Tag: name

52W Mark IV – Week 13: Card V13 Trijntje Jans(en)

Trijntje Jans (1830-1915)

With Week 13, we have reached the last card of the first suit of this year’s deck of ancestors! I am really enjoying the different approach I have taken with the 52 Ancestors Challenge this year. I thought it might be less work, but as I worked through each card, I realized that my research hadn’t been as thorough or complete as I thought it had been. So I’ve spent much more time researching than writing as part of this year’s challenge. In essence, it has turned into Yvette Hoitink‘s Level-Up Challenge!

My Gx3 Grandmother, Trijntje Jans, is featured in this final card. For decades, I’ve had her entered in my database as “Trijntje Jansen”, with “Jans” as an alternate surname. However, quite recently, I’ve reversed things, and now have “Jans” as Trijntje’s surname with “Jansen” as an alternative.

As anyone who has done genealogy for enough time knows, a fixed consistent spelling of names is a relatively recent thing, so the fluidity of Trijntje’s surname is not surprising.

I first used “Jansen” because it was how I first encountered Trijntje. In the marriage registration for Ariaantje Bleeker, my Gx2 Grandmother and Trijntje’s daughter, Trijntje’s surname was recorded as “Jansen”. It was also entered as “Jansen” in the marriage registration of Ariaantje’s younger sister, Aagje Bleeker.

However, in records specifically about Trijntje herself, her surname was recorded as “Jans”. Most significantly, the name entered in the registration of her birth was “Jans”. Trijntje’s marriage and death registrations also named her as “Jans”. To me, that’s a compelling reason to use “Jans” as her “actual” surname and “Jansen” as the alternate.

So what do all these records tell us?

Trijntje was born on January 4, 1830 in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland. She was the first of 13 children born to Cornelis Janz Jans(en) and Ariaantje Noordstrand. Fewer than half the children survived infancy or childhood.

Trijntje’s full birth registration

Oddly enough, the youngest of the 13 children was also named Trijntje. The elder Trijntje was 19 years old when her younger namesake was born and was likely still living at home. There are many reasons why parents would give two or more of their children the same name, but I cannot think of any that would have applied in this case.

Trijntje married Jacob Bleeker on May 12, 1855 in Oude Niedorp. Together they had four children. Sometime between the birth of their second and third children (1859 to 1865), Trijntje and Jacob moved to Harenkarspel, Noord Holland. Harenkarspel is about 10 kilometers west of Oude Niedorp. That strikes me as a huge move, given that even today that seems to be a long distance for some of my relatives who live in Noord Holland. I don’t know why they moved. It’s possible there was significant event in their lives, which might go to the five and a half year age gap between their second child, Cornelis, and third child, Adriana (my Gx2 Grandmother).

Jacob died in 1890, when Trijntje was 60 years old. However, she did not remain in Harenkarspel after he died. According to her death registration, Trijntje died in Medemblik, Noord Holland, on November 8, 1915. I do not know when or why she moved to Medemblik, which is on the coast of the Zuiderzee (“South Sea”), a saltwater bay. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became a freshwater lake, the IJsselmeer.

This was also a significant move, because Medemblik is almost 30 kilometers east of Harenkarspel and 10 kilometers east of Oude Niedorp. I don’t know of any contemporaneous family who lived in Medemblik at the time that might explain why Trijntje moved there. I will have to check the bevolkingsregisters (population registers) and Trijntje’s FAN club (“Friends, Associates, and Neighbours”) to see if I can solve this mystery.

Trijntje’s death registration.

52W Mark III – Week 48: Very Funny

This week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge prompt is not just funny, but apparently very funny!

Margaretha (“Margaret”) Heck
(1 April 1868-21 October 1946)

My mother shares a birthday – April Fools’ Day! – with her mother’s maternal grandmother, Margaretha (“Margaret”) Heck. In fact, my grandmother gave my mother Margaret as a middle name in honour of her grandmother.

My grandfather always called my mother “Maggie”, which of course is a derivative of her middle name. When I asked my mother why he preferred to do so, she said that her mother had wanted to give her Margaret as her first name, since my mother shared a birthday with her great grandmother. However, her father objected because people would call her Maggie, so my grandmother agreed to give my mother Margaret as her middle name.

My mother’s parents, Leo Burgess and Helen Lerner. Margaret Heck was Helen’s maternal grandmother.

Milton Burgess: “There’s Maggie!”

When my mother’s parents brought her home, her paternal grandfather was there and said, “there’s Maggie!” Since that time, Lorraine’s father and grandfather called her Maggie. Later, the immediate family and some of her cousins came to call her Maggie.

Of course, my mother was often teased by being called an April Fool because of her birthday. When we were kids, the tradition was that the time for pranking ends at 12 noon. My mother was adamant that she wasn’t an April Fool because she was born in the afternoon.

Once we were at my grandparents on April Fools’ Day and everyone was giving my mother grief about being an April Fool. My mother repeated her defense that she was born in the afternoon. My grandmother interjected and called out from the other room, “no you weren’t, you were born in the morning!”

Grandmothers: always siding with their grandchildren. Very funny!