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.
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.