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!