Tag: Belgium

52W Mark V – Week 26: Johannes Puinbroek

Johannes Puinbroek (1786-1865)

The story of my Great x4 Grandfather, Johannes Puinbroek, is a bewildering conundrum. I alluded to this during Week 2 of the 2024 edition of the 52 Ancestors Challenge, when I wrote, “stay tuned.” Since then I’ve expanded on Johanne’s story, but this is the first time I’ve written a post entirely focused on him. This also gives me the opportunity to correct some errors I made in previous narratives.

The puzzle begins with Johannes’s birth. I don’t have an actual birth record for him, or a baptism record either, for that matter. Information about Johanne’s birth comes from records created much later in his life and after his death.

Johannes’ death registration says that he was born in Hulst, Zeeland, Netherlands, but the registration of his marriage to his second legal wife, Cornelia Bakker (more about her later!), says that he was born in Vrasene, Beveren, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium. At the time Johannes was born, Belgium was part of the Austrian Netherlands, under the rule of the Habsburgs. Vrasene is about five kilometers east of Hulst. I have taken Vrasene as the birthplace, as it was recorded during Johannes’ lifetime and likely came directly from him, unlike the information in his death registration, which would have come from another person.

With later research, I discovered the marriage registration of Johannes and his first legal wife, Johanna van Haeven (more about her later!). It also listed Johannes’ birthplace as Vrasene. Moreover, it indicates that he was born in 1786, which is consistent with his age as recorded in the birth registration of his first child with Maria Letens, who was never his legal wife (more about her later!). Later records, particularly Johannes’s death registration, suggest a year of birth of 1791 or 1792, but those dates were obviously provided by individuals other than Johannes.

For these reasons, in my genealogy database I’ve entered Johannes’s birth as having occurred in 1786 in Vrasene, Beveren, Oost-Vlaanderen, Austrian Netherlands. His parents were Thomas van Puijnbroek and Ommelberg Kouwenberg (or van Cauwenberg), about whom I know very little.

After Johannes’s birth, his life appears to have progressed in a manner that might be expected. By 1810, he was living in Sint Jansteen, Hulst, Zeeland, Netherlands, where he was working as a day labourer. Hulst is about eleven kilometers from Vrasene, in present-day Zeeland. There he married Johanna van Haever (1786-1823) on June 11, 1810. Seven months later Johanna gave birth to their first child, a son named Dominique. Together Johannes and Johanna had six children. It is shortly before the birth of their youngest child, Joseph, in 1822, that Johannes’s story begins to take a turn for the unusual.

Sometime around 1821, Johannes entered into a relationship with Maria Letens (1802-1848), my Great x4 Grandmother. While Johannes and Johanna Judoca were the same age, Johannes was about 16 years older than Maria. Johannes was still married to Johanna at the time. Sometime in late 1821 or very early 1822, Maria conceived a child with Johannes. At the time, Johanna was pregnant with her sixth child with Johannes. Johanna gave birth to Joseph on April 2, 1822, who died three months later, on July 4, 1822.

A month after Joseph died, on August 2, 1822 in Heinkenzand, Zeeland, Maria gave birth to her first child with Johannes, who they named Johanna Adriana, my Great x3 Grandmother. While this fits with the traditional convention of naming the first-born daughter after her maternal grandmother, Joanna van Riet, it hasn’t escaped me that it was also the name of Johannes’s wife, to whom he was still married. Moreover, it complicates the storytelling, as I now have two Johannas to discuss!

According to the birth registration for Johanna Adriana, Johannes was living and working in Vrasene at the time. By then, Vrasene was part of the Netherlands, because until 1830 Belgium formed part of the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Maria was living in Heinkenzand, where Johanna was born, and Johanna Judoca was still in Sint Jansteen.

Heinkenzand is a village on Walcheren, a former island that is now a peninsula in the province of Zeeland. Walcheren is on the north side of the Scheldt Estuary, which is a few kilometers wide at this point, while Vrasene and Sint Jansteen are on the other side. Heinkenzand is about 40 kilometers from Vrasene and just under 30 kilometers from Sint Jansteen. Thus, it appears that Johannes was not living with or near either of his partners in 1822.

Of course, this means that Johannes and Maria were not married when Johanna Adriana was born. In fact, Johannes and Maria never married but were together for about 25 years.

Sometime around 1823, Maria, Johannes, and Johanna Adriana moved to Den Helder, almost 200 kilometers away in Noord Holland, on the northwest tip of the Netherlands. In a country where it seems that travel to the next town is still a major undertaking for the locals, literally moving from one end of the country to another in the early 19th century seems quite amazing. I’m largely speculating, but I suspect the move might have been more a result Maria and Johannes’s personal circumstances than anything to do with what was happening in Zeeland, which was in economic decline at the time.

In making the move, Johannes left behind Johanna Judoca and the children he had with her. However, it appears that only two of Johannes and Johanna Judoca’s children survived childhood. They would have been 12 and 9 when their mother died and their father moved north. Moreover, Johanna Judoca died in Sint Jansteen on April 13, 1823, so it is possible Johannes and Maria moved after Johanna Judoca passed away.

Death registration for Johanna Judoca Van Haever. Interestingly, the tussenvogel (the “van” part of the surname) is spelled with a capital “V”, which is common in Belgium. In the Netherlands, a tussenvogel is traditionally spelled with a lower case letter. Of course, what is more interesting is that the death record names Johannes as Johanna Judoca’s husband, without any indication that they were separated or divorced.

In any event, Johannes and Johanna Judoca’s children remained behind in Zeeland when their father moved north. I have no idea as to who raised them after their father left for Den Helder. In fact, I doubt they ever saw their father again. When Johannes and Johanna Judoca’s eldest son, Dominique, married in Sint Jansteen in 1838, he attested that he did not know if his father was alive and that he did not know his father’s last residence. It would follow that Dominique likely had no idea about Johanna Adriana or his other half siblings.

Extract from the July 3, 1838 marriage registration of Dominique Puijnbroek, with the passage attesting to his lack of knowledge as to whether his father is still alive or where he might have been living.

In Den Helder, Johannes and Maria had four more children. The first of these four, Frederika, was born on February 23, 1824, but she did not survive the day. Their last child, Willem, was born in 1834. As of 1840, the family was still living together in Den Helder, although Johannes and Maria remained unmarried.

Extract from the Bevolkingsregister (Population Register) for Den Helder for 1830, showing the family unit of Johannes, Maria, and Johanna Adriana.

It’s a mystery to me why Johannes and Maria never married. Since Johanna Judoca had passed away early in Johannes and Maria’s relationship, I cannot find any impediment to them marrying – to each other or anyone else.

Extract from the Bevolkingsregister for Den Helder for 1840, showing Johannes, Maria, and four children (two male, two female). It shows that the members of the household were all Roman Catholic. If so, that discounts the possibility that Johannes and Maria never married because they were of different religions.

In fact, 25 years after they began their relationship, Johannes and Maria each got married: Maria to Jacob Pel (1816-1848) on August 14, 1845 and Johannes to Cornelia Bakker (1804-1859) on April 2, 1846. Both marriages took place in Den Helder. Both Johannes and Maria were the elder partners in their new relationships. Johannes was 18 years older than Cornelia, while Maria was 14 years older than Jacob.

The registration and marriage supplements for Johannes and Cornelia’s marriage did not include any mention of Maria (e.g. divorce, etc.). Likewise, I have not found any mention of Johannes in the records for Maria’s marriage to Jacob. Johannes’s death registration mentioned his late wives Johanna Judoca and Cornelia, but made no mention of Maria, mother to five of Johannes’s children. This further supports the conclusion that Johannes and Maria were never legally married.

Extract from the marriage registration for Johannes and Cornelia. While it mentions that Johannes was a widower and names his late wife Johanna Judoca, there is no mention of Maria anywhere in the register or supporting marriage supplement.

For most of his time in Den Helder, Johannes worked as a labourer. However, in 1830 he was working as a tapper (i.e. barman), while in 1847 he was a karrijder (someone who drives an animal-drawn vehicle). I don’t know how long Johannes worked at either of those two occupations.

“Married J. Puinbroek and C. Bakker”

After Johannes married Cornelia, the odd trajectory of his life appears to have settled. Not surprising, because Cornelia was 42 when she married Johannes, they never had any children that I know of. Johannes passed away in Den Helder on January 1, 1865, having outlived both Maria and Cornelia by many years.

Death registration for Johannes Puinbroek. It states that he was a widower twice over, naming his late wives Johanna Judoca and Cornelia, but no mention of Maria. However, the declarant who reported Johannes’s death was his third child with Maria, Hendrikus Bernardus Puinbroek.

52W Mark V – Week 25: Maria Theresia Letens

Maria Theresia Letens (1802-1848)

The story of my Great x4 Grandmother, Maria Theresia Letens, is one of the more complicated stories in my family history. The countless hours of research I poured into finding it out reflects that complexity.

The vast majority of my Dutch ancestors are from the province of Noord Holland, with one branch originating in Zuid Holland and migrating to Noord Holland in the early 1800s. But not Maria. She was born in Clinge, Zeeland, Netherlands on December 18, 1802.

Clinge is located on the Dutch-Belgian border, adjacent to De Clinge (now De Klinge), Oost-Vlanderen. When Maria was born, the Netherlands was under Napoleon’s control. However, Zeeland was not part of metropolitan France at the time; rather, it was part of the “sister republic” known as the Batavian Republic. An extract of Maria’s birth registration prepared in 1845 is in French and states that, according to the French Republican calendar, she was born on the “vingt septième jour du Mois de Frimaire in the Republic of France”.

Maria was born to Petrus Letens and Joanna Maria van Riet (or van Triet). I have also seen Maria’s surname recorded as “Leetens”, “Leydens”, and “Lotens,” although the latter was clearly a mistranscription. The record of her baptism is only available as a transcription on the Zeeland Archives website, so I have not seen the original form of the document. I only have a copy of an extract of Maria’s birth registration that was used when she got married in 1845.

Extract from Maria’s birth registration. Even though it was prepared in 1840, decades after the end of French rule, the document is written in French.

I know nothing about where Petrus Letens was born or who his parents were. While I know he was born in 1771, I have no idea when he died. Records for his children indicate that he was from Zonhoven, which is in the northeastern part of what is now Belgium, not far from the Dutch city of Maastrict. I suspect Petrus may have outlived his wife, because Joanna Maria’s death registration names Petrus as her husband and does not indicate that she was a widow. I also know Petrus was a shepherd by profession, which is unique amongst my ancestors.

Joanna Maria (1772-1810) was born in Clinge and died in Hulst, Zeeland. Joanna Maria’s father was named as “Jean Antoine” in her death registration; however, because it occurred during the French occupation, I suspect his name was actually Johannes Antonius.

Maria was the fourth of seven children born to Petrus and Joanna, but four died in early childhood. In fact, four months before Maria was born, an older sister who was also named Maria Theresia passed away. The elder Maria was not yet three years old when she died.

Sometime around 1821, Maria entered into a relationship with Johannes Puinbroek, my Great x4 Grandfather. Johannes was about 16 years older than Maria. Maria and Johannes never married but were together for about 25 years. When they first got together, Johannes was married to another woman named Johanna. Sometime in late 1821 or very early 1822, Maria conceived a child with Johannes. At the same time, Johanna was pregnant with her sixth child with Johannes. Johanna gave birth to a son in April 1822 and died less than a fortnight later. Her son died three months later.

Maria gave birth to a daughter, Johanna (same name as her partner’s late wife!), on August 2, 1822, in Heinkenszand, a village on Walcheren, a former island that is now a peninsula in the province of Zeeland. However, according to Johanna’s birth registration, her parents were living in different towns located about 40 kilometers apart. Maria was living in Heinkenszand while Johannes was living in Vrasene, Oost-Vlaanderen, where he was born. Vrasene is just outside of Antwerp, which was still part of the Netherlands. Belgium did not become a country until 1830. Vrasene is about 10 kilometers from Sint Jansteen, where his wife Johanna gave birth to all of the children she had with Johannes. Thus, it appears Johannes was not living near either of his partners at the time they gave birth in 1822.

Sometime around 1823, Maria, Johannes, and their daughter moved to Den Helder, almost 200 kilometers away in Noord Holland, on the northwest tip of the Netherlands. In a country where it seems that travel to the next town is still a major undertaking for the locals, literally moving from one end of the country to another in the early 19th century seems quite amazing. I’m largely speculating based on very little evidence, but I suspect the move might have been more a result Maria and Johannes’s personal circumstances than anything to do with what was happening in Zeeland, which was in economic decline at the time.

In Den Helder, Maria had four more children with Johannes. The first, Frederika, was born on February 23, 1824, but she did not survive the day. Their last child, Willem, was born in 1834. As of 1840, the family was still living together in Den Helder, although Johannes and Maria remained unmarried. It’s a mystery to me why Johannes and Maria never married. Since Johannes’s wife Johanna had passed away, I cannot think of or find any impediment to Maria and Johannes marrying, to each other or anyone else.

In fact, in Den Helder on August 14, 1845, Maria married a sailor named Jacob Pel. Maria was 42; Jacob was 29 – only six years older than Maria’s eldest child. Johannes Puinbroek was still very much alive at the time, and outlived Maria by over fifteen years.

Opening passage of the marriage registration for Maria Letens and Jacob Pel.

Like Maria, Jacob Pel was also born in Zeeland, although by the time he was required to register for compulsory military service he was living in Noord Holland. The couple never had children and the marriage was short, just over three years long, as Maria died on December 19, 1848 in Den Helder, the day after her 46th birthday. It does not appear that Jacob, who died in 1884, ever married again.

52W Mark IV – Week 24: Card K11 Johanna Adriana Puinbroek

Johanna Adriana Puinbroek (1822-1881)

I am terribly, terribly far behind with this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge. Ironically, I thought I would be much more focused on the writing, since I had thought that I had done a thorough job on the research for the individuals I had been planning to write about. How wrong I was!

Not only did I discover that I had a lot of gaps in my research, I kept getting sucked into rabbit holes of other research. Particularly so for Johanna Adriana Puinbroek, my Great x3 Grandmother. For years her parents, Johannes Puinbroek (1786-1865) and Maria Theresia Letens (1802-1848), have been a mystery to me. So instead of writing about Johanna I spent most of the last several weeks researching her parents. After overcoming a litany of hurdles I won’t detail here, I finally cracked through some brick walls.

But first, Johanna. I find her interesting in her own right for several reasons. One is where she was born. The vast majority of my Dutch ancestors are from the province of Noord Holland, with one branch originating in Zuid Holland and migrating to Noord Holland in the early 1800s.  But not Johanna.

Johanna Adriana’s birth registration. “Ledens” was one of the many spelling variations for her mother’s surname; there are also many iterations of the spelling of “Puinbroek” in the records.

Johanna was born on August 2, 1822 in Heinkenszand, a village on Walcheren, a former island that is now a peninsula in the province of Zeeland. It is almost as far down the Dutch coast as you can get from Den Helder, Noord Holland, where she and her parents moved before Johanna turned two. In a country where it seems that travel to the next town is still a major undertaking for the locals, literally moving from one end of the country to another in the early 19th century seems quite amazing.

It is largely speculation based on little evidence, but I suspect the move might have been more a result of her parent’s personal circumstances than anything to do with what was happening in Zeeland at the time. Johannes and Maria were not married when Johanna was born; in fact, they never married during the almost 25 years that they were together. That might not be unusual in itself.

However, when Maria conceived Johanna Adriana, Johannes was married to another woman, Johanna Judoca van Haever (1786-1823). While Johannes and Johanna Judoca were the same age, Johannes was 16 years older than Maria. Johanna Judoca died in April 1822, shortly after giving birth to her and Johannes’s sixth child, Josephus Bernardus. Josephus died three months later, in July.

The following month Johanna Adriana was born to Johannes and Maria. In fact, the birth registration for Johanna Adriana shows that Johannes and Maria were living in different towns about 40 kilometers apart. Maria was living in Heinkenszand, where Johanna Adriana was born. Johannes was living in Vrasene, Oost-Vlaanderen, where he was born. Vrasene is just outside of Antwerp, which was still part of the Netherlands. Belgium did not become a country until 1830. Vrasene is about 10 kilometers from Sint Jansteen, where Johanna Judoca lived her entire life. So it appears Johannes was not living near either of his partners at the time.

Sometime before 1824, Johannes, Maria, and Johanna Adriana moved to Den Helder. It appears that only two of Johannes and Johanna Judoca’s children survived childhood. They would have been 12 and 9 when their mother died and their father moved north, but they did not accompany him. They both stayed in Zeeland. I don’t know who raised them after their father left for Den Helder.

In fact, I doubt they ever saw their father again. When Johannes and Johanna Judoca’s eldest son, Dominique, married in Sint Jansteen in 1838, he attested that he did not know if his father was alive and that he did not know his father’s last residence. It would follow that Dominique likely had no idea about Johanna Adriana or his other half siblings.

The passage from Dominique Puijenbroek’s marriage registration in which he attests to the fact he had no knowledge of his father’s whereabouts. In fact, Dominique said that he believed his father was deceased.

In Den Helder, Johannes and Maria had four more children. The first, Frederika, was born on February 23, 1824, but she did not survive the day. Their last child, Willem, was born in 1834. As of 1840, the family was still living together in Den Helder, although Johannes and Maria remained unmarried. It’s a mystery to me why Johannes and Maria never married. Since Johanna Judoca had passed away, I cannot find any impediment to them marrying – to each other or anyone else.

Five years later, in 1845 when Johanna Adriana was 23 years old, Maria married a sailor named Jacob Pel. Maria was 42; Jacob was 29 – only six years older than Johanna Adriana. Like Maria, Jacob was also born in Zeeland, although by the time he was required to register for compulsory military service he was living in Noord Holland. The couple never had children and the marriage was short, as Maria died in December 1848, the day after her 46th birthday. It does not appear that Jacob ever married again.

A year after Maria married Jacob, her former partner Johannes married Cornelia Bakker, on April 2, 1846. Johannes, who was then 60, was 18 years older than Cornelia, who was 42. There were children in this marriage. Despite Cornelia’s much younger age, Johannes outlived her. She died on February 20, 1859. Johannes died on January 1, 1865.

On June 3, 1847, two years after her mother married Jacob and one year after her father married Cornelia, Johanna Adriana married Jan Cornelis Bakker, a 28-year-old sailor who was living in Den Helder. Johanna was 24 at the time. They had one child together, my Gx2 Grandfather Cornelis Jan Bakker, who was born in 1855. Unfortunately, Jan died young, at age 40, when Cornelis was only four years old.

The top and bottom of Johanna Adriana and Jan’s marriage registration. The bottom half notes that Johannes Puinbroek could not read or write. It also bears the signature of Maria Letens.

Within two years of Jan’s death, on June 16, 1861, Johanna Adriana married Pieter Dekker (1813-1885), in Den Helder. Pieter was also a sailor and spent many decades at that profession, although when Johanna died on June 24, 1881 he was a shopkeeper in Den Helder. Johanna and Pieter never had any children.

Alkmaarsche Courant, June 9, 1861. “Civil Register. Married June 7. Pieter Dekker, widower of Siesje Boon, from Alkmaar, and Johanna Puimbroek, widow of Jan Cornelis Bakker, from Den Helder.”

The account of Johanna and her parents is one of the more complicated stories in my family history. The countless hours of research I poured into finding it out reflects that complexity.

Vliegend Blaadje: Nieuws- en Advertentieblad voor Den Helder,
June 28, 1881. “Today after a short illness my beloved wife Johanna Adriana Puinbroek passed away after receiving the Holy Sacrament of the Last Rites, at the age of 58 years and 10 months. Den Helder, June 24, 1881. P. Dekker. Also in the name of my son. This is for general information.” The son Pieter Dekker referred to was from his first marriage.