I’ve always found it amazing when talking to my grandparents’ generation about their grandparents. I remember when my great aunt Addie casually mentioned in passing about how she’d usually go to her grandmother’s house every day after school. It immediately popped into my head that she was talking about someone who was born in the mid-19th century. It felt like a bridge through time.
Likewise for my Gx2 grandfather, Johannes Jansz (“Jan”) Pater. I found an article in a Dutch magazine, Toendertoid: Stichting Waarland van Toen (“Then and There: Foundation of Waarland“) containing an interview of my great uncle Jan van der Fluit (“Ome Jan” 1918-2011), where he shared childhood recollections of his grandfather Jan Pater. I met Ome Jan on my first trip to Waarland. He was still living in the house where he was born and spent his childhood. Reading Ome Jan’s story made me feel like there was no barrier in time and space between me and my Gx2 grandfather.
Jan Pater was born on April 14, 1862 in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland. By 1882, Jan was working in Oude Niedorp as a farm labourer, as noted in a militia register. Military service was compulsory. Jan’s military service was as a conscript under the national service (the militia), somewhat equivalent to reserve or national guard duty. Adrianus was assigned to the “torpedo corps”. The militia register shows that Adrianus was 172 cm (5′ 7 1/2″) tall with a flat face, low forehead, gray eyes, a “just” nose, and blond hair.
Jan remained in Oude Niedorp at least until 1888, working as a farm labourer. On April 19, 1888, he married Ariaantje Jacobs (“Adriana” or “Jaantje”) Bleeker in gemeente Harenkarspel, Noord Holland. At the start of their marriage, they briefly lived with Adriana’s parents, but by the time their first child was born they had moved out on their own. Together Jan and Adriana had four children, three boys and one girl (my great grandmother, Teetje Pater). The eldest only lived a few weeks; the others lived to adulthood.
After he and Adriana were married, Jan continued to work as a labourer. Sometime around 1917 he began farming in Slootgaard, a village within Harenkarspel. It is now part of gemeente Schagen.
According to Ome Jan’s account, Jan Pater had over three acres of land where he carried out mixed farming. Jan’s youngest son – and Ome Jan’s uncle – was also named Jan, who helped on his father’s farm. The elder Jan had four cows and a horse, while the younger Jan had 100 brown and white chickens.
My records indicate Jan continued farming in Slootgaard at least until 1930, when he was in his late 60s. However, the registration of his death in 1935 indicates that he was still farming at that time. Jan’s death was due to an unfortunate accident with a horse at a railway crossing.
Addendum March 2, 2025: Always pay attention to the FAN club: “Friends, Associates, and Neighbours”! When an ancestor has a lot of siblings, it can be tedious to do all the research on them, too. Often I’ll do a quick-and-dirty entry into my database and then leave it languish for years.
Tonight I was flushing out my research on Jan’s siblings. For the four oldest, it was mostly entering information from death records, as the first two died very shortly after birth and the next two died shortly before their 17th birthdays. It wasn’t until the fifth child, Antje, two years older than Jan, that any child of Jan Pater and Teetje de Groot survived to adulthood.
Going through Antje’s marriage registration, I saw that one of the witnesses was her younger brother Jan. Then I expanded the image on the screen and noticed the signatures on the proceeding page were the same. What? Zooming in, I realized it was Jan and Adriana’s marriage registration! A double wedding. Siblings Antje and Jan got married the same day!
A Deck of Ancestors 