Ariaantje Jacobs (“Adriana” or “Jaantje”) Bleeker (1865-1929)
When I first started tracing my Dutch line further back further than my great grandparents, I started coming upon some very clearly Germanic and feminine sounding names but did not sound cute in any way. Then again, what should I expect from a language where the word for “cute” is “schattig” – definitely not a cute sounding word to an Anglo ear, especially with that Dutch “g”!
One of the standouts of these was my second great grandmother, Ariaantje Jacobs Bleeker. Ariaantje did not easily roll off the tongue when I first encountered it, but it came to me quickly. Like most people in the Netherlands, she did not go by Ariaantje on a daily basis. She is often referred to as “Adriana” or “Jaantje” in the records.
Adriana was born on February 15, 1865 (160 years ago this month!) in Harenkarspel, Noord Holland. For the longest time, I have had Adriana as the third of three children born to Jacob Bleeker and Trijntje Jansen. However, given the age gap between Adriana and her older brother, Cornelis, I suspected there might have been some other children in between.
Mind the gap!
I’ve done some digging to fill the gap. One strategy I’ve employed is looking at Adriana’s FAN club: her “Friends, Associates, and Neighbours”. So far I haven’t found any missing siblings. It’s still on my research to-do list, although it has not been a priority.
Marriage Registration for Jan Pater and Ariaantje Bleeker (top and bottom)
It appears that Adriana lived with her parents in Harenkarspel until she married Jan Pater on April 19, 1888. The Bevolkingsregister(population register) for Harenkarspel shows that she relocated to Heerhugowaard on April 20, 1888. Jan and Adriana had four children: Johannes (who only lived two weeks), Jacob, Teetje (my great grandmother), and Jan. Only Jacob and Teetje married. Jan worked on his parents’ farm for many years after reaching adulthood.
Adriana died on July 8, 1929, at home in Slootgaard, a village in gemeente Harenkarspel.
Death registration for Adriana.
The bidprentje (prayer card or in memoriam card) for Adriana’s funeral states that she was buried at the church cemetery in Waarland, which at the time was part of gemeente Heerhugowaard. This would be St. Wulfram’s Church (left), which I drove past the last time I was in the Netherlands. However, there would have been no point in stopping to look for her grave, because graves in the Netherlands are usually cleared within thirty years. A quick check of Online Begraafplaatsen (a database of Dutch cemeteries) shows no entries for Adriana at the St. Wulfram cemetery, which is consistent with her grave having been cleared.
I’ve always found it amazing when talking to my grandparents’ generation about their grandparents. I remember when my great aunt Addie casually mentioned in passing about how she’d usually go to her grandmother’s house every day after school. It immediately popped into my head that she was talking about someone who was born in the mid-19th century. It felt like a bridge through time.
Likewise for my Gx2 grandfather, Johannes Jansz (“Jan”) Pater. I found an article in a Dutch magazine, Toendertoid: Stichting Waarland van Toen (“Then and There: Foundation of Waarland“) containing an interview of my great uncle Jan van der Fluit (“Ome Jan” 1918-2011), where he shared childhood recollections of his grandfather Jan Pater. I met Ome Jan on my first trip to Waarland. He was still living in the house where he was born and spent his childhood. Reading Ome Jan’s story made me feel like there was no barrier in time and space between me and my Gx2 grandfather.
Jan’s birth registration
Jan Pater was born on April 14, 1862 in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland. By 1882, Jan was working in Oude Niedorp as a farm labourer, as noted in a militia register. Military service was compulsory. Jan’s military service was as a conscript under the national service (the militia), somewhat equivalent to reserve or national guard duty. Adrianus was assigned to the “torpedo corps”. The militia register shows that Adrianus was 172 cm (5′ 7 1/2″) tall with a flat face, low forehead, gray eyes, a “just” nose, and blond hair.
Jan remained in Oude Niedorp at least until 1888, working as a farm labourer. On April 19, 1888, he married Ariaantje Jacobs (“Adriana” or “Jaantje”) Bleeker in gemeente Harenkarspel, Noord Holland. At the start of their marriage, they briefly lived with Adriana’s parents, but by the time their first child was born they had moved out on their own. Together Jan and Adriana had four children, three boys and one girl (my great grandmother, Teetje Pater). The eldest only lived a few weeks; the others lived to adulthood.
After he and Adriana were married, Jan continued to work as a labourer. Sometime around 1917 he began farming in Slootgaard, a village within Harenkarspel. It is now part of gemeente Schagen.
According to Ome Jan’s account, Jan Pater had over three acres of land where he carried out mixed farming. Jan’s youngest son – and Ome Jan’s uncle – was also named Jan, who helped on his father’s farm. The elder Jan had four cows and a horse, while the younger Jan had 100 brown and white chickens.
My records indicate Jan continued farming in Slootgaard at least until 1930, when he was in his late 60s. However, the registration of his death in 1935 indicates that he was still farming at that time. Jan’s death was due to an unfortunate accident with a horse at a railway crossing.
Addendum March 2, 2025: Always pay attention to the FAN club: “Friends, Associates, and Neighbours”! When an ancestor has a lot of siblings, it can be tedious to do all the research on them, too. Often I’ll do a quick-and-dirty entry into my database and then leave it languish for years.
Tonight I was flushing out my research on Jan’s siblings. For the four oldest, it was mostly entering information from death records, as the first two died very shortly after birth and the next two died shortly before their 17th birthdays. It wasn’t until the fifth child, Antje, two years older than Jan, that any child of Jan Pater and Teetje de Groot survived to adulthood.
Going through Antje’s marriage registration, I saw that one of the witnesses was her younger brother Jan. Then I expanded the image on the screen and noticed the signatures on the proceeding page were the same. What? Zooming in, I realized it was Jan and Adriana’s marriage registration! A double wedding. Siblings Antje and Jan got married the same day!
Signatures of the parties and witnesses of the double wedding of siblings Jan Pater (left) and Antje Pater (right)
I have photos of thirteen of my sixteen great great grandparents. Maartje Veldman (1862-1904) is one of three for whom I don’t.
Maartje Veldman was the mother of Johannis Albertus van der Fluit and my father’s great grandmother. She was also the second wife of Jan Dirksz van der Fluit. Maartje was born on December 22, 1862 in Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland, the third child of Jan Veldman and Trintje Stoop.
Like many unmarried Dutch women of her social status, and several of my other female ancestors, Maartje worked as a dienstbode (domestic servant) before she was married. Fortunately for genealogists, many gemeenten (plural of gemeente, a form of municipality usually comprised of several communities) kept a Dienstboderegister as part of their Burgerlijke Standregisters (Civil Registration Registers). This was due, in part, because many domestic servants lived with the families they served.
What caught my eye about Maartje’s registration is that she started work as a domestic servant much younger than my other ancestors. She was 14 years old when she began her first job on June 7, 1877. Her family was resident in Barsingerhorn, but her work was for a family that lived about 7.5 kilometers south, in Oude Niedorp. Maartje remained with that family until February 5, 1879, a couple months after she turned 16.
Another thing that caught my eye was that two weeks before Maartje left Oude Niedorp, her older sister Elizabeth (1861-1935), moved to Oude Niedorp to work as a domestic servant. Elizabeth is directly below Maartje in the Dienstboderegister. Elizabeth was 17 years old at the time. Elizabeth remained there until January 23, 1882, when she returned home to Barsingerhorn. Elizabeth married her first husband, Arie Zut, three months later, on April 21, 1882.
Maartje and Elizabeth in the Oude Niedorp Dienstboderegister (Servant Register) 1860-1889.
I haven’t found any indication that Elizabeth had worked as a domestic servant prior to this posting. What seemed odd is that the younger sister left home for work before the elder sister.
Coming and going. The top line is Maartje, the one below is Elizabeth.
There was no rest for Maartje when she left Oude Niedorp and returned home to Barsingerhorn. She immediately began work for a new family that was also resident in Barsingerhorn, which meant that Maartje was able to live at home with her parents during this job.
The Dienstboderegister does not indicate how long Maartje worked as a domestic servant in Barsingerhorn. All I know is that she was no longer working when she married Jan.
Top of the entry for the registration of Jan and Maartje’s marriage.
Jan and Maartje had seven children together, but the first two died shortly after birth. The rest survived to adulthood and married. The youngest child, a daughter named Brigettha Maria, was born on July 4, 1904. Maartje died one month later, on August 5, 1904, in Oude Niedorp. She was 41 years old. While I do not have a cause of death, I cannot help but wonder if it had been related to childbirth.
The signatures of Jan, Maartje, and the witnesses on the marriage registration.
UPDATE!
February 15, 2025: Eureka, I’ve found a photo of Maartje!
Jan Dirksz van der Fluit was born in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland, Netherlands on September 14, 1846 to Dirk Pietersz van der Fluit and Aaltje Klaasse Stroet.
While I have a significant amount of information and source material for Jan, the one great mystery is whether the man seen in the image above is, in fact, Jan Dirksz van der Fluit. In an email, the person who provided it to me questioned whether he had correctly identified Jan as the person in the photo. He indicated that it is possible that the man is actually Jan’s brother-in-law, Klaas Dekker (1832 – 1912). Klaas was married to Jan’s sister Geertje (1841-1928). My correspondent did not indicate where he acquired the image. So this card is either Jan van der Fluit or Klaas Dekker.
The other mystery about Jan is how he spent his life between the day he was born and his first marriage to his first wife, Bregtje (also “Brechtje” or “Brigetta”) Tak, who he married on April 9, 1880. That’s a 33 year gap in time for which I have no information. At most, at the time of his marriage to Bregtje, Jan had been a farmer and a labourer, most likely in Oude Niedorp or Niuewe Niedorp.
[UpdateFebruary 20, 2025: Today I found a Bevolkingsregister for Oude Niedorp for 1860-1885, with an entry for Jan’s mother, Aaltje Stroet and all her children. This was after Jan’s father had died. It indicates that up to age 15, Jan was most likely living with his mother in ‘t Veld. From age 15 to 18, Jan lived in Heerhugowaard. I will have to look for a Bevolkingsregister for Heerhugowaard to see if I can learn more. In February 1865, Jan moved back home with his mother and siblings in ‘t Veld.]
Bregtje was born in Oude Niedorp in May 20, 1855. She was 24 when she married Jan, who was 33 at the time. Jan and Bregtje had three children: Dirk, Geertruida, and Petrus. It was not a long marriage, as Bregtje died on December 8, 1884, nine days after Petrus was born. Given the close connection in time, it may be that it had been a difficult childbirth that ultimately resulted in Bregtje’s demise.
Jan married for a second time nine months later, to Maartje Veldman (1862-1904), in Barsingerhorn, Noord Holland on August 19, 1885. Maartje was 22 when she married Jan, who was then 38. I am descended from Maartje, who is Card V3 – so more on her next week. Jan’s marriage to Maartje lasted almost 20 years, ending when Maartje passed away.
Heldersche en Nieuwedieper Courant, September 9, 1885, page 4. “Engaged and Married: Jan van der Fluit, widower of Brechtje Tak, 38 years old, and Maartje Veldman, never married, 22 years old.
Jan and Maartje had seven children together, although the first two did not survive infancy. Their fourth child was my great grandfather, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit. Jan outlived Johannis by three years. Maartje passed away on August 5, 1904, exactly one month after the birth of her youngest child, Brigettha.
Jan married for a third time, to Aagje Rood in Oude Niedorp on January 24, 1907. Aagje was born on December 20, 1863, in Heerhugowaard, Noord Holland, making her 43 when she married Jan. Aagje was a widow at the time she married Jan, having been previously married to Arie Pater. I have not done much research into Arie, but would not be surprised if he is somehow related to me given that my father’s maternal line is Pater. However, to date I have yet to find any connection between Arie and my Paters. Unlike Jan’s previous wives, Aagje outlived Jan – by two and a half months. She died on May 4, 1935.
Bevolkingsregister for Oude Niedorp for 1931 to 1938
At the time of his second marriage, Jan was a merchant and shopkeeper. I know he was involved in that line of work until at least 1894, but I do not know the extent or details of that occupation. By 1904, he had returned to work as a labourer, which he apparently did until a year before he died. Since he died in 1935, that would mean he was still working when he was 87. The Bevolkingsregister(population register) for Oude Niedorp for 1910 to 1930 shows that he was a labourer during that entire time. The Oude Niedorp Bevolkingsregister for 1931 to 1938 indicated that he was still a labourer, at least until June 1934 when he moved to Westerblokker, which is about 16 kilometers from Oude Niedorp.
Jan’s bidprentje
However, I doubt that was so. It seems unlikely that he would still be working as a labourer in his mid-80s. The bidprentje (prayer card or in memoriam card) given out when he died. It indicated that in his last years “his legs could barely carry him”, yet he was still able to “shuffle” or “trudge” to church every day before dawn. His death registration also clearly indicated he was no longer working at the time he died.
Jan’s work was not limited to being a labourer during this period. In 1907, he was also working as a milkman; in July 1917 he was once again doing some form of work as a merchant.
On June 6, 1934, Jan and Aagje moved to Westerblokker. I still have to find the Bevolkingsregister for Westerblokker from that time. It’s on my to-do list; however, it is not yet available to the public because it includes a time period that is restricted under privacy laws. Jan died seven months later, on February 22, 1935. His bidprentje says that he passed away in “Bethlehem” house. Bethlehem was a monastery, which must have had some sort of palliative or care home. Jan was buried in Westerblokker.
UPDATE!
February 15, 2025: Late last week I was able to verify that yes, indeed, this is a photo of Jan Dirksz van der Fluit! Not only that, but it resulted in finding a photo of his wife Maartje Veldman!
A Deck of Ancestors 