During my last visit to the Netherlands, I was fortunate to visit a graveyard where several of my relatives are interred. I say fortunate, because in the Netherlands graves are routinely cleared after a few decades.
I was staying with a cousin whose home is only a few hundred metres from the Kerk van Sint-Joannes de Doper (Church of Saint John the Baptist – link is in Dutch). I walked past it every day. One afternoon my father and I, along with a few of our cousins, explored the church and the adjacent graveyard, Het Parochiële Kerkhof Sint Jan de Doper (The Parish Cemetery of Saint John the Baptist – link is to Find a Grave).
Here are a few of the graves of some of some of my extended family, several of whom I had the pleasure of knowing, including my great uncle, Nic van Kleef.
(As cemeteries are a big part of genealogy, it should come as no surprise that it forms a common theme for the 52 Ancestors Challenge. For Week 46 of the challenge in 2022, the theme was “Tombstones“.)
A Deck of Ancestors 