While preparing this long-overdue post, I became distracted by the fact that my grandfather, Arie van der Fluit, has Bleekers on both his paternal and maternal line. Jacob Bleeker, Arie’s great grandfather, is on his maternal line. Arie’s Bleeker connection on his paternal line is much further back – his closest Bleeker ancestor is his Gx3 grandmother, Marijtje Pieterz Bleeker.
The other night I connected the two Bleeker lines. Jacob’s great grandfather, Klaas Pietersz Bleeker (1736-1782), and Marijtje Pietersz Bleeker (1742-?), were siblings. The result is that my grandfather was his own fifth cousin once removed. Hello “pedigree collapse“!
Baptism record for Marijtje Bleeker (top) and Klaas Bleeker (Jan’s great grandfather). The best part of this quest is that I now know the names of Marijtje and Klaas’s parents: Pieter Willemsz Bleeker and Anna Jacobsz.
Turning to this week’s card, Jacob was born on January 21, 1828 in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland. He was the second of six children and second son, of Cornelis Pietersz Bleeker and Jacoba de Jong. Jacob’s parents, and all his siblings, appear to have lived their entire lives in Oude Niedorp. The one exception was Jan.
Jacob’s birth registration
Jacob married Trijntje Jansen on May 12, 1855, in Oude Niedorp. Like Jacob, at the time of the marriage Trijntje had spent her entire life in Oude Niedorp. Their first two children, Jacoba and Cornelis, were also born in Oude Niedorp. Sometime between Cornelis’s birth in 1859 and his sister Adriana’s birth in 1865, Jacob and family relocated to Harenkarspel, the gemeente (municipality) directly west of Oude Niedorp.
I haven’t found much about what Jacob was doing between 1859 and 1865. I had wondered whether there had been another child born between Cornelis and Adriana, given the six year gap, but found nothing. At most, it appears that in Oude Niedorp and his first years in Harenkarspel, Jacob worked as a labourer. He was still reported as being a labourer in 1867, when his youngest child, Aagje, was born. It appears that he might have worked as a farmer or farm labourer in 1886, but otherwise it seems that he worked as a labourer for most of his life. His death registration listed labourer as his occupation.
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.
Jan Pater was born on May 20, 1826 in Sint Maarten, Noord Holland, the eldest of five children born to Jacob Janz Pater and Antje “Anna” Lievendag. Sometime between the time Jan was three and seven, the family moved a few kilometers south to the adjacent gemeente (municipality) of Harenkarspel. According to his registration of marriage, Jan lived in Harenkarspel and was working there as a labourer until shortly before he got married.
Jan’s birth registration.
The circle shows where Jan lived with his wife and inlaws. The star is where my father was born.
Jan was 26 when he married Teetje de Groot on June 11, 1852 in Oude Niedorp. After they married, Jan and Teetje moved in with Teetje’s parents, Jan de Groot and Sijtje Sijbecarspel. They lived in Zijdewind, which at the time was part of gemeente Oude Niedorp.
According to an article in Toendertoid: Stichting Waarland van Toen, “Many tragic events took place in this family between 1850 and 1880.” It then went on to describe the house they lived in, without providing any details about what happened.
Toendertoid, May 1994, page 12 WHAT HAPPENED?!?
Jan was a labourer almost his entire life, except for a brief period in 1872 when he was a “veldwachter”; literally, “field guard,” a kind of rural police or constabulary. The veldwachters originated as the “garde champêtre” during the Napoleonic era. They were very poorly paid, if at all, and largely relied upon other sources of income. There were few prerequisites to become a veldwachter and at Jan’s time it was much less than a professional police officer. What authority they had was limited to the municipality in which they served.
Jan was 46 when he was a veldwachter and he did not serve very long. It is not clear what qualification Jan had for the role. He was still described as a labourer when his daughter Maartje was born in March 1871. It was only the April 1872 death registration of his son, Jacob, that showed Jan as a veldwachter. Maartje died later that same year, in December, and her death registration recorded that Jan was a labourer at the time. Jan was still a labourer when he died in Zijdewind at age 52.
Burgerlijke Stand = Civil Register Died: Jan Pater, age 50, husband of Teetje de Groot.
While it’s still early days, I’m discovering that the different approach I am taking to this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is that it has prompted me to do a long-standing but long-languishing research goal: to bolster and verify the research I’ve done for the first few generations of my direct ancestors. While not quite the same, it’s similar to Yvette Hoitink’s “Level-up Challenge.” By focusing on individuals rather than topics, I’ve been discovering a lot of gaps in my knowledge and research for the 52 direct ancestors I’ve chosen to write about this year.
Take this week’s subject, Aaltje Klaase Stroet. A few weeks ago, I had little more than her birth, marriage, and death. Now I know a fair bit more – including a lot of information about the farm where she lived and worked with her husband Dirk.
Aaltje was the youngest and tenth child of Nicolaus Dirkszoon “Klaas” Stroet and Geertje Jansdochter Molenaar. Aaltje was born on June 18, 1813, in Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland, just like all her older siblings.
At the time Aaltje married in 1835, she worked as a housemaid in Nieuwe Niedorp; however, I have yet to find an entry for Aaltje in a Dienstboderegister (a register of domestic servants kept as part of a municipality’s Civil Registration Register). The most significant piece of evidence regarding Aaltje’s occupation as a housemaid is the registration of her marriage to Dirk Pietersz van der Fluit, which occurred on May 16, 1835 in Nieuwe Niedorp.
The top and bottom of Aaltje and Dirk’s marriage registration, which includes mention that Aaltje’s occupation was “dienstmaagd” (maid).
At the time Aaltje and Dirk married, Dirk was employed as a labourer. Dirk later took up farming. While he might have undertaken farming at an earlier time, in 1847 a stolpboerderij (“bell jar” or “covered” farm) in ‘t Veld, Noord Holland was registered in the names of Dirk and Aaltje. Until ‘t Veld was part of gemeente (municipality) Oude Niedorp; it is now within gemeente Hollands Kroon.
Two views of Aaltje and Dirk’s stolpboerderij from ‘t Is Mooi Weest magazine, December 2004. Both photos were taken after Aaltje’s death. The photo on the right shows Maria Veerman, the owner of the property after 1917, along with her daughter Geertje.
A stolpboerderij was a style of farmhouse that was common in the West Friesland area of Noord Holland. They were pyramid-like thatched roof buildings that served as a combination farm house and separate space for animals, hay, wagons, or tools.
The stolpboerderij that Dirk and Aaltje acquired already existed at the time the land registry in which it was registered was created, in 1832, so it is difficult to determine the time of its construction. In 1832, when the registry was created, the farm was owned by the Roman Catholic church of ‘t Veld. Aaltje remained on the farm after Dirk died in 1857, along with all their children, and it remained registered in her name.
Based upon these views from Google Maps, the stolpboerderij where Aaltje and Dirk is still standing.
According to the Bevolkingsregister(population register) for Oude Niedorp for 1860-1885, some of Aaltje’s children remained at the farm after they reached adulthood. In fact, three of Aaltje’s grandchildren through her second son Nicolaas (1838-1876) were living at the farm, at least as late as 1880.
Aaltje died on March 6, 1881 in Oude Niedorp, most likely at the farm in ‘t Veld. An index for the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Martinus in ‘t Veld indicates that Aaltje’s heirs sold the farm by auction. The index suggests that the church council purchased the land, “called the Hofstede, in the Leijerpolder”. That indicates that the farm was less than two kilometers from where my father was born, in Waarland.
The location of Dirk and Aaltje’s stolpboerderij, shown in ‘t Is Mooi Weest magazine, page 9, December 2004.
Dirk and Aaltje’s stolpboerderij was less than two kilometers due east of where my father was born. I see that I came within about 700 meters of this property, if not closer, during my last trip to the Netherlands. If only I had known!
However, another source shows that in 1882, a year after Aaltje died, the farm was sold by auction to Simon Groen and Marijtje Kuilboer.
Death registration for Aaltje Stroet. There was a clerical error in that her husband Dirk was recorded as her father; it is the crossed out item. The margin corrected the error, naming Dirk as her husband.
A Deck of Ancestors 