My Great x4 Grandfather, Reijer Jansz Ran, was born in October 1792 on Texel, most likely in the village of Den Hoorn, where he was baptized on October 22, 1792. His parents were Jan Cornelisz Ran and Annaatje (“Anna”) Pieters van Zuijlen.
For several of my ancestral lines that originate on Texel, they go back several centuries. For Reijer, his father was born on Texel and his paternal grandparents lived on Texel, but I have not traced further back than that. The unsourced tree for Reijer on FamilySearch suggests his paternal lineage traces back quite far in time on Texel, but without cited sources I won’t accept that information.
Reijer’s mother, on the other hand, was born on the mainland, in Alkmaar, Noord Holland. At some point in time Anna moved to Texel, but when and why I do not know. Her parents remained in Alkmaar. Anna must have moved to Texel as an adult, because she married Reijer’s father there.
In August 1797, when Reijer was four, his father died. Nine years later, in August 1806, Reijer’s mother married Klaas Jansz Groot. Klaas was a sailor, working as a channel pilot. Anna and Klaas were married nineteen years, until Klaas’s death in 1825. Anna spent the next 18 years living as a widow, until her death in 1843.
For his entire working life, Reijer was connected to the sea. For almost thirty years, he was a sailor working out of Oudeschild, the only port on Texel. He was working at that occupation when he married Maartje Klaas Gomes on November 26, 1813 at Oudeschild on Texel. Together they had eleven children, all born in Oudeschild, six of whom were sons. Four of Reijer’s sons were sailors; two died at sea. One son passed away at age eight. One was a shoemaker. Clearly he was the rebel of the family.
Around 1840, Reijer moved to Den Helder, on the mainland only a few kilometers south of Texel, where he began work as a channel pilot. Many sailors and workers in related industries moved from Texel to Den Helder at the time, coinciding with the rise of the city as a major industrial port and base of the Dutch navy. While Reijer appears to have briefly worked as a merchant around 1851, he spent the rest of his life working as a channel pilot.
Reijer retired sometime before 1860, as the registration of his death identified him as a pensioner. Reijer died on January 5, 1860 in Den Helder.
