSteffensSögelCatholicChurchPg32of63


DEATH1823NicolausJacobsWerlteCatholicChurchPg41of63


Nicolaus Jacobs and Adelheid Steffens married 26 Nov 1771 at Sögel.  He can't find a death record for Adelheid but he did find that Nicolaus remarried to a Gesina Kuper/Cuper 18 Nov 1778, also at Sögel.  That remarriage was key to proving the death record was the correct subject.  

Nicolaus Jacobs died at Bockholte 4 Jan 1823 and was buried 7 Jan 1823 at Wertle, the town his son listed him living in in 1812.  His death is the bottom listing at age 96 (which is ironic as my grandmother, his 3rd great granddaughter is currently 96).  The name of his 2nd wife is clearly listed there, proving it's him.  Does anything strike you odd about the death record?  This "Klaas Jacobs" (actually Nicolaus Jacobs) ALSO DIED 4 Jan 1823???  What are the chances that my Dutch researcher got this wrong so many years ago but had the right death date?  Seems implausible to me but having been witness to it, I can't deny that it happened.  When I noticed the death date I mentioned it to Robert (I was not questioning him as we'd discussed this evidence and I was convinced he's correct).  I re-sent him the Dutch Klaas Jacobs death record and he sent the following: 

Thanks for sending that. Of course I had seen the record before and looked at it, just never realized that the two folks had the same date of death and for all intents and purposes the same name as well. The difference between the 2 records is that nothing on this record is obviously connected to your ancestor. The witnesses submitting the information 2 months after that man died in the Netherlands, or the wife, etc. etc. Your original tree had the date and the wife added, but nothing on it really links it to your tree other than the name.

On the German records, as you know we have:
1- place of birth (Wahn) in Germany of his son which we have from the Netherlands docs
2- son's marriage bann where it says the very town that his father was living in 1812
3- the marriage of the father to Adhelheid Steffens and children born to them in Sogel
4- the second marriage of his father and children born in Werlte
5- the death record for the father listing his second wife's name
6- the death record for the father.

If I had seen in that first record anything at all that really linked him to your tree, I would maybe have paused even longer, but there is just so much evidence that the latter is the correct one for sure and this is just one of those freaky coincidences.

So my great-grandpa Denhof's dad was Dutch, and his grandpa Denhof was Dutch, but the great-grandfather and likely way beyond has now been confirmed as German.  That's only one of Nick's ancestors - was Robert able to prove more?  Stay tuned.......

As an aside - my youngest was named Jacob Nicholas (both of my dad's grandfathers were named Nicholas).  Robert finding that "Klaas Jacobs" was actually Nicolaus Jacobs means that the name Nicholas or Jacob goes straight back in this line until at least about 1727:  Nicholas Paul>Nicolaas>Jacobus Jacobs>Jacob Klaasens>Nicolaus Jacobs.  It wasn't deliberate but I think it's pretty neat.   

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

It's been almost 10 years (and only 74 blog posts)

 My wife asked me the other day "why don't you blog anymore"?  She thinks I'm a good writer and knows I enjoyed doing it.  I don't have a good answer other than I guess I always find something else to do (and it's not reading the growing book collection I'm building when thrifting, much to her chagrin).  I keep renewing my ancestry.com membership because they keep giving me a deal.  With my job it's nice to have something "mindless" to do at night and quite frankly those little 'shaky leafs' are pretty mindless.  You do have to pay attention to them to make sure they're the correct record, and often there are transcription errors but for the most part, it's click-compare-add-done.  So much so that I've currently got 430,612 of those records attached to people in my tree.  You read that right - I've matched a little short of a half million records to people in my tree.  My order history at Ancestry shows my first subscription 7/21/2012.  The Google tells me there have been 4,252 days since then meaning I'm averaging 101 records/day.  Doing the math on that shocks me as I've taken a few significant breaks during this time and I don't have time to work on it daily.  

In my first post I posted that I had 44,993 people in my tree.  Fast forward to today and it's 136,222 (see, I am actually doing something with the shaky leafs)!  One thing that's helped is that most of my family stayed in Michigan and the Library of Michigan now has a ton of newspapers available online (do you know how many people you can add to your tree when you're able to look up birth and marriage announcements and obituaries while sitting on your couch?).  In the past I had to drive downtown, usually with a list of items to find, then find what microfilm I wanted to search (hoping the record was indexed in their books) and then search for the page.  Now?  I put a name in and hit search and it brings the pages to me in seconds.  In another early post I posted a list of links that I used back then.  Looking that list over about half of them are still valid (some have just changed urls, which seems silly to me).  I'd add newspapers.com and the aforementioned Library of Michigan site.  Seriously, if you live in Michigan and are interested in genealogy (or history in general) sign up for a library card (another thing you can do from your couch) and get to searching - it's FREE!

The one thing I wrote back then that I absolutely disagree with now is use of the www.familysearch.org family tree.  Their idea is wonderful - have people collaborate on one world tree.  Unfortunately there are so many people that are so careless that the information is almost useless.  I have tried to fix errors in "my part" of the tree and I have given up.  I regret giving that recommendation, but one regret isn't bad at all.

Why am I posting this tonight?  I think it's neat to look back and see how things have changed.  I also think I'm going to try to heed her advice and try some blogging again.  I'm a tad bored with what I've been doing in my tree and I enjoy telling the stories about the people and how information came together.  Who knows if anyone will read it or how long I'll stick with it but I'll give it another try.  Wish me luck!


Sunday, January 1, 2023

Mind BLOWN - another ThruLines discovery

 I haven't blogged in over a year and am not going to make excuses - just haven't felt like it.  Perhaps with the ridiculous price of an ancestry.com membership I'll start blogging instead of working on my tree.  

Anyway, I have been working on my tree and occasionally checking ThruLines to see if there are any new discoveries.  I had previously blogged about my 3rd great grandparents John and Minnie (Helm) Freiheit If you haven't read the previous blog it boils down to the fact that the researcher I paid found John and Minnie's marriage in 1857 but also found that Minnie had been previously married to Johann Friedrich Theodor Springborn in 1854 and had a son Heinrich Carl Christian Springborn in 1855.  Given her remarriage and no records found for her first husband and son, I figured they both died, Minnie remarried and came to America.  I believed that until 12/21 when I found this:


I have 3 connections via Charles Springborn?  Who is Charles?  I looked at one of the trees and found that Charles IS Heinrich Carl Christian Springborn.  He came to America with his dad and stepmother in 1864, where they settled in Manistee County Michigan.  Charles' dad John Springborn also had what appears to be his 2nd wife Marie, a son Frederick and a daughter Fredericka with him.  Looking at the tree and other records online and Fredericka was also Minnie's daughter with him, and Frederick was born as an illegitimate child in 1852 as Frederick Helm.  

It seems impossible that Minnie was married, had 3 children and ended up remarried and moving to America with her 2nd family and settling in the same area as her first family?  I have Minnie's probate record and it only lists her Freiheit children, furthering the case in my mind that this tree has to be wrong.  The problem is, DNA doesn't lie.  I match 3 different people descended from Charles Springborn.

I reached out to Robert Albert, the researcher that I hired over a decade ago that busted down this brick wall and he was still at the email address I had.  He took a look and concurred with the tree, and that Minnie's first family did indeed come to America.  He found the ship record and there's a youngest daughter yet to be placed, that could be Minnie Helm's daughter, or the Marie that John Springborn remarried to.  His guesses as to what happened are as plausible as any:

Yeah, as to that youngest child, I haven't looked to see how she is connected. According to the Hamburg list it says she is a child, presumably of Johann Friedrich Springborn, but if he had a "fling" with Marie, who would have been say 20 at conception, and he being 31, this "could" have been the spark that dissolved the family. Or perhaps even more likely is that Minnie had an affair with Mr. Freiheit, and so J. F. Springborn leaves her and takes the children with him because she is "unfit", and meets up with Marie.  Maybe Minnie getting pregnant was the straw that broke the camel's back. Wish we could go back in time and visit this household to get the story that I agree has been lost to eternity. I am sure no one living post emigration wanted to retell it for sure. But then to think that she brings her new beau and kids to the same spot in the USA is just... wow! WOW!!!!! Yeah, this is maybe the best unknown story I have ever heard of in all my years of researching. Remarkable.

Of even further intrigue is that sailing with the Springborn family is a Dorothea Kehnscherper.  Minnie Helm Freiheit's mother's name was Maria Dorothea Kehnscherper.  I don't know anything about Maria Dorothea yet, but the age on the ship log makes it unlikely that she's Minnie's mother but there has to be a connection.  

This is all developing and I have Robert on the project again.  He doesn't have his business website anymore but if he's officially doing research still I'll try to get his information into a blog.  He is friendly, thorough, reasonable, and honest.  I very much enjoy working with him.  He's already added to my Freiheit family, as records are available online now that weren't a decade ago.  I could probably find the records, but I can't read them so hiring him to ensure I don't miss anything or record it incorrectly is absolutely worth it.

Friday, December 18, 2020

As promised, the start of the Siersema letters

So I blogged on 12/3 promising to blog more and then vanished for 16 days.  I guess that's par for the course.  I do have a pseudo-excuse though!  I got to looking through the letters written by Albert Siersema to see what ones I wanted to post.  I read Albert's letter from 21 Jul 1866 where he mentions to Paulus den Bleyker that "nephew Klaas Vlaming has died in Halifax, Canada".  I knew that his wife Tryntje's sister Pietertje married to Biem Vlaming so I went to find Klaas.  Klaas was born 4 Nov 1832 at Texel to Biem and his 1st wife Antje Bakker.  I started to write him off as not actually related until I noted that the marriage record of Biem and Antje 19 Dec 1830 listed Antje's parents as Cornelis Bakker and Trijntje Dogger.  Klaas was indeed related, just in a different way.  (The number of cousins from Texel that married is mind-blowing, in today's day).  I got down the rabbit hole of working on Cornelis and Trijntje's family and then the siblings of Trijntje. With the records available online I found (in the last 16 days) 711 new people to add to my tree.  These kinds of rabbit holes are a big reason I end up not blogging.  

Anyway, since I mentioned that letter I'll start the Albert Siersema letters with that one.  The translation at the end is courtesy of my stepmother, who has been a godsend when it comes to translations.





















North-Holland, Michigan, USA

July 21st, 1866
Dear Brother-in-law,

We have received your letter in good health and from it we also learned, to our delight, about your well-being.  Nowadays it is with us and the here living family also well, except for our little Duwertje, who is suffering with the reed in the front finger of her right hand for 4 weeks and suffered a lot of pain.
After a long wait, I can inform you that here, in the previous week, we received the message from Pella, Iowa, that nephew Klaas Vlaming has died in Halifax, Canada, but which day we don't know yet.
A. Eelman has received this message on his letter from a man, who arrived with him and who knew nothing else to report. We will further investigate the time and circumstances via a man, who stayed behind with Klaas at Halifax and arrived eleven days, after the first in Pella.
A. Eelman bought 80 fields of land for a thousand dollars. It is on the same road where Sakom Dogger lives. Just a mile north of him. There is 40 fields between Aris (Eelman) and that what Paul now owns.
It is, as far as I know, very beautiful and a good field. I would not be able find a better field here in North-Holland, Michigan.
Paul already offered him 100 dollars in profits when he was here with his goods.
Paul also has a good piece of land, but has with his experience deteriorated a lot, but this is how it goes, if man is so unsatisfied with the appreciation of God's benefits.
The crop are generally good here and if there isn't much weevil (an insect) in the wheat, which have been detected initially, it can yield good results as far as the crop is concerned.
There is also quite a lot of grass.
Warm greetings from us to you and your wife and children and friends.
With respect and wishing you good health.
Written in haste.

brother-in-law,

Albert Siersema.


I was hoping to discover who was in Pella Iowa that would have written Albert but I didn't make a connection. When Trijntje Dogger's husband Cornelis Bakker died in 1812 she remarried to Meijert Boon. She had a daughter Cornelisje who married Jan Eelman and had a son Arie Eelman, who is possibly who Albert is referring to. His family appears to settled in New Jersey, not Iowa, so that mystery isn't solved yet.

In a letter 14 Dec 1866 he informs Paulus the following update about Klaas Vlaming's death:

Since I wrote to you last, we have also received further information from Pella (Iowa) about Klaas Vlaming. Namely that he died on the night between April 22 and 23.  He also came to his end under sad circumstances.  While the Dutch, who looked after him a bit during the day, left him alone at night, so that they found him dead in the morning and already robbed of what was still valuable to him.  His money, that he still had with him because he still had hope for a better future.
Still a sad situation, so abandoned of everyone. To die alone under a piece of canvas.

These finds are really cool because in all of the online trees Klaas exists in, none of them had a death date for him. This letter is probably the only existing proof of what happened to him, although I don't know why he was in Canada. His wife Neeltje Boon and his daughter Antje both died in 1864 so he had no immediate family at the time of his death.

More letters to come.  

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Where have the last 17 months gone?

So, I haven't blogged since 2 Jul 2019. What on Earth happened to cause that? We went on a family vacation/work trip for my wife on Jul 3rd and I had every intention of continuing to blog when I returned. The problem was my laptop. I have insisted on buying Windows laptops for the last 10+ years, in spite of the fact that they become v-e-r-y slow within a couple years. The last one I bought ended up taking 10+ minutes to boot (if it would - I'd often have to reboot it several times to get to the desktop). I was doing most of my genealogy on my iPad anyway so I decided not to spend the money to replace it. The problem with that was that I don't really know how to use Mac products and the thought of blogging with an iPad was a bridge too far.....so I just stopped. It was compounded by me taking a different position at work, resulting in a different shift. It doesn't mean that I didn't want to blog or didn't find new items to blog about. I finally decided on Black Friday that the time had come to replace my laptop and I went with the new MacBook Air with the M1 chip and the 512GB hard drive. It was a few hundred dollars more up front but I think it'll last at least twice as long as my Windows laptops. After a week of using it I thought I'd see if I can successfully blog with it. The file system on these is not user-friendly at all but I'm going to try. For posterity sake I'm going to update my tree numbers. I blogged 18 Mar 2019 (the last time I'd been away awhile) and my tree had grown to 107,895 people and I'd attached 249,223 records (the little "shaky leafs" on ancestry.com). I'm actually shocked at the current numbers, thinking they'd be higher given how much work I'd done on my tree in the last 17 months but I still made some progress.
I left off on my blogs about items I'd received from my grandpa's cousin on his Burke side. I do have more I can blog there but I'm going to switch gears and do a few blogs regarding the most exciting genealogy find I've had in years, courtesy of my Kraai cousin Mary. 

Mary frequently uses Google to find new records/websites about our Dutch ancestry (I have a plethora of her emails I'm catching up on now that I have a laptop and can start updating my tree with her new information). One set of our shared ancestors are my 4th great-grandparents Albert and Trijntje (Dogger) Siersema. I have blogged about them a couple times already. Mary wrote that she found the information like this: "It all began when I started a Google search for Hertje Sakomsz Dogger, grandfather of Albert Siersema's wife, Trijntje Dogger. I located a site that gave a link to information on him, as well as other Texel people, including a link to Albert Siersema: https://vandekrol.org/histories/Book13-5thEdition-bewerkt-2.pdf. (On page 80, the author refers to letters by Siersema at Bentley Library.) Then, I contacted you about going to Ann Arbor together. What a great day it was! We hadn't gotten together in probably a couple years, but our conversation was nonstop all the way there and back!"

The Bentley Historical Library is part of the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and 2 hours from Grand Rapids.  We made the trip on 16 Dec 2019 because she contacted the research librarian there who stated there were (2) letters written by Albert Siersema in the collection.  4 hours round trip is quite the hike to scan 2 letters but I love these kinds of finds and hadn't seen Mary in awhile so we decided to go for it.  (Little did we know COVID would destroy any chance of doing anything like this for at least a year shortly after the trip).   

We don't know why the Bentley Historical Library has this collection but it's the collection of Paulus den Bleyker, who's 2nd wife was Neeltje Dogger, sister of Trijntje.  Several of the families came to America together from the island of Texel.  Paulus was a wealthy landowner who settled in Kalamazoo Michigan, while most of the Dogger and Siersema families settled in and around Holland Michigan.  From the letters we scanned, Paulus gave a lot of economic assistance to many of the families and was highly regarded.  He was a prolific letter writer and apparently kept everything, which worked out well for us.

My stepmother translated all of the letters for us (which we are both eternally grateful for) and, in spite of driving to Ann Arbor to scan 2 letters from Albert Siersema we ended up with the following:

45 letters written by Albert Siersema, dating from 3 May 1856 - 21 Oct 1872  
4 letters from Texel written by Biem Vlaming, Trijntje's brother-in-law (via her sister Pietertje Dogger, who wrote on 2 of these 4 letters and wrote 1 letter of her own)
3 letters from Texel written by Cornelis Dogger, uncle of Trijntje
4 letters from Texel written by Hertje Dogger, brother of Trijntje 
48 letters written by Paulus den Bleyker (starting in 1848) - we only scanned letters written by him that appeared to have mention names we recognized
5 letters written by Pieter Dogger, nephew of Trijntje who appeared very close to Paulus
13 letters written by Sakom Dogger, brother of Trijntje
1 letter written by Trijntje herself (she also finished one of Albert's 45 letters)

That's 124 letters she translated along with another dozen or so that were scattered random letters or were people less recognized in the family.  One of them was from Lambertus Mepjans, who happens to be the brother of Hilligien Mepjans Wieghmink, mother of Gertrude Wieghmink Kraai (my 2nd great-grandmother and Mary's great-grandmother).  Gertrude's husband Albert Kraai was the son of Jacob and Demutje (Siersema) Kraai, Demutje being Albert and Trijntje's daughter.  Lambertus wrote to Paulus because of money he owed him.  It's a benign letter but cool to see his handwriting.  I doubt that he or Paulus had any idea of their familial "relationship".  

There were 10 boxes to go through and we went fast.  I took photos with my iPad because trying to scan them would have taken forever.  The library would only allow one box at the table at a time, in spite of 2 of us researching and there were 10 full boxes of folders/papers so we realistically did not have enough time.  I wanted to return this year and take more time going through the collection but alas, it will have to wait.  I will say that it was absolutely incredible holding original 164 year old letters written by a direct ancestor but I was disappointed in the care that the library is showing for the collection.  The letters are all in folders, many paper clipped together with rusty paperclips.  None of them are in archival sleeves and it appears that there has been no attempt to actually preserve the collection.  The entire time we went through the boxes I kept thinking that I needed to just take the letters home (I obviously wouldn't have and didn't) so that I could preserve them.  I think the only reason they were in the condition they were in is that it's probably not a collection that is gone through often.  In spite of that, it was a great day spent with a wonderful cousin.  This blog has gotten lengthy so I will save the start of the actual letters for my next blog (which I promise to do within the week).  Stay tuned!

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Hilma's letter from Oregon

I know I already blogged today but I'm getting ready to go on vacation and won't be able to post for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd squeeze another in today.

My grandpa's cousin Shelly found a lot of letters that Hilma had written that she ended up with.  My grandpa had given me 3 letters that Hilma wrote to him but Shelly had an additional 18 of them.  It's nice to have her handwriting and you can tell how she spoke by the way she spelled different words.  She very obviously had a thick Swedish accent but did know English.  One letter in particular struck me as potentially helpful to my research, but it took me several years to figure it out.

I have to preface the letter by posting a communion book record that I posted in my last blog, and that I posted in the blog I referenced from 2016.
When I was revisiting these records I'd received I took note of the family listed below Lisa Greta's family - Stina Johanna is most definitely Benjam Kiviniemi's sister.  This record shows her husband and 6 children.  I added them to my tree and moved on, since I'm having so much difficulty tracking these families beyond the communion books.  That was until I revisited this letter:






Of course the stamp and postmark were cut off so I don't know what year this happened but it definitely is a visit to a cousin.  On the 2nd page of the letter she mentions "may kusen" (my cousin).  She mentions that the cousin didn't remember her and that the last time they saw each other was when Hilma left for America, when the cousin was 9 years old.  Because I had seen that Stina Johanna's family was listed on that communion record I knew I had some of Hilma's cousins in my tree, one born in 1888.   I went into ancestry.com and searched for all women named Elna, who were born about 1888 and lived in Coos Bay Oregon and lo and behold:

The 1st record I found was the Oregon Death Index, which has her middle name Johanna truncated and no birth day but a potential match showed in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and there it was, a perfect match on the birthdate.  

I then found her in the census records and discovered that although Elna married, she never had any children.  It was still nice to see who it was Hilma was referring to in her letter.  






I then did the "Member Connect" (ancestry's matching of uploaded family trees) to see if anyone had Elna in their tree and several people did.  Upon looking a bit I found that Stina's daughters Judith and Alma also came to America and I was able to trace those families (and have reached out to a descendant already).  I got one of the daughter's obituaries and it also listed a sister Ida so there is one child not yet born yet when the communion record was written.  

I found the Petitions for Naturalization that Alma and Judith filed, both listed their maiden name as Gustafson (their father's patronymic) but that they sailed under the name Kiviniemi, which was Hilma's maiden name.  

Hopefully this leads to more connections and more information.  For now I'm happy that reading over the records and the letters led to the connection in the first place.





Off to vacation - everyone enjoy their 4th of July!