Tag: Waarland

52W Mark IV – Week 7: Card V7 Aaltje Klaasse Stroet

Aaltje Klaasse Stroet (1813-1881)

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.

52W Mark IV – Week 4: Card V4 Johannes Jansz (Jan) Pater

Johannes Jansz (“Jan”) Pater (1862-1935)

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’s birth registration

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!

Signatures of the parties and witnesses of the double wedding of siblings Jan Pater (left) and Antje Pater (right)

52W Mark III – Week 35: All Mixed Up

Imagine changing municipalities several times in your life while living in the same house the entire time. With the ever changing municipal boundaries of the Netherlands, it can become All Mixed Up – which is the prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge!

The Netherlands has thousands of villages, towns, and cities; however, the smallest administrative unit of government is the gemeente, which roughly translates as “municipality” or “local authority”. They are the third and lowest level of government after the national and provincial governments. Some gemeentes (in Dutch the plural is “gemeenten”) consist of a single community, such as gemeente Amsterdam. Many consist of multiple villages and towns.

The gemeentes of the Netherlands as of 2024. The colour groups indicate the provinces of the Netherlands.

In 1812, immediately after the end of Napoleonic rule, the Netherlands had more than 1,100 gemeentes. I don’t know if that includes or excludes modern-day Belgium, which until 1830 was part of the Netherlands. Over the following two centuries, the municipal map was revised many times. Gemeentes expanded, shrank, divided, and merged, such that almost 1,700 different gemeentes have existed over time.

Since January 1, 2023, the most recent reorganization, there are 342 gemeentes in the European part of the Netherlands. There are three in the Caribbean Netherlands, except there they are a “Caribisch openbaar lichaam” (“Caribbean Public Body”).

My father was born in Waarland, a village that currently has about 2,700 inhabitants. When my father was born, it was in gemeente Harenkarspel, which had been in existence for centuries. Its boundaries changed twice after my father was born.

Waarland’s location in the Netherlands.
My grandfather and father visiting Waarland in the late 1980s. It was my father’s first time back since they emigrated to Canada. The sign says “Waarland Gemeente Harenkarspel”. Waarland was in Harenkarspel the first time I visited it; it was in Schagen the next time I was there.

In 2013, Harenkarspel merged with Zijpe and Schagen and ceased to exist as a separate gemeente. Since the merger, the gemeente is simply Schagen. Zijpe itself had six different iterations between its creation in 1817 and its merger with Schagen in 2013.

Harenkarspel in 1867. Waarland is in the south-east, near the border with Niedorp.
Waarland’s location within Harenkarspel and, now, Schagen.

When I enter a Dutch location into my database for any particular fact, I always use the smallest unit, even if it is not an independent administrative body. While gemeentes come and go, or expand and contract, the villages, towns, and cities largely stay the same. Thus Waarland is Waarland, regardless of what gemeente it is in. Fortunately, there is a website that helps track all the gemeentes that have existed “from ancient times” to present: “Gemeentegeschiedenis” (“Municipal History”). With it, you can find which gemeente a place might have been at any time in Netherlands history. No need to be all mixed up!

52W Mark III – Week 33: Favourite Discovery

While the prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Favourite Discovery”, I’m hard pressed to choose just one. Rather, what immediately comes to mind is my Favourite Exploration, when I visited the farmhouse where my father was born, Waarland, North Holland. At the time it was part of Gemeente Harenkarspel (Municipality of Harenkarspel), but now Waarland is part of Gemeente Schagen.

Waarland’s location in the Netherlands

The first time I visited the Netherlands was part of a post-university backpacking tour through Europe with one of my friends. In the Netherlands, we stayed with one of my grandmother’s sisters and her husband, Tante Anny and Ome Nic, who lived in Zuid-Scharwoude, Gemeente Langedijk (which is now part of Dijk en Waard). It’s only a few kilometers from Waarland. Near the end of our stay in Langedijk, Ome Nic and I went for a bicycle ride to Waarland so I could meet my grandfather’s (van der Fluit) side of the family.

Waarland

Once in Waarland, we went to the home of my grandfather’s oldest brother and his wife, Ome Jan and Tante Marie. Their house is less than two kilometers due south of the house where my father was born. Ome Jan’s house was also the place where he and and my grandfather were both born. Many of Jan and Marie’s children and grandchildren were there for our visit.

One of Jan and Marie’s children (my father’s cousin), Pieter, took me on a short bike ride up the road to the house where my dad was born. Not only that, he knew the current owner, so we were able to go inside. That was incredibly special. I was even in the room where my father was born!

The house where my father was born, the first time I visited Waarland

Many many years later, in 2017, my parents planned to take a cruise that departed out of Amsterdam, so they went early so they could spend time with our family in Noord Holland. I had always wanted to visit the Netherlands with my father, so I made the trip over there.

With my father outside the house here he was born. He’s more than happy to say, yes, he was born in a barn.

Of course, the trip would not have been complete without a visit to Waarland. After a short visit with one of my father’s cousins, we made our way to the house where my father was born. It looked as if the place had not been well maintained by its current owners. It looked quite run down since the last time I was there. I also had to tease my father by asking him whether he remembered the skateboard halfpipe that was in the back yard.

We then made our way to Ome Jan’s and Tante Marie’s house. Ome Jan had passed away in 2011 and Tante Marie died in 2013, so the house had a new owner. In fact, it was an entirely new house. The old one had been demolished, but the new one that replaced it looked almost identical. 

The rebuilt version of my great grandparents’ house, where my grandfather was born.

We also passed by the church where my father was baptized. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to go inside. As well, we stopped by a 450-year-old windmill that has been a museum since 1920, where I suppose I did make a surprising discovery – llamas! They were grazing on the property immediately adjacent to the windmill.