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.
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.
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.
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.
However, another source shows that in 1882, a year after Aaltje died, the farm was sold by auction to Simon Groen and Marijtje Kuilboer.
A Deck of Ancestors 