Tag: de Groot

52W Mark IV – Week 11: Card V11 Teetje de Groot

Teetje de Groot (1830-1900)

I have three direct ancestors with the forename “Teetje”: Teetje Pater (my Great Grandmother); Teetje de Groot (my Gx3 Grandmother); and Teetje Bakker (my Gx5 Grandmother). It might not surprise you that Teetje de Groot is Teetje Pater’s maternal grandmother and that Teetje Bakker is Teetje de Groot’s maternal grandmother, especially if you are aware of Dutch naming customs.

Traditionally, the first son is named after the paternal grandfather, the second son is name after the maternal grandfather, the first daughter is named after the maternal grandmother, and the second daughter after paternal grandmother. I knew of this custom for years before it dawned on me to apply it to my father and his siblings, and sure enough, they followed this pattern, assuming that “Thecla” is a variant of Teetje. I also had it that “Teetje” was a form of Theresia, at least according to some records I have of my great grandmother.

However, I recently learned of the Corpus of First Names in the Netherlands. It does not indicate any relationship between “Teetje” and “Thecla”. It also does not indicate that “Teetje” has any relationship with “Theresia”, nor does Dutch Wikipedia. I had similar results at Voornamenboek (“first name book”). However, there would be nothing stopping someone named Theresia from using the roepnaam (nickname) Teetje, or my grandmother substituting “Thecla” for “Teetje” when she named my aunt.

The first paragraph of Teetje’s birth registration.

Turning to the middle of my chain of Teetje grandmothers, Teetje de Groot was born December 18, 1830 in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland. She was the third of thirteen children, and the first daughter, born to Jan de Groot and Sijtje Sijbecarspel, my Gx4 grandparents. Teetje was also the first to live past childhood. In fact, only four of Jan and Sijtje’s children lived to adulthood. Of those who died in childhood, one lived to age eight, one lived to be three, and none of the others survived infancy. Of the four who attained adulthood, Teetje lived the longest and was the last of the de Groot children to pass away.

Extract from the marriage registration for Jan Pater and Teetje de Groot, June 11, 1852.
The circle shows the location of Jan and Sijtje’s farm, where their daughter Teetje and son-in-law Jan Pater later came to live. The star shows where my father was born.

Teetje likely spent all of her adult life living at the same home. After they married, Teetje and Jan moved into Teetje’s parent’s house in Zijdewind, which at the time was part of gemeente (municipality) Oude Niedorp. Teetje was still living there after her parents and husband passed away. At least two of her children, Gerrit and Bregje, were still living with her at the house in Zijdewind in 1880. It seems that Gerrit remained at the house after Teetje passed away; he sold it in 1917.

The house was an elongated structure that was divided into a living room with two box beds and a stable for four cows. In the living area there was a small kitchen with a rainwater tank. Rainwater was collected via the gutters and a pipe indoors. The house burned down in 1926.

Teetje died on April 26, 1900 in Oude Niedorp, at the farm in Zijdewind.

Died April 26 (1900) > Teetje de Groot, widow of Jan Pater, age 69.
Death Registration for Teetje de Groot

52W Mark II – Week 51: I’m My Own Gran…er, Cousin

Wow, hard to believe that it’s the penultimate week of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors Challenge!

This week we’ve been challenged with the theme “Cousin”. As stated by Amy, “The neat thing about this theme is that we genealogists know that everyone is our cousin! That definitely opens up the possibilities for who to write about!” Thus, no cousin is too distant!

So what do a sixth cousin, ninth cousin, tenth cousin, and fourteenth cousin in my family tree all have in common? They’re all me!

Being one’s own cousin is not unique to me. Most genealogists have seen the posts, memes, and graphics showing how many ancestors we have:

While technically correct – you need all these ancestors to have been born – it gives the impression that these are all separate unique individuals. However, the truth is that somewhere along the line two great x n ancestors are the same person. Otherwise, the math simply does not work out. It would mean that you have 67,108,864 individual great x 25 grandparents, which would have exceeded the population of the Earth at the time they lived. Robin Fox, an anthropology professor at Rutgers estimated that 80% of marriages in history were between second or closer cousins. The resulting phenomenon is referred to as “pedigree collapse“, although I was amused by the term “genealogical shrinkage“.

An extreme example of aristocratic pedigree collapse.

It’s well-known that the aristocracy and nobility have had marriages between close relations for diplomatic, political, and financial reasons. However, this practice also occurred at the lower end of the social ladder (here’s an extreme example from Yvette Hoitink, a Dutch genealogist). It’s inevitable to find first, second, and third cousins who are married living in small and isolated communities, and not just in colonial times. Moreover, once you get to a more distant relationship – who really knows (other than genealogists) who their fifth cousins might be – couples might not have even been aware that they were cousins.

A considerable example might be Iceland, a country of fewer than 400,000 people, with a relatively stable population of few immigrants over 1,000 years. Icelanders concerned about their consanguinity can consult an app that helps identify how closely they might be related to a potential partner.

My closest relationship to myself is through my father’s paternal grandparents, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit and Theresia “Teetje” Pater, who were third cousins. They were born in raised in nearby villages in the Netherlands that are less than two kilometers apart. They married on July 20, 1917.

Johannis and Teetje are both descendants of Cornelis Klaasz de Groot and Geertje Jans de Wit, their great great grandparents and my G x 5 grandparents. Teetje is descended from their eldest son, Jan, while Johannis is descended from their youngest daughter, Elisabeth. Johannis and Teetje would have had to have known the surnames of their great grandparents to even have a clue that they might have been related. I doubt they did.

My grandfather is his own fourth cousin, and fourth cousin with his siblings. My father is his own fifth cousin, and fifth cousin with his siblings. I am my own sixth cousin, and sixth cousin with my siblings.

I can hold a family reunion anytime I want, even if I’m the only one there!