Tag: Ran

52W Mark V – Week 24: Reijer Jansz Ran

Reijer Jansz Ran (1792-1860)

My Great x4 Grandfather, Reijer Jansz Ran, was born in October 1792 on Texel, most likely in the village of Den Hoorn, where he was baptized on October 22, 1792. His parents were Jan Cornelisz Ran and Annaatje (“Anna”) Pieters van Zuijlen.

For several of my ancestral lines that originate on Texel, they go back several centuries. For Reijer, his father was born on Texel and his paternal grandparents lived on Texel, but I have not traced further back than that. The unsourced tree for Reijer on FamilySearch suggests his paternal lineage traces back quite far in time on Texel, but without cited sources I won’t accept that information.

Reijer’s mother, on the other hand, was born on the mainland, in Alkmaar, Noord Holland. At some point in time Anna moved to Texel, but when and why I do not know. Her parents remained in Alkmaar. Anna must have moved to Texel as an adult, because she married Reijer’s father there.

Excerpt from the book of Roman Catholic baptisms. “22 October 1792. [Baptised]: Reijer of Den Hoorn. Parents: Jan Ran and Anna van Zuijlen. Witnesses/Godparents: Jan Scheepins and Trijntje Rijn.”

In August 1797, when Reijer was four, his father died. Nine years later, in August 1806, Reijer’s mother married Klaas Jansz Groot. Klaas was a sailor, working as a channel pilot. Anna and Klaas were married nineteen years, until Klaas’s death in 1825. Anna spent the next 18 years living as a widow, until her death in 1843.

For his entire working life, Reijer was connected to the sea. For almost thirty years, he was a sailor working out of Oudeschild, the only port on Texel. He was working at that occupation when he married Maartje Klaas Gomes on November 26, 1813 at Oudeschild on Texel. Together they had eleven children, all born in Oudeschild, six of whom were sons. Four of Reijer’s sons were sailors; two died at sea. One son passed away at age eight. One was a shoemaker. Clearly he was the rebel of the family.

Around 1840, Reijer moved to Den Helder, on the mainland only a few kilometers south of Texel, where he began work as a channel pilot. Many sailors and workers in related industries moved from Texel to Den Helder at the time, coinciding with the rise of the city as a major industrial port and base of the Dutch navy. While Reijer appears to have briefly worked as a merchant around 1851, he spent the rest of his life working as a channel pilot.

Reijer retired sometime before 1860, as the registration of his death identified him as a pensioner. Reijer died on January 5, 1860 in Den Helder.

Registration of Reijer’s death, with his son Jan Reijer Ran as one of the declarants.

52W Mark IV – Week 26: Card K13 Elisabeth de Waard

Elisabeth “Lisabeth” de Waard (1824-1887)

Halfway through the 2025 52 Ancestors Challenge brings us to the last card on my paternal line. Last but not least, meet Lisabeth de Waard, my Gx3 grandmother.

Elisabeth de Waard was born on February 18, 1824 in Oudeschild, a village on the island of Texel, the largest of the Wadden Sea Islands off the north shore of the Netherlands. It is the only settlement on the island located on the coast. While there is now a ferry dock on the southernmost point of the island, Oudeschild was the only port on Texel in Elisabeth’s time.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that her paternal grandfather, husband, and at least three of her brothers were sailors. Despite the seafaring lives of many of her relatives, Elisabeth’s father, Jan Teunisz de Waard, was a labourer at the time she was born. Jan became a shopkeeper shortly afterwards and remained in that profession until he died in 1863 at age 76.

Registration of Lisabeth’s birth.

Elisabeth’s mother was Cornelia Pieters Kooij. Jan and Cornelia’s marriage intrigues me, because Jan was Protestant and Cornelia was Roman Catholic. Jan was the first direct ancestor I found on my paternal line who was not Catholic. They married at the Catholic church on Texel.

Up until the mid to late 20th Century, Protestants and Catholics in the Netherlands kept well apart. Each had their own schools, newspapers, sports clubs, political parties, and social organizations. Intermarriage between the two groups was not common or as widely accepted as it is now. The 1830 census shows that their eldest child, Teunis, was a Protestant like his father, but the rest of their eight children, were Catholic like their mother.

One might think that my great grandmother’s name was Elisabeth and Lisabeth was her nickname. However, as can be seen above, her father named her as “Lisabeth” when he registered her birth. The only place I have found her name recorded as Elisabeth was in the Bevolkingsregisters (population registers). Moreover, the 1840 census listed her as Betje, another common Dutch nickname for Elisabeth.

One of the many population registers showing my great grandmother as “Elisabeth”. Cornelis and Elisabeth’s names are crossed out because they moved to a different house. In fact, they moved around Den Helder a lot!

The census records also show that Lisabeth lived in Oudeschild at least into her late teens. In fact, the registration of her marriage to Cornelis Ran shows that she was still resident on Texel when they married on February 6, 1851 in Den Helder, where Cornelis was an apprentice harbour pilot. While it appears that Cornelis had lived on the mainland for many years by the time they married, he had deep roots in Oudeschild. It is likely that Jan and Lisabeth came together through familial connections.

Lisabeth and Cornelis settled into life in Den Helder, where they had seven children – five girls and two boys. The boys, who were the youngest, were also drawn to naval life, although as members of the navy.

The couple spent the rest of their lives in the port city. Lisabeth passed away in Den Helder on July 18, 1887, at the age of 63. She was buried in Huisduinen, a village outside of Den Helder, four days later. Cornelis lived another ten years.

Weekblad van Den Helder en het Nieuwediep, 10 February 1851, page 3
Civil Register. Deceased: Lisabeth de Waard, wife of Cornelis Ran, age 63.

Two suits down, two to go!

52W Mark IV – Week 25: Card K12 Cornelis Ran

Cornelis Ran (1824-1897)

Continuing with the foray into my direct Dutch ancestors who were not farmers or labourers, meet Cornelis Ran, my Gx3 Grandfather. In his occupation, Cornelis was following in the footsteps of his father, Reijer Jansz Ran, at least as much as you can follow on the confines of a boat or ship. Cornelis’s maternal grandfather and great grandfather were also sailors, although their forebears were innkeepers, bricklayers, and bakers.

Cornelis’s birth registration

Reijer and his wife Maartje Klaas Gomes had eleven children, all born on Texel. Remarkably for the time, all but two survived to adulthood. Cornelis, born on November 21, 1824, was the sixth of these eleven children. He was born in Oudeschild, a coastal village on the east coast of the island of Texel, which lies only a couple of kilometers across the Marsdiep from the mainland city of Den Helder, a major Dutch port and naval city. Several generations of Cornelis’s ancestors spent their lives in Oudeschild.

Top portion of Cornelis and Elisabeth’s marriage registration

Cornelis’s life on the water was spent as a harbour pilot and sailor. He was serving his apprenticeship as a harbour pilot in Den Helder when he married Elisabeth “Lisbeth” de Waard there on February 6, 1851. Lisbeth, who also went by Betje, was born on Texel in 1824. Delightfully, Cornelis and his sister Johanna Maria were both married on the same day and at the same place, possibly in a joint family celebration in Den Helder.

From the Weekblad van Den Helder en het Nieuwediep, 10 February 1851, page 3. It shows the double-marriage of Johanna Maria Ran (to Reijer Molenaar) and Cornelis Ran (to Lisbeth de Waard).
The item below the civil registration notice are odd little bits of news: “The King of Prussia appointed 1,152 knights in the previous year.” “The Governor of Egypt, Abbas Pacha, is totally insane.”

Elisabeth and Cornelis remained in Den Helder for the rest of their lives, where they raised seven children. Again, remarkably for their time, all seven of their children lived well into adulthood. All seven also went on to marry.

Over those years, Cornelis continued in his profession, working as a harbour pilot and as a sailor until about 1886, when he was 62. Records show that Cornelis had no occupation from 1886 to 1890. This suggests he might have retired. However, he was working again as a sailor in 1890, so it is not clear if he had briefly retired, had been unable to work, or had been unable to find work.

Elisabeth passed away in 1887 at the age of 63 and was buried in Huisduinen, a village near Den Helder. Cornelis lived another ten years, dying in Den Helder on June 26, 1897, at the age of 72. He was also buried in Huisduinen, on June 29, 1897.

52W Mark IV – Week 18: Card K5 Christina Ran

Christina Ran (1858-1924)

My Gx2 Grandmother Christina Ran was born on February 13, 1858, in Den Helder, Noord Holland. She was the third of seven children and third of five daughters born to Cornelis Ran and Elisabeth de Waard.

Christina’s birth recorded in the Den Helder civil register.

Like many Dutch parents of the time, Cornelis and Elisabeth followed the traditional naming conventions for their children. With their third daughter, they had a bit more freedom in naming Christina. I don’t know what inspired the name, I haven’t found any previous Christinas earlier in her tree. It also doesn’t seem to be a particularly common name over the last 200 years. With the family being Catholic, maybe it was inspired by Saint Christina the Astonishing, who lived in what is now Limburg Province, Belgium. Or, like my mother will often suggest, “maybe they just liked the name.”

From the Corpus of Given Names in the Netherlands for the name “Christina”

Christina’s daughter, Elizabeth Bakker, my great grandmother, followed the traditional naming custom. Thus my grandmother, Christina Komen, is her grandmother’s namesake.

On September 29, 1881, Christina married Cornelis Jan Bakker in Den Helder. The couple had eleven children together. While they raised their large family in the same town where she was born, married, and died, eight of Christina’s children moved to other cities or towns after leaving home. Some remained close by, still in Noord Holland; others moved further afield, to the provinces of Utrecht and Zuid Holland.

The two items on the left, reporting Cornelis and Christina’s wedding, appeared on page two of the Nieuws- En Advertentiebode voor Den Helder on September 30, 1881. The item on the right commemorates the celebration of Cornelis and Christina’s 25th wedding anniverary, on page two of the September 22, 1906 edition of the Nieuws- En Advertentiebode voor Den Helder,

Christina died on November 26, 1924, at the age of 66. She was buried at Begraafplaats Huisduinen in Den Helder.