52W Mark IV – Week 6: Card V6 Dirk Pietersz van der Fluit

This week we take a first look at my 32 Gx3 Grandparents, starting with
Dirk Pietersz van der Fluit. I actually got a bit sidetracked with this post, not because I was trying to fill gaps in my knowledge about Dirk, but because I kept returning to all the outstanding questions I have about Dirk’s father, Petrus Pietersz (“Pieter”) van der Fluit (1759-1829).

I have had a long-standing curiosity about the circumstances that caused Pieter, the eldest of 11 children, to pull up roots from Voorhout, Zuid Holland and relocate to Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland, leaving all his other family behind.

The other thing I’ve started to ponder about Pieter is how he spent the first 40 years of his life. I know absolutely nothing about his life between baptism in 1760 and marriage to Maartje de Vlieger in 1800. Everything I’ve found so far indicates that Pieter married only once, yet I have to wonder if he was married sometime before he turned 40. However, despite all my efforts so far, I can find no record of Pieter before he married Maartje, including a previous marriage.

Unfortunately, Pieter is one generation beyond the scope of my writing plan for the 52 Ancestors Challenge for 2025. Maybe I’ll do a separate post about Pieter outside of the Challenge. In the meantime, this week is supposed to be about Dirk!

Dirk was the third of four children born to Pieter and Maartje. He was born in February 1811 in Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland. He was born only a few short months after Napoleon abolished the puppet state of the Kingdom of Holland and incorporated the Netherlands as an integral part of the French Empire.

I know nothing about Dirk between the time he was baptized and age 24, when he married Aaltje Klaasse Stroet on May 16, 1835 in Nieuwe Niedorp. Dirk was a labourer at the time he married and likely had been in that occupation for several years. He was still a labourer in 1843 according to the death registration for his son, Jan.

Within a year of marriage, the newlyweds had relocated to Oude Niedorp. Sometime around 1847 Dirk became a farmer in ‘t Veld, as that was the occupation listed in the death registration of another son, also named Jan. (There was a third Jan – my Gx2 Grandfather, born between the other two Jans.)

Together Dirk and Aaltje had 13 children; eight survived infancy. All 13 were born in gemeente (municipality) Oude Niedorp, but most likely in ‘t Veld, which was one of the villages in the gemeente. ‘t Veld is now within gemeente Hollands Kroon.

Dirk spent the rest of his life in ‘t Veld (Oude Niedorp). He died there on February 8, 1857, likely little more than a week after his 45th birthday. It appears that Aaltje took over the farm, and lived another 24 years.

As for Pieter, like a dog with a bone, I couldn’t stop poking at various sources to find out his past marital status before marrying Maartje. Lo and behold, a register of marriage banns for Voorhout listed Pieter as “jongeman”, which means he had never been married before. So what was he doing the previous 40 years?