Tag: huwelijksbijlagen

52W Mark V – Week 21: Cornelia Pieters Kooij

Cornelia Pieters Kooij (1787-150)

With Cornelia Pieters Kooij (sometimes spelled “Kooi”), I begin the paternal set of my Great x4 Grandparents. We’ll be hanging out with the Dutch for the rest of this year’s  52 Ancestors Challenge.

Cornelia was born sometime in early December 1787, in Den Burg, a village on the island of Texel. It’s the westernmost and largest of the Wadden Sea Islands (or Frisian Islands) that stretch from the Netherlands to Denmark. She was the youngest of two children born to Pieter Jans Kooij and Elisabeth Jansz “Liesbeth” Boerse.

Cornelia was born eight months after her father died, on April 13, 1787. I have spent a lot of time trying to discover the reason for Pieter’s death. Living on an island, many of its inhabitants had jobs on the water. I have a lot of Texel ancestors who were harbour pilots and sailors – dangerous work. However, I have no idea what Pieter’s occupation was, as not all of my Texel ancestors worked on the water. While I have several records for Pieter, none included his occupation. More importantly, none of them indicate his cause of death.

Extract from the Roman Catholic Baptism Book of the Official Municipality and the Island of Texel, Beginning in the Year 1727 under the Honourable Hermannus Berna Schutten, Pastor
Page 187, December 16, 1787: “Cornelia ‘Posthuma’, from Den Burg. Parents Pieter Kooijman and Liesbeth Boerse. Witnesses Jan Bruin and Maartje Boerse.”
“Posthuma” means Cornelia was born after the death of her father.

While Cornelia only had her mother and older brother, Jan Pietersz, growing up, I do not know what kind of family support Liesbeth had raising her children. While I know the names of all four of Cordelia’s grandparents, I have no idea if they were still alive when Cordelia was a child. Cordelia also had aunts and uncles on both sides of her family, so maybe they provided support. However, I’ve gone page-by-page through some of the registers for Texel trying, to find other information, but “Kooij” and “Boerse” were surnames that I rarely spotted.

Cornelia’s brother died in July 1812, when she was 24. A year later, on October 13, 1813, Cornelia married Jan Teunisz de Waard. According to the registration of their marriage, Cornelia’s mother was still alive at the time. That is the last mention of Liesbeth Boerse that I have seen in any record.

Stamp on Cornelia and Jan’s marriage registration

An interesting thing about Cornelia and Jan’s marriage was that it occurred a month before a popular uprising forced the French out of the Netherlands and ended Napoleonic rule in the country. The marriage register, along with the documents in their huwelijksbijlage (“marriage supplement”, a set of documents a couple had to provide in order to marry, such as birth extracts and other vital records) bear stamps of the French Empire.

This is an extract from the baptism register Cornelia provided as part of the huwelijksbijlage required for her marriage. It shows that at the time, the island of Texel was part of the Department of Zuyderzée, Arrondissement Alkmaar, Canton Texel. The stamp in the upper left is of the French Empire and the one on the bottom by the signature is for Texel.

Together, Cornelia and Jan had nine children over a 23 year period, all of whom were most likely born in the village of Oudeschild on Texel. Strangely enough for an island, Oudeschild was the only village on the coast of Texel at the time. There is now a ferry terminal at the southermost point of Texel, but it was constructed long after Cornelia’s time.

Cornelia died on June 19, 1850 in Oudeschild.

Cornelia’s death registration.

52W Mark IV – Week 8: Card V8 Jan Gerritsz Veldman

Jan Gerritsz Veldman (1835-1897)

I generally think of my Dutch ancestors – particularly the paternal side of my father’s family – as labourers, farmers, domestic workers, or similar. I suspect that the maternal side of my father’s family might have been better off, although by how much I cannot say. With a couple exceptions, I have to go five or six generations back to find something other than farmer or labourer, such as a cordwainer and a cobbler, a harbour pilot, or a sailor. Of those who worked the land, I doubt few of them actually owned their farms.

One exception is my Gx3 Grandfather, Jan Gerritsz Veldman. During the 52 Ancestors Challenge in 2023 , I described him and his wife Trijntje Stoop as “prosperous“. However, at one point in time he may have been even better off than I had previously thought.

Jan was born on November 27, 1835 in Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland. He was the eighth of twelve children born to Gerrit Veldman and Maartje Cornelis Zijbecarspel. In 1855, when he was 20, he was drafted for the militia, as the Netherlands had mandatory military service until the 1990s. Many conscripts never actually served; rather, they were largely on-call, like a reserve. However, according to his marriage registration, Jan had “bought” himself a replacement.

According to my late friend Nol van den Hurk, this was a common practice “if you had money.” I asked if this meant Jan was well off, Nol responded:

Whether Jan was well to do or not I can’t tell you. The archives hold papers you had to show when you wanted to marry. One of the papers is an official document that showed that you had fulfilled your duty in the Army. In Jan’s case I saw a document, signed by the Queens commissioner’s clerk in the Province North Holland (who was responsible for those things in those days) that said that Jan had his military duties done by a replacement. This was not uncommon in those days, but it never stated who paid for it. It might have been the bride’s father, the groom’s father, the groom himself…. When he was the only son of a farmer, he did not have to join the army. If so, it was stated so in the document.

The passage from Jan and Trijntje’s marriage registration that speaks of Jan having discharged his obligation for military service.

Jan and Trijntje married on May 1, 1858 in Nieuwe Niedorp. I have a copy of their marriage registration, but unfortunately I have not yet found a copy of their huwelijksbijlagen (marriage supplements) online. The marriage supplements are a set of documents the couple had to provide before they could marry, such as birth extracts and other vital records. As well, it used to include a record confirming that the groom had satisfied his mandatory military service. It would be nice if I could visit the Dutch archives in person, but I doubt I’ll be in the Netherlands in the foreseeable future.

The opening portion of Jan and Trijntje’s marriage registration, showing their names, ages, occupations, places of birth, residence, and parents, among other things.

At the time he married Trijntje, Jan was working as a farmer in Nieuwe Niedorp; however, their eldest child, Gerrit, was born in Harenkarspel in 1859. It is likely that Jan actually lived and worked in ‘t Veld, a village within gemeente (municipality) Nieuwe Niedorp, as reflected in the bevolkingsregister (“population register”) of Nieuwe Niedorp for 1860-1870. There was a subsequent bevolkingsregister for ‘t Veld for 1870–1880, which also listed Jan and his family. As for ‘t Veld, it later became part of gemeente Oude Niedorp. It is now within gemeente Hollands Kroon.

It appears that Jan and Trijnte did very well for themselves while living in ‘t Veld. I recently discovered that they were prosperous enough to have domestic servants in the late 1860s. The first, Jansje, worked for Jan and Trijntje until January 1868, but I do not yet know how long she had been there before leaving. The second, Brigitta, worked from February to December 1868.

I love seeing the signatures of my ancestors from so long ago. Here are my Gx3 Grandparents, along with the bride’s parents, my Gx4 Grandparents, 167 years ago.

Jan and Trijntje had eight more children who were born in Nieuwe Niedorp. It appears that all but two children survived infancy and childhood. In May 1872, Jan, Trijntje, and their children moved to Barsingerhorn, which is about five kilometers north of ‘t Veld. There they had the last of their ten children, Aantje, born in 1873.

Upon relocating to Barsingerhorn, Jan and Trijntje began to acquire several pieces of farm properties, which together formed two separate properties. One property consisted of two lots in Oude Niedorp of about 0.157 hectares (about 0.4 acres), on which there was a house. The other property was a farm consisting of 20 lots in Barsingerhorn, totalling about 11.9 hectares (just under 3o acres). The farm property included a farmhouse, pastures, farmland, and a boat.

Approximate size of the total amount of land Jan and Trijntje owned: 24 American football fields (FYI, Canadian football fields are longer.)

When Jan died on May 21, 1897, these pieces of property passed to Trijntje. Within a year after she died, on January 27, 1906, these properties were put up for auction. The auction noticed valued the first property at ƒ835, while the second property was valued at ƒ17,152.66. Together, they amounted to about CDN$427,958.27 in 2025 dollars.

Schager Courant, June 20, 1897, page 3: “Overleden” (Deceased), 21 May, Jan Veldman, age 61, husband of Trijntje Stoop
Schager Courant, Schagen, Noord Holland, Netherlands, November 11, 1906, page 4.
“Openbare Verkooping” (“Public Sale”). This is an itemized list of Jan and Trijntje’s two properties that went up for public auction after Trijntje died.