Tag: carpenter

52W Mark IV – Week 21: Card K8 Cornelis Woltering

Cornelis Woltering (1815-1862)

Cornelis Woltering was born on July 17, 1815, in the village of Akersloot, Noord Holland. He was born less than two months after the official establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and one month after the Battle of Waterloo.

Cornelis was the eldest of three children born to Jan Woltering and Antje Boekel. What I find surprising is that Jan was born in what is now Vreden, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, about three kilometers from the Dutch border. Sometime before he married Antje in 1814, Jan literally moved across the Netherlands to Noord-Holland. I have no idea what motivated the move, particularly given the significant distance.

Unlike the majority of my Dutch ancestors who were labourers or farmers, Cornelis was a tradesperson, working as a carpenter. It was the same occupation as his father and it was Cornelis’s profession his entire life.

Cornelis was serving his apprenticeship when he married Neeltje Smit on May 8, 1842 in Zuid-Scharwoude. For the entirety of their marriage, the couple lived in Zuid-Scharwoude, where Cornelis carried out his work.

Cornelis and Neeltje’s marriage registration.

Cornelis and Neeltje had six children. The first born, Leentje, married and later ended up living in the province of Gelderland, most likely in Nijmegen. Another daughter, Anjte, my Great x2 Grandmother, married and spent the rest of her life in Noord-Scharwoude. A son, Jan, who never married, was a tailor. The three other children never survived childhood.

Cornelis died relatively young, at age 47, on December 8, 1862 in Zuid-Scharwoude. Leentje was nineteen; Antje was nine. Neeltje lived another 44 years after her husband’s death.

Cornelis’s death registration.

52W Mark II – Week 36: Tradesperson

The vast majority of my ancestors on both sides of my family were farmers or labourers. Not all the labourers were agricultural workers, but it was still hard work and far from what might be considered a trade.

There are a few interesting exceptions. Cornelis Jan Bakker, my great great grandfather, was a cobbler. I also discovered that my Gx9 grandfather, Gregory Cooke, was a cordwainer. A cordwainer is a shoemaker who specializes in fine, soft, new leather shoes, in contrast to a cobbler, who works with old shoes. I’ve also written about my great great grandmother, Ella Elizabeth Thomas, who was a midwife in Cardston, Alberta, for more than 40 years.

What caught my eye in thinking about the topic for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Tradeperson”, was an interesting branch of my family on the Dutch side of my family tree.

Almost all of my Dutch ancestors who I have identified to date are from the provinces of Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland, which prior to 1840 were one province, Holland. So I was quite surprised to learn early last year that I have a branch of my family that originates in the Achterhoek (literally, “back corner”), the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland that pokes into Germany.

My paternal grandmother was Christina Komen. Her paternal grandmother (my great great grandmother) was Antje (“Anna”) Woltering. Anna’s father, Cornelis, is one of my few ancestors who can be described as a tradesperson. As far as I have discovered, he was a carpenter almost all of his entire adult life. The earliest mention of his occupation was in the registration of his marriage to his wife Neeltje Smit, which occurred on May 8, 1842. It is most likely that Cornelis was a carpenter, or a carpenter’s apprentice, for many years before he married.

While it seems that Cornelis spent most of his life, including his years as a carpenter, in Zuid-Scharwoude, Noord-Holland, he was born about 15 kilometers to the south in the village of Akersloot. How this came to be I have no idea. His parents, Johannes “Jan” Woltering and Antje Boekel, had married in Noord-Scharwoude in 1814 and all of Cornelis’s younger siblings were born in Zuid-Scharwoude. However, it appears that Jan had been living in Akersloot prior to marrying Antje. It may be that the couple returned to Jan’s residence after they married and relocated to Antje’s home town of Zuid-Scharwoude shortly after Cornelis was born.

The bigger surprise to me was that Cornelis’s father, Jan, my Gx4 grandfather, was born in 1788 in what is now Vreden, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Vreden is about three kilometers from the Dutch border and the Achterhoek. Sometime before September 1814, when he married Antje, Jan literally moved across the Netherlands to Noord-Holland. I have no idea why he moved, which was incredible because it was unusual for people to move such distances at that time. Even now it’s about a three-hour drive, which to many of my Dutch relatives is an astounding distance. (For a Canadian, not so much!)

I have not yet determined where Jan’s parents, Gerard Woltering and Maria Francisca Wissing (Cornelis’s paternal grandparents), were born. Gerard and Maria married on April 26, 1787, in Vreden. However, prior to the marriage, Gerard had been living in Buurse, Overijssel, Netherlands. Buurse is three kilometers from the German border and twelve kilometers due north of Vreden. Meanwhile, Maria had been living in Enschede, Overijssel, which is a city about 20 kilometers north of Vreden.

What is more surprising is that Gerard’s occupation was boatbuilder. I am unsure where he carried out that trade, given that the closest large body of water to where he lived and married is at least 100 kilometers away.

Cornelis’s maternal grandfather, and Antje’s father, was Willem Crelisse Boekel, was also a boatmaker. However, unlike Gerard, Willem lived rather close to the water, as he spent his entire life in Noord-Holland.