Five or six years ago I presented on the topic of “Law and Genealogy” at a continuing professional development conference. In my PowerPoint presentation, I used several examples from my own research to illustrate several of my points. For example, to illustrate one of five parts of the Genealogical Proof Standard, I used an image of the citations I used in support of the date of the birth of my great grandfather, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit (1894-1932).
What struck me at the time was how many sources I had for that one fact – 17 at the time. If memory serves, I think that was one of the reasons I chose this fact to demonstrate the point. Heck, I could have used this image to illustrate the principle of conducting reasonably exhaustive research!
That slide has stuck with me, so with “Most” being the prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I got to wondering which ancestor in my family tree has the most sources. Not necessarily the best, or most reliable, or bear the most evidentiary weight – just most. Unfortunately, my software won’t provide the kind of statistics I’m looking for, so I manually went through the entries for all my direct ancestors up to and including my great grandparents.
The most heavily sourced of any fact for this set of ancestors is the April 13, 1919 marriage of my mother’s maternal grandparents, Milton Leo Burgess and Hazel Nelson, with 22 unique sources cited.
Not far behind is the list of sources demonstrating the marriage of my father’s maternal grandparents, Adrianus Komen and Elizabeth Bakker. I have cited 19 separate sources for their marriage that occurred on April 7, 1921.
Returning to Hazel Nelson, I also have 20 separate individual sources for her birth, which occurred on December 15, 1899.
However, where I can find the most sources is in the two folders of electronic documents I’ve gathered that are all vying for my attention. There is also a banker’s box of documents that also need to be written up. Unfortunately, I hate preparing source citations as much as I love genealogy!
These sources aren’t going to write themselves up…Where are the genealogy elves when you need them?
The topic of food is one of the prompts that shows up in the 52 Ancestors Challenge every year. This makes it a difficult topic to write about, since I covered it broadly in the first and second year I participated in the challenge. However, as Amy often reminds participants, the prompts are merely suggestions and we can interpret them as broadly as we want. Which I’ve done, writing about pets when the prompt was flowers, and vice versa!
With this week’s prompt, I’ve not stretched the topic as far as pets to flowers. Rather, I am looking at the favourite treats of my ancestors.
I’ll start with my mother’s maternal line. As I’ve often written about here, that branch of the family are Germans from Russia. One of their favourite treats is halva. It’s a confection that originated in Persia (now Iran) that spread throughout the Middle East and, later, throughout the Ottoman Empire. While halva was originally made with a variety of different ingredients, such as flour and dates, the traditional Turkish version is usually made with sesame seeds and most often sweetened with honey or sugar. You can find halva in many varieties. Halva with pistachios, chocolate, or vanilla is quite common.
Many German settlements in the Russian Empire were in what is now the Ukraine, which the Russians had taken from the Ottoman Turks in a series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries. While the German population was originally introduced to the Turkish version of halva, they most likely learned of the sweet treat from the local Jewish population that had been in Ukraine for centuries, including the time of Ottoman rule. However, the Germans soon modified the recipe using sunflowers, which are abundant in Ukraine and that are a symbol of that country. I’ve heard that many German-Russians prefer the sunflower variety, but I’ve never seen it. My grandmother and mother always bought the traditional Turkish version. While not a traditional Christmas food, that is the time of year my mother would most often buy it. My mother often spread it on toast, which is quite delicious.
Turning to my father’s side of the family, I’ll admit that Dutch cuisine is not world-famous for many good reasons. That said, there are many delicious treats that make up for it. One of my favourites, bitterballen, is commonly found as a bar snack. They are somewhat similar to croquettes, but are smaller and rounder. They are made of a mixture of minced beef, roux, onions, and seasonings, breaded, and fried. They’re addictive little snacks. There is a chain of cafes and coffee shops in the Netherlands called The Bulldog. In the 1990s, they had a location in Vancouver. I often went there for lunch with a friend and we always started with bitterballen.
Bitterballen are traditionally served with mustard. Lekker!
The Dutch also have many sweet treats. Almond-based treats (including marzipan) and baked goods made with warm spices are quite popular. The one I can remember having ever since I was little is speculaas. They always contain ginger, along with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, anise, allspice, and white pepper. With those flavours, they were a common Christmastime treat, but now it is common to enjoy them year-round. They are particularly good with coffee. While speculaas might have been obscure outside the Netherlands and its former colonies, they’ve always been relatively easy to find in Canada. I’ve also noticed them popping up on baking and cooking shows in recent years.
Another delicious treat that is also good with coffee are stroopwafels. They’re made up of thin waffle-like wafers with a thin layer of caramel sandwiched in the middle. (“Waffle”, by the way, is an English word of Dutch origin.) They originated in the city of Gouda as a means for bakers to repurpose crumbs and scraps. You can get them freshly made from street vendors in the Netherlands, as well as bakeries and cafes. The availability of stroopwafels in Canada seems to wax and wane, although they’re always available in Dutch specialty stores. They were also featured as the technical challenge during “Caramel Week” on Season Eight of The Great British Bake Off (airing as The Great British Baking Show in the United States and Canada). It’s common to place them on top of a hot cup of coffee, which warms and softens them. So delicious!
Finally, many people know that the Netherlands is famous for its chocolate. During Sinterklaas, a favourite treat is chocoladeletters (“chocolate letters”). Centuries ago they originated as baked goods, but are now almost exclusively made of chocolate. It is traditional to receive a chocolate letter of the initial of your first name. My great grandmother, Elizabeth Bakker, always included chocolate letters in the box of goodies she sent us every Christmas. When we were children, there was always an argument that some letters were bigger than others so they had more chocolate. The truth is, while the surface area of each letter might differ, they are manufactured in different thicknesses so that every letter contains the same amount. The other problem is finding letters that are uncommon initials for names in the Netherlands, although that is less of a problem than it used to be.
Chocolate letters are another item for which, outside the Netherlands, the availability seems to change over time. When I was a kid, they seemed to be available everywhere. Purdy’s made their own for a while, but I haven’t seen them there in a long time. In recent years, the only place I could find them were in Dutch stores. Even then, I could not find Droste letters – the absolute best ones, bar none – anywhere. You could only find the secondary brands. I once asked a vendor if Droste no longer shipped to Canada, and was told they were simply too expensive to carry. Luckily, a couple years ago I found Droste chocoladeletters in a Dutch store in Lethbridge.
Fortunately, chocolate letters seem to be getting easier to find again, as I saw them being sold in many mainstream supermarkets and shops last Christmas. I first noticed them showing up a couple years ago in a local independent grocery store that specializes in Asian foods and ingredients of all places. Plus, in our neighbourhood of Steveston, there is a chocolatier that makes them – in every letter!
During my first trip to the Netherlands, I discovered a Droste store directly across from the Amsterdam Centraal Station. I enjoyed being able to buy any letter I wanted, well out of season! Sadly, the last time I was in Amsterdam, the store was gone.
In the Netherlands, there has not been much of a tradition of preparing and publishing obituaries of deceased persons. Deaths were once noted in local newspapers in regular reports of recent entries of births, marriages, and deaths taken from the local civil registry (“burgerlijke stand”). What is more common to see in newspapers are “familieberichten” (“family notices”). These are all secular forms of announcing and commemorating the death of a person.
For Roman Catholics, another common form of remembrance is a “bidprentje” (“prayer card”). In Germany, they are known as a “totenzettel”. These are usually given out at funerals and commemorate a deceased person. They usually consist of a short prayer or biblical verse along with the name of the deceased. However, bidprentjes can be used to mark other religious milestones, such as baptisms, first communions, confirmations, marriages, and ordinations into the priesthood. While they originated as a Roman Catholic tradition, in recent decades the practice of making these cards has occurred within other religious traditions.
Bidprentjes are a fantastic source of genealogical information. In addition to the name of the deceased they usually include the dates and places of their birth and death and the name of the deceased’s spouse. They also often have details of the date and place of the funeral and interment. Older bidprentjes are quite beautiful as they were adorned with religious art and iconography. In more recent years, they are more likely to include the name of the deceased’s children. In that regard, they now appear quite similar to familieberichten.
Bidprentje for my great grandfather, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit (1894-1932)
Bidprentje for my great grandmother, Teresia (“Teetje”) Pater (1894-1947)
Bidprentje for my great great grandfather, Jan Dirksz van der Fluit (1846 – 1935). It notes that at the time he died he was the widower of Agatha Rood and that he had been previously married to Maria Veldman (my great great grandmother) and before Maria he was married to Brigetta Tak. Jan had outlived all three of his wives.
Neither bidprentjes nor familieberichten are government documents. They are private documents created, distributed, and published by the family. This means a primary source of bidprentjes would be the family of the deceased. There are also genealogical societies that have collections of bidprentjes. The Centrum Voor Familiegeschiedenis (“Centre for Family History” or “Central Bureau for Genealogy”) also has a collection of bidprentjes. While you can search the collection, you must be a member to view and download the document. Familieberichten can be found at Online Familieberichten and Mensenlinq.
Week Two for the 2024 edition of the 52 Ancestors Challenge, and I’m already struggling. While my experience with the challenge has been rewarding and continues to be so, as I start my third year participating I am finding it harder to find things I haven’t previously written about one way or another. For this week’s prompt, “Origins”, it would have been quite easy to simply recycle any one of a number of past posts. However, I am trying to do something relatively new each week, because I think that’s most in keeping with the purpose and goal of the challenge.
Finally, today, now that Week Three’s prompt has been issued (on another recurring topic!), I thought I had finally come up with something I hadn’t written about before. Turns out that it’s something I’ve touched upon before. Nevertheless, I’m running with it because it’s never been the primary focus of a post.
My father was born in the Netherlands, so I have deep Dutch roots. My direct ancestors are primarily from the central part of what is now the province of Noord Holland, going back centuries. My paternal line has been there for 200 years but originated in Zuid Holland, in towns and villages between Den Haag (The Hague) and Leiden. Most of my Noord Holland ancestors were born, lived, and died roughly within a 280 square kilometre area.
The area of Noord Holland where many of my paternal ancestors lived. This is immediately north-east of Alkmaar, one of the larger cities in the area.
However, several of my Noord Holland ancestors were from Den Helder, a city on the northern tip of the mainland of Noord Holland. It is an important port city. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was a significant mustering and departure point for Dutch overseas trade and exploration. It is now the home of the Netherland’s main naval base.
Three kilometers north of Den Helder, across the Marsdiep strait, is the island of Texel. Through my father’s maternal grandmother, Elisabeth Bakker (1888-1976), I have significant roots in Texel. I do not know how far back those roots truly go, but I know that one branch of Elisabeth’s maternal line was on Texel by end of the 15th century.
In English, the “x” is pronounced the same as it is in “Texas”. In Dutch, it’s pronounced “Tessel”. Texel is the first and largest of the Wadden Sea islands, which stretch along the entire north coast of the Netherlands. Nine hundred years ago, Texel was part of the mainland. A catastrophic flood in 1170 dramatically changed the geography of north-west Netherlands, including the creation of the island of Texel. There has been settlement on Texel since at least the 12th century. Texel even has its own dialect, Tessels. It was common until the 1950s, after which time it went into significant decline.
The island received city rights in 1415. It has been the site of significant naval engagements over the last 400 years. It was also the site of one of the last battles of World War II in Europe. The island had been relatively unscathed during the war itself. It was only after the war was over that it was devastated. A German battalion made up of Georgian soldiers occupied Texel during the war. Supported by the Dutch Resistance, they rebelled in April 1945. Fighting between the Georgians and Germans lasted well beyond VE Day, ending only with the arrival of Canadian troops on May 20, 1945.
Historically, Texel’s primary economic activity involved agriculture and the sea. It is famous for a breed of sheep, Texels, that originated there. In present times, the island is primarily dependent on tourism. While most of my Dutch ancestors were primarily farmers and labourers, many of my Texel ancestors were sailors.
Both of Elisabeth Bakker’s grandfathers, Jan Cornelis Bakker (1819-1859) and Cornelis Ran (1824-1897), were harbour pilots. I suspect it was that line of work that led them to relocate and settle in Den Helder. Two of Elisabeth’s four great grandfathers, Cornelis Dirksz Bakker (1789-1858) and Reijer Ran (1792-1860), were also sailors. It was Elisabeth’s father, Cornelis Jan Bakker (1855-1914) who broke with that tradition. He was a cobbler and shoemaker.
One of Elisabeth’s great grandfathers who was not a sailor was Jan de Waard (1787-1863). He began his working life as a labourer but for the last twenty years of his life he was a shopkeeper. Jan is interesting because nearly all my paternal line were Roman Catholic, but Jan was baptised in the Reformed Church. However, his wife Cornelia Pieters Kooij was Catholic and their children were baptised as Catholics. It is possible that Jan might have converted.
The other interesting thing about Jan and Cornelia is that they were amongst the last to be married during the period of French rule during the Napoleonic wars. They married at Texel on October 10, 1813. The record of their marriage is written in Dutch, but bears the seal of Imperial France. Less than a month after their marriage, a popular uprising resulted in the ouster of the French. On November 30, 1813, the son of the former stadholder of the country returned from exile and was named William I, Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands and subsequently King.
The other of Elizabeth’s great grandfathers who was not a sailor, Johannes Puinbroek (1786-1865), was not even from Texel. In fact, he is quite the oddity in my family tree. He was born so far south from Texel that the town where he was born, Vrasene, is in Belgium (which at the time was the Austrian Netherlands). Sometime around 1822 and 1824 Johannes relocated to Den Helder, where he met and married his third wife. I have no idea beyond speculation as to what prompted him to move. I thought I had written about him before, given his unusual story, but searching through my posts I found nothing. Well! There is something I haven’t written about before! Stay tuned…
A Deck of Ancestors 