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.  

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!

Ettje Heeringa van der Ploeg, another great-grandparent of my grandpa

Well, 2 blogs in one day.  I don't expect that to happen much but I was prepared to write this one when my last blog popped into my head.  After several years of not blogging at all I'll take a 2 blog day.

On my dad's side I've blogged about my grandfather's grandpa and grandma and decided to blog about his paternal grandfather's father because I have a photo of him.  I decided that I should probably blog about his paternal grandmother's mother for the same reason.

Ettje Heeringa birth

Ettje Sjoerds Heeringa was born 8 Jan 1834 at Ee, Friesland Netherlands, the 2nd of 6 children of
Sjoerd Tjeerds Heeringa (1806-1848) and Folkjen Ruurds Nicolai (1806-1846).  She had the following siblings:

Tjeerd Sjoerds Heeringa (1832-1866)
Ale Sjoerds Heeringa (1836-1922)
Pieter Sjoerds Heeringa (1838–1915)
Baukje Sjoerds Heeringa (1841–1907)
Sake Sjoerds Heeringa (1844–1853)

Tjeerd married Jantje Jans Sloot  and had 3 children.
Baukje had no children but married Ale de Bruin.
Ale married Stijntje van der Pijp and had no children.




The only descendants of Sjoerd Heeringa and Folkjen Nicolai come from Ettje and her brother Pieter.

Her brother Pieter had 6 children, 3 that came to America:
Attje Pieters Heeringa (1862-1913) who married Jan de Jong and had 10 children.  Lived in Missaukee Co MI.
Jacob Pieters Heeringa (1866-1950) who married Bessie Vanderweide and had 7 children.  Also lived in Missaukee Co MI.
Ettje Pieters Heeringa (1877-1965) who married Eeltje Terpstra and had 4 children.  Her husband died in the Netherlands and she appears to have joined her children here in America in 1949.
Pieter also had a son Sjoerd Pieters Heeringa who had a son Wieberen "William George" Heeringa 1886-1955) who married Effie van der Werf and had 4 children.  He came to America in 1928 and settled in Kent Co MI.

Marriage pg 1

Marriage pg 2

Jan Folkerts birth

Jan Folkerts death

Ettje married Jan Folkerts van der Ploeg (1827-1879) 16 May 1861 at Dongeradeel, Friesland Netherlands.  Jan Folkerts was the son of Folkert Willems van der Ploeg (1789-1863) and Jeltje Joukes Jouksma (1790-1830).

As I wrote in the blog about my grandpa's grandmother, Jan Folkerts and Ettje had 2 daughters, Jeltje (1871-1918) and Folkje (1867-1941).  They arrived in America aboard the ship "Obdam" 15 Apr 1893.

In 1900 she's enumerated as "Effie Heeringa", living with her daughter Folkje and son in law Jan Gerbens van der Woude.  They are living at 513 North Lafayette, listed as Grand Rapids Township (although that address is well within the actual city limits).

11 May 1907 Ettje's son-in-law Jan Gerbens passed away, the only death she endured here in America

In 1910 she's with her daughter Folkje's family as Etta VanderPloege.  They live in the 800 block of North Union (unreadable number) again in Grand Rapids Township, even though the address is actually in the city.

Ettje passed away of cerebral apoplexy (stroke) 21 Nov 1917 at Blendon Township, Ottawa County Michigan and is laid to rest in an unmarked grave at Borculo Cemetery nearby.  Her daughter Folkje is buried next to her with her second husband Anne Machiela, who was the informant on Ettje's death certificate.  Given how many immigrant death certificates I've looked over, I am impressed by the recollection of her parent's names.  Her birth date is completely butchered though, as nothing can be perfect!

Ettje seated with Folkje to her right, granddaughter Ida Rauser to her left with great-granddaughter Virginia Rauser

This photo was given to me by John Rauser, youngest son of Ida.  His sister Virginia was Ida's 1st child, born in 1914.  Given how old she appears I'd say this photo was taken in the summer of 1917, just months prior to Ettje's death.  It is the only known photo of Ettje and I was given a copy in time to show my grandpa a picture of his great-grandmother that he'd never seen before.  For that, I'll forever be thankful to John Rauser, who probably doesn't know how important his help was to me.

A couple of interesting points about Folkje's family:

Folkje's youngest child with Jan Gerbens Vander Woude was Otto, born 4 Nov 1898.  He had a twin sister Jennie who was married thrice and passed away 24 May 1988 as Mrs. Menno Dykema.  Otto passed away 23 Jan 2000 due to complications from a stroke he suffered 16 years prior.  He lived to be 101 years old but was wheelchair-bound and unable to speak those last 16 years.

Folkje remarried to Anne Machiela (1865-1949) and had one son Richard (1911-1992).  Richard married Bertha Lievense (1909-2005) and what's interesting to me here is that I'm not only related to Richard but also to Bertha.  Her mother was Effie Siersema, daughter of Henderik Siersema and Bertha Kapenga.  Henderik was the son of Albert Siersema and Tryntje Dogger.  I wrote about the Siersema farm and Bible as Albert and Tryntje were my 4th great-grandparents.  To muddy the waters even further, Bertha Kapenga's grandfather Jemme Albert's Kapenga was a brother of Albert Siersema's mother Catharina Alberts Siersema (so she married her cousin and I'm directly related to both Henderik and Bertha).  So much intertwining...........

Folkje's eldest daughter Ettje "Etta" (1891-1967) married Matthew Vander Boegh (1891-1964).  In my grandpa's uncle Jim's photo albums there were a couple of photos of Etta.  My grandpa didn't seem to know anything about his great-aunt Folkje or any of his dad's 1st cousins (Vander Woude or Machiela) but obviously there was contact between the families as Etta was in photos taken by her cousin Jim.

My great-grandfather Nicholas Korstange, who I plan to write about next, was allegedly (I need to track down the birth record to prove it) born at Lucas, Missaukee County Michigan.  To have him born in Missaukee County made absolutely no sense to me when my grandpa told me.  His parents lived and died in Kent County and his random birth there wasn't something that I could figure out, until I started researching Ettje's family.  Given that she had a niece and nephew settle in Missaukee County, 1st cousins of Nicholas' mother Jeltje it's plausible he was born on a visit north.

Grand Rapids Herald 5 Oct 1924 front page

Folkje's 1st born child Gerben Jans "Gerrit" Vander Woude and his son John Simon were killed when his delivery truck was struck by a train 4 Oct 1924.

So much tragedy in one family..........

I see I've been slacking on my blog lately.  I've been working a lot and enjoying what I can of summer.  My genealogy time has been spent on the Familysearch family tree and today I switched gears to the ancestry of my mom's paternal grandmother Hilda Kraai Hugmeyer (1900-1985). 

As I think I've mentioned before Hilda's brother Willis was a grandfather of my cousin Mary who is to credit for much of the research and articles that have been found on our mutual Kraai ancestry.  This family experienced an awful amount of tragedy between the years 1893-1922.

Hilda's father Albert Kraai (1870-1940) was the son of Jacob Kraai (1843-1930) and Dewurtje Siersema (1849-1902).  It is said he spent some time at Pine Rest and after writing this I can see why. 

Photo found in the photos of Albert's youngest son Robert Kraai (1917-2006).

Back row left to right: Kate, Sena, Henry, Thomas and Albert.

Front row left to right: Grace, Jacob, Frances, Dewurtje and Mary.  The small daughter in the front is Bessie (born 1888 - the photo isn't dated but I'm guessing 1890-1892). 



On 5/20/1893 Jacob's nephew Thomas Kraai (son of his brother Frank) died after falling down an elevator shaft:

On 3/24/1902 Dewurtje committed suicide by jumping headfirst into the neighbor farmer's well: 

Holland City News 3/28/1902

On 12/30/1906 Dewurtje's uncle Sakom Dogger was struck and killed by a railroad car (photo obtained from Sakom's great grandson Al Dogger (1942-2010):

Holland City News 1/10/1907

Sakom "Simon" Dogger

On 7/30/1917 Jacob and Dewurtje's son Henry shot himself in the head (photo courtesy of grandson Hal Franken 1928-2010 - obituary from the Holland Sentinel 7/31/1917):

On 7/11/1921 Jacob's brother Liebertus "Lambert" Kraai hung himself:

Holland Sentinel 7/13/1921

A nephew of Jacob (son that Liebertus was worried about) did die in the service 4/6/1922:

Holland Sentinel 4/3/1922

In spite of all of this tragedy Jacob lived to the ripe old age of 87, passing away at his daughter Sena's home 10/11/1930 (obituary source/date missing but date written on bottom of obituary is unlikely):

Every family has some tragedy, be it murder, suicide, accident or a child's untimely death but the Kraai family seemed to suffer more than most I've researched. 

The Siersema's secondhand Bible

Last post I wrote about how fruitful our visit to the Siersema descendant was and shared the great photos he had of the farm.  While we were sitting there (I believe I'd already scanned the photos) he mentions, almost in passing, that he's got an old Bible and wanted to know if we'd want to see it.  In all my years working on my family tree I've never seen a family Bible (in person).  I remember my grandma reading out of hers once and seeing that there was some writing in the front but I don't think it was that old and I'm not sure where it is (I'm sure my mom or one of my uncles has it).  He brought the Bible out and it was quite literally the heaviest book I'd ever held.

 We got to look through this Bible and it still amazes me to this day to realize how old this thing is.  There were translations of several of the pages that this gentleman had had done and it listed that the original owners of the Bible were the Daalder family, who began recording their family in it with their marriage Feb 16th, 1721.  That's right, 1721.  It lists the births and deaths of their children and keeps their tree until 1759. 

 The Bible has written "THIS BOOK is the property of Albert Henderiks Siersema bought at the Island TEXEL in the year of our LORD JEZUS CHRISTUS 1842, on March 17".  This book was in one family for 38 years and then its whereabouts are unknown for 83 years until my 4th great grandparents buy it?  They documented their tree until Albert's death in 1888.  When Tryntje died in 1893 it's written in a different handwriting and the documentation ceases.  Upon her death it has remained in the family of her son Henry and his descendants for another 121 years.

 I didn't have a way to scan the pages the way I would have liked  so some of what we got was just with our digital cameras.  I think perhaps my cousin Mary and I should try to go back and get better scans.  What do you think Mary?  The person that translated the Bible admitted that the writing was "old Dutch" and some of the names were hard to read.  My stepmother is from the Netherlands and she told me that it was hard to read in the old dialect.  

The person that translated it wrote "This Bible was translated from the Greece language in the old Dutch language in the Gothis style."

 This was written (I assume by Albert Siersema) listing when/where he purchased the Bible.

 This is the best shot I got of the page detailing my direct line that I could get.  My 3rd great grandmother Dewurtje Siersema's birth is listed here.  Her name is spelled Dewurtje, Demutje, Dora and Julia in various records - this Bible entry gave me the spelling I use in my file now.  I believe I incorrectly referred to her as Demutje in my last post.

 This listing details the siblings of Albert.

This is a page from the Daalder family - this isn't my family but it's in really old script and you can read the years from the 1700s that are written - so cool!  Another find due to persistence, phone calls and cooperative cousins.  Mary gets the credit for setting this visit up and it ranks up there as one of my top genealogical visits.  I'm not sure how his health is but I'd love to go back, armed with new technology and knowledge regarding how to gather what I want and give it another go.  

The Siersema Farm

One of my most fruitful genealogy connections has come via my great grandmother Hilda (Kraai) Hugmeyer.  In about 2004 I discovered that her youngest brother Robert Kraai was still alive and got in contact with him.  He was about 86 at the time and had indicated that a granddaughter of his brother Willis had "a bunch of information".  I got in contact with her and have been in contact with her now for many years.  She's a retired teacher and is a whiz at digging through the old Dutch records on the websites I previously mentioned.  Her and I have made several visits to distant relatives and the Siersema farm trip was by far the one that provided the best information.

Hilda was the daughter of Albert Kraai and Gertrude Wieghmink.  Albert's parents were Jacob Kraai and Demutje Siersema.  Demutje's parents were Albert Siersema and Tryntje Dogger.  So Mary and I share common ancestry here and we tracked down a grandson of Demutje's brother Henry Siersema and met with him August of 2008.  He had this stack of pictures on the table waiting for us when we got there.  This is the original Siersema farm at 11525 New Holland St, Holland Michigan - I'm not sure when they were taken but it was incredible how many good photos of this farm he had.  I've got a couple pictures of Tryntje (one was in this stack) but no pictures of Albert - I like to think that Albert is in one of these photos, just not yet identified.

 This barn still stands and is still used - Mary and I got to tour the inside of it with the hand-hewn timbers.  It was very neat being in the barn that my 4th great grandparents worked.

 I like to think Albert is in this photo - none of the people in here are identified but the property still looks like this.  Albert died in 1888, Tryntje in 1893 so this farm is well over 100 years old. 

Is Albert in this photo?  I sure hope that someday we can track a photo of Albert down but I think this stop was the best chance we had.