Genealogy Day

On Monday I posted about my ancestor Pieter who lived with his wife on a small boat where they also raised several children. Several of you commented on the fact that I knew so much about how they lived, but despite finding where his children were born, I did not find all the other information in files. 

Because last Saturday I made my way (bike and train) to Leeuwarden. The provincial archives and the historical centre had organised a Day for Genealogists. I may be an amateur, but I felt it would be nice to go, especially when I found out what their main subject would be: shipping.

There were all sorts of stands there. About how to start your research and how to log it on your computer, about clubs and foundations that searched far and wide, about shipping in general and skûtsjes (a flat bottomed boat) in particular and several families. 

I talked to one person for about half an hour which was very interesting and he has since sent me more information about a brother of an ancestor. Most of the dry details I had, some of the personal details I did not, as it came from letters between family members that I did not have in my tree.

There were also several presentations that day. I visited one as that one would be the most relevant to me. Yes, the information he gave fitted boats and ships from the late 19th century and my research showed early 19th century, but in general the information he gave would and could be transferred to my ancestor, with a few adjustments.

After all that I went on a guided tour through the town. I lived in that town from the age of 3 until I was 12 and basically did not know anything, so it was nice to get some more information now. And despite the painful knee, it was worth it. I will show you photos from that tomorrow.

Family

One of my several hobbies is finding out about my family. And I have found some really interesting stuff in the past already. One thing I found recently was the fact that one of my ancestors worked on a boat and called himself a skipper or turf skipper on several occasions (the births of his children). Five I noted immediately: they were born in the canal(!) or on the ship moored at a particular spot.

Pieter and his wife actually had 11 children in total, 9 of which made it to adulthood and of those, 8 made it to their seventies and eighties. Not bad going considering they were born between 1815 and 1837. Back to the skippering bit though.

For some reason Pieter became a skipper. It was probably a fairly lucrative market if you could get enough loads and the weather was good (remember: no engines back then apart from wind and muscles). It was also a tough world where you had to keep your wits about you to make sure you got some well paying loads and you had your family helping out.

And from the records I have found so far, Pieter must have lived on board with his wife and his children once they came along. Although some of the children born prior to 1830 were born on land (the farmhouses of relatives probably), five were born on board. Not in the canal as such obviously, but it that's how it was put down: in the town canal.

Irish turf, in the Netherlands we had our own stash

Conditions on board were not the best. It was cramped and by the first on board delivery, there would have been other children already. It was dirty, as the ship's loads would often be turf (peat), manure (animal and human), dirt, mud, potatoes etc. Not the cleanest of environments to give birth. 

Once the children were there and alive, the worries weren't over. Drownings were common amongst the skipper people and many (small) children would be tied to the mast with a rope that would give them less then two meters either way in order not to fall off the boat. 

As I said earlier: the family would need to help out. If there was no wind and you had to get your load to its destination (you would only get paid on delivery), there were only two things left to do: use the beam and push yourself forward or use the rope and pull. Often it was the job of the woman to do the pulling (horses cost money they might not be able to afford, hence human power was often used). The man in the mean time would use the beam to keep the boat from hitting the side. 

Safety first for this sea dog.

Older children would also be used, but they could only do so from the age of 12 onwards, the family could be fined severely if found breaching that law. The whole family would also be expected to load and unload, mend sails, do other small jobs and for the wife and any daughters: cooking and cleaning.

Perhaps Pieter got fed up with it all. Perhaps his wife told him that she had had enough, but in 1830 he gave up the skippering job and went to farming.

Developments

There have been some developments in my life recently. The first one and one that I had eagerly anticipated was the opening of the archive concerning that young gentleman that died in Burma (now Myanmar) on the infamous railway line. That led me to ask a question on a genealogy forum which led to a question back which led to severe searching. I still don't think I have it all sorted, but mostly. 

The things in the archive however, did not relate to the camps he was in (only very slightly anyway), but were mainly personal letters written and other assorted correspondence. It gave a small insight in life in the Dutch East Indies just before the war and how they looked at the threat of war in Europe. It also made me review the piece I had written about him originally and I have now rewritten most of it, going from two pages to almost 25. Including his letters and all the other information I have now. And I am not quite finished yet.

I wonder how many rooms this home has...

Another development concerns a home for me. I have been looking into buying, but unless I want to buy a barn without any facilities whatsoever... So, buying is out of the question. I have been registering for every rental home available, but even though the waiting list is moving forward, it is slower than molasses up a thin pipe. So, I had a plan and I thought it was a doozy.

The plan was basically: I would win the lottery! Easy, right? I bought a ticket and waited in antici... pation (sorry, Rocky Horror connection here), but when the time came, I had not won anything. The doozy had bombed. Ah well, I have a roof over my head so not all is lost.

In Rome in 2019

Yet a further development and this concerns the whole family. As you may be aware off (unless you have been living on a rock, on Titan!), a certain little round thingy with spiky ends is doing the rounds around the world. Very annoyingly I hasten to add, as it is interfering with just about everything. Like travel.

Last year, my sister was due to come in May for both my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and Eurovision. My parents didn't celebrate with a party as nobody was allowed to come anyway and Eurovision was cancelled. Unfortunately, so was my sister's flight. No worries though, she would come in July, at Christmas, for Easter, in May this year. Until the flight was cancelled yet again. Hopefully she will now be able to come in July. 

Concerning that big C that is bothersome to the gazillionth degree: my father should be the first one to be called up for his first vaccination. My mother after that and wait for it and wait a bit longer, then me. But, so far: nothing. Ah well, it will all happen. My sister will come to see us, we will get vaccinated, I will find a home and the story about my step cousin once removed will find more closure. 

My step first cousin once removed revisited

A while ago I wrote about my step first cousin once removed (the son of the husband of an aunt of my father) regarding my genealogy research. And how I needed a photo of him and more information as well. 

That was some time ago and in the mean time my family book appeared. With his story and his photo. I was able to contact a cousin of my father's, who happens to be his half brother and in fact, has the same name. 

His information about his elder half brother was very limited. His half sister was not willing to talk about it any more and the little information they had was wrong really. When I told him what I was doing, he was however willing to let me have a photo of his half brother, that I could use as I saw fit. 

But before the story appeared in the book, I had to find out more and I did. Not much above what I already knew, but having a photo to put next to the person on paper was really nice. 

During the past weekend it was Remembrance Day (Saturday, May 4th) and Liberation Day (Sunday, May 5th). And while watching the Remembrance service from Amsterdam, the face of this nearly forgotten person popped up in my head. He never saw any liberation, he died in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Burma, as far away from home as he could possibly be. 

To remember him: Jan (1916-1943). 

So, where's my sister from then?

We may look alike, but we are not the same. Not on the outside...
... and not on the inside

On the same day the results of my mother came in, both my sister and I got our results as well. They varied, which to me sounded very strange. Surely as sisters we should have the same DNA! My sister works with DNA and such, but could not give me a proper answer immediately. She knows, but needs to put it in simple person talk for me.

Fast forward to today and I got an answer to the conundrum, albeit not from my sister. In short it's like this: Even though you get half of your stuff from one parent and the other half from the other, it doesn't necessarily mean you get exactly half of everything. It is completely random what you get in fact. Here's an example:

My paternal grandparents

Grandfather A is 100% German and grandmother A is 50% Italian and 50% Scottish. They produce child A which is 50% German, 32% Scottish and 18% Italian.

Grandfather B is 50% Irish and 50% Scottish and grandmother B is 100% Italian. They produce child B which is 50% Italian, 36% Irish and 14% Scottish.

Child A and child B have two children. Child 1 is 41% Irish, 32% Italian, 27% German and 0% Scottish. Child 2 is 50% German, 18% Italian, 18% Irish and 14% Scottish. 

My maternal grandparents

And that is exactly what happened to my sister and myself.

My own results show that I am 44% Germanic (mainly Dutch), 34% England/Wales/Northwestern Europe (mainly English), 17% Norwegian and 5% Swedish.

My sister's results show that she is 44% England/Wales/Northwestern Europe (mainly English), 26% Germanic (mainly Dutch), 18% Norwegian, 9% Swedish and 3% Irish/Scots. 

Which means that I am more Dutch than my sister, yet she is more Viking than me.

Me, my sister and my brother

Now, we have a brother as well and were he to do this test, his results will be completely different again, although the results will point out to us that there is a high likelihood that we are related in the first degree (ie siblings), regardless of differences. 

PS: had my sister and I been identical twins, the results would have been the same. And if for some reason the results had been the same now, it would have been a complete fluke really.

PS2: the explanation was given by Marc McDermott, who is the founder of Genealogy Explained. He wrote a guest blog for MyHeritage, one of the genealogy sites. Even though we did our tests with Ancestry, the explanation is the same for all tests.

Where am I from again?

Over the past few years I have done some research into my family tree. Finding out about anything from royalty and murder (Mum's side) and religious persecution and Japanese internment camps (Dad's side). 

At one point my Dad asked me whether I knew for certain that some person was our ancestor. Well, no! Then again, how do I know my father is my father? His word does not really prove that much! So, we decided to get a DNA test done through Ancestry. 

While my parents were here, we all spat in a tube and sent it off to Ireland to get it analyzed. And on Sunday the first results came in: my mother's!

The thing we 'knew' from my research (based on other people's research mostly) was that her ancestors came from a wide area in Europe. Starting with Charlemagne and then trickling down, slowly converging on the Netherlands. Would the DNA substantiate that research?

Well, it does! As you can see from the image above. There were two surprises: the first was about the England, Wales & Northwestern Europe bit. On closer inspection it showed that the main focus in that area is England! Where did that come from? I would have thought Northern France would be more likely. The second and biggest surprise for me however was the Scandinavian percentage though: 20% of my mother's DNA is from Norway and Sweden! Vikings!! 

I can't wait for my father's results now and then of course my own! Will my own correlate with my parents' or did the milkman or postman have anything to do with my conception and do I need a completely new research?

Photo on Sunday 2017-29

You have heard me talk about my family ancestry a great deal in the last few years. Plus the books I was going to write about them. Well, here are the books! The front doesn't look exactly as I wanted it, but I must say my first attempt at writing something like this looks pretty neat. 

Here's a photo of the inside of the books. The top book is of my maternal grandparents and that makes the bottom photo of the book of my paternal grandparents. The top shows a story of how one couple get several children and three of those proceed to have offspring that eventually leads to my grandfather. And to make the story complete, another story about another couple who do exactly the same thing for my grandmother.

The bottom book shows a page about one of my ancestors and his job as village judge. Plus a far away, gazillion times removed cousin who was quite prominent in Dutch politics.

PS: On the front of the books I have not actually written 'written by yours truly' but collected by. 

Goodness...

Both this and the school class photo feature.
With thanks to Anvilcloud for cleaning them up. 

Well, my 'probably' yesterday turned out to be correct. There were i's to be dotted, t's to be crossed and s's to be squiggled. But not only that: I had missed a story! I had been wondering where it had gone and it turned out, it had never arrived at its rightful chapter. And then last night when I was in bed, I realised I had another story with first hand information and a lot of photos. So, guess what I did first thing this morning?

But, as of this afternoon: 99 pages and it is done. Dusted. Ready. Finished. As long as I don't look at it too much, because I am sure to find something else to add. However, there is the small matter of another book to finish, this time the one of my mother's side. For some reason though, her family is higgledy piggledy all the way, starting with names and continuing in everything else. However, even this book already has already 52 pages and there are some things I still want to add. The reason it is smaller is that on my father's side I have used the contemporary stories of living family members, whereas on my mother's side, I will not be doing that. 

Anyhoo, Madi's Mum Cecilia once asked me which side was my favourite, story wise. Well...

There is of course the Royal Connection on my Mum's side. Being descended from the first King of Belgium is nothing to turn away from you know! But then there is the soldier who died in a Japanese PoW-camp while working on the infamous Birma railway on my Dad's side. 

There is the story of my grandmother finding food during the World War II on my Mum's side. And there is the letter from an ancestor to another ancestor on my Dad's side. 

My maternal grandmother (my Oma) doing something with fruit

There is the man who got killed by a priest on my Mum's side. And there is the man who (allegedly) killed someone in Orléans (France) on my Dad's side. Unfortunately I have not been able to find anything more on that, so he does not feature in the book. Perhaps for part 2?

On both sides there are too many stories (really too many) about women giving birth to children and then those children not making it past their fifth birthday, in many cases not even past their first. I've found one unwed mother on either side. Poverty and riches on both sides as well. 

So, overall I can say that both sides are equally interesting. Just for completely different reasons! 

Books

And here I was thinking I had already done so much! How wrong can a person be? Fortunately most of the information for one book can be used one on one in the other, but still. Finding the information, cutting it down into readable stuff, getting photos to accompany the stories (preferably family photos). 

However, I am moving along. Slowly but surely, chapters are there (1-4 so far, with 5 quite far along) and it starts looking good. In one book at least. The other is not quite as far, but as I said, most basic information is the same and the only thing left is finding people and stories from the past. 

Even though I have had some extra days off since the weekend, the headache actually prevented me from doing much. Which is a shame, but that's the way it is. I will have to work extra hard from now on. 

I am very pleased with how it's starting to look though! Yeah!!

Going back

One of the record books I had to work my way through in the beginning
Baptism (not birth), marriage and death records

You will know that I do a bit of research here and there into my family tree(s) and I have found some real great stories along the way. Not only from far away and long ago, also some really interesting stories from more recent times. 

I will be making two books of those stories. One for my mother's side and yes, one for my father's side. I wondered which side would be the more interesting, but I found that both sides are equally interesting, just for different reasons/stories. 

My maternal maternal great grandmother in the middle

The royal connection on my mother's side is of course fantastic. Never mind that half of Europe descends from Charlemagne, we do and that is important. The story of my grandmother and how she went on a hungertrip during the war actually was my first taste of family history. I am just very sorry I never talked to my grandmother about it while she was still alive. 

The great-aunt that was born in Germany during the First World War has thrown up some questions, although most of those questions can be answered just by looking at history itself. Unfortunately the family member I tried to contact never replied to my letter, which means that any further questions remain unanswered. 

No, they are not hearts on the Frysian flag,
they are the leaves of the yellow water lily

Then there is my father's side. From the fighting nobility to the man who was charged with murder in Orléans (France). The fact that that side truly is from one very proud part of the Netherlands. From  a strange date appearing again and again (May 12th) to the young man who died in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Birma. 

There are religious upheavals, political upheavals, family upheavals. Women giving birth on a yearly basis, but out of the 13 children, only 4 survive into adulthood. I have found a man who, along with all the other men of the village, was charged with tax evasion. 

Unfortunately during the last few months I have not done very much with all those stories. Yes, most of them are already done and dusted, but there is tweaking to be done. Stories to complete. Photos to be found. 

The 'ordinary life' of a grandmother making coffee

There will be a distinct difference between the books. The book on my father's side will contain the 'old' stories as well as 'new' stories from living family members who have done/lived through/written/etc something similar. The book on my mother's side will not contain those stories, since there was only one aunt who responded to my request. 

I have a month left for the books. What with the mice (still making new ones as well) and work (long days, but extra days off as well), it will be a stretch, but then again, that's me: do it at the last minute. I wonder which family member I can blame that one on...

Drab

A while ago. Well, a long while ago really...

And then it's Thursday again. My, doesn't time fly? I have been knitting, hanging up the curtains, doing laundry, cooking (which I should do every day, but don't), reading until the wee hours on a work night and today I've been off, thanks to the Christian holiday of Ascension. I bet most people here don't have a clue to what its origins are, but they are celebrating another day off anyway.

Not that it was the best day today. In fact it was rather drab. One day I have to turn the heater off because the sun is shining and heating up my apartment, the next I have to turn everything back on, because there is no sun to be seen anywhere and it gets cold again. No rhyme or reason at all. And for some reason the fine days always seem to happen on my days at work!

Spot the odd one out!

As I said, I have been knitting a bit and so far I have managed to knit about 18 mice. At the end of next month I will have more to tell on that, but they do look amazing. Albeit a bit crooked at times... 

Today I also got some more information about my step-cousin twice removed, the one who died in Burma. It throws up more questions than it gives answers though, so some more research is required. A few weeks ago I sent out letters to family members and one aunt wrote me with some details. Not much, but definitely more than I had expected. Even if she did call me Gera (which is my sister's name) at some point. Then again, so do my parents occasionally, usually when she is standing right beside me.

Anyway, on to the next mouse now. I wonder which colours I will pick this time around.

They're dancing

Yep, there were chocolates involved as well (top right hand corner)

The first day of my holiday was spent reading letters. A lot of letters. Since I have actually kept every single letter I have ever received (since 1983), had several pen pals from all over the world and apparently was quite a writer myself, there were lots to work through. It was good fun though and all in the name of genealogy!

One of my pen pals was a paternal cousin who is two years younger. And we wrote a lot. A lot of nonsense in the first few years, but after that she (at least, don't know about me) started writing a bit more serious about her life, growing up, boyfriends, school. We kept it going until about 1994 when her life (with work, home, boyfriend and pets) became busy, while my life was probably as busy but in different ways. 

However, her letters give a great insight about things that I think should be in the book. She talks about her nursing education and that fits beautifully with the education chapter I am planning. She even provided me with a photo of her when she's nearly finished. Perfect! 

Other than that, I found several letters my sister wrote me from Wales, where she was living for a short period during her studies. However, there is one letter I never managed to decipher. Mind you, I didn't really bother either...

I also found an Italian love letter and a Dutch (very bad) love poem and a fair amount of letters from completely unknown people. I probably did know at some point who they were, but it's lost in time! So, all in all a good day.

Square

My grandfather playing his recorder?

Eyes that is. Square eyes. Looking at that computer screen, trying to find information about my relatives of yesteryear does make my eyes go somewhat funny. Mind you, I do find great things, although mostly on my grandmother's side. They were an altogether more exciting bunch it seems. A princess, a murder, some great letters.

But I do find things on my grandfather's side as well. I just have to dig and dig and dig. I especially liked the story I found only yesterday about the man who seemed to be getting younger with every child. Literally! Although at his end, he was listed to be about 80. Which was correct, since he was four or five months off his 80th birthday.

A lot more looking and searching and reading small and nearly illegible writing will get me some more stories I hope. If not about the way they lived, then at least as to what they did for a living, which also tells a lot. So far I've found a salmon fisher (grandfather's) and a painter (grandmother's), but I know there are millers, turn skippers, mayors and several other jobs floating about. It will take time, but I will get there. 

I now have a goal as to when I want this book about my mother's ancestors and the book about my father's ancestors to be ready. I think I could go on forever, but for the sake of actually having something to show for what I've done over the past few years, my aim is to have it ready by July 15th this year. That should be enough time to have both books printed in time for my mother's birthday in August. 

In the mean time of course, I will keep you posted.

Poppy, cornflower, buttercup and daisy

I wouldn't call myself particularly busy. I mean, of course I work, but once I'm done with that, I'm done. I don't take my work home, although I do sometimes go home on work (ie I take the bus home) and there are not many other things I do. Besides knitting, a bit of crocheting, playing candy crush, blogging and doing genealogy. 

So you would think that after a 'busy' day of all that (minus the work, the H), I would be able to go to bed and sleep. You would think that. I would think that. Alas...

I went to bed at 9.15pm. Early by my standards, but then I had to get up at 3.30am. My landlord was willing to drive me to work, so I had to be on time.* I saw the clock go to 9.45pm. I saw 10pm. I saw 11pm. I saw 11.30pm. And all the while my mind was racing. 

"What was she doing in London at that time and how did she die?" "I need to write this and that to her, and such and such. Hopefully I will get a response." "I wonder how I go about finding out about how somebody died on top of just when and where." And more questions and letters of the same ilk. I even had this blog post written in my head because I couldn't sleep!

I realised I needed my sleep and I have a trick for that: think about flowers. Red, blue, yellow and white. Yes, the ones in the title. I would repeat them in my head in Dutch or in English for a few minutes, before my mind wandered off again. It was a long evening!

I fell asleep eventually, but woke up at the first (of three) alarm. Wide awake. And immediately trying to find answers and such for my ancestry...

*My landlord actually works at the same place I do and starts early early every day. Occasionally I start at the same time and I can catch a ride, provided I get up in time.

The other side

The great grandmother who I think is dead.
But then again, she might still be alive and a miracle to scientists!

The main reason I work on my father's side of my genealogy so much is the ease. The ease of finding stuff. Everything is gathered in one archive. Plus quite a few of my (far-away) relatives have been really good in putting notices in the main paper for that area regarding birth, marriage and death. Which makes it quite a doddle to find stuff. Don't get me wrong, there is still frustration over people not found, information not available, but still...

My mother's side of the family is altogether more complex. She comes from a small village close to a river. That river is also the boundary between two different provinces. Each with their own archives. Not only that, where the archive for my paternal family has digitalised most information, the maternal side tells you to go to the archives themselves. Which is rather annoying when living in another country. 

And don't get me started on newspapers. I did find a report about one relative in a paper a few years ago, but when I tried to look it up the other day: couldn't find it! Fortunately I found I had it saved to my computer, so all is not lost. But most of my maternal relatives either weren't that willing to put notices in papers or I just can't find them. For some reason. 

Another thing that I can't find is the date of death of my great grandmother. She was born in 1885, so I do have this presumption that there is a possibility that she might have perhaps passed away, but I just can't find it! Anywhere! I will get there in the end, don't worry, but it is frustrating. 

A great-aunt. I believe her husband died in a lightning strike which actually made the paper.

One thing I did find out though was about her siblings. Her parents were busy making a family, but circumstances did not help. Out of a total of 12 children, only four lived past the age of 2 and made it into adulthood. Also, names were being reused. A child died, the name was used for the next one. And as 'luck' would have it, each time a girl died, another girl was born. The same went for the boys. Until the mother passed away at the age of 37. 

Mind you, it's not all bad news on the maternal side. A few years ago I already discovered that we have royal ancestry. But younger sons didn't always marry as favourably as the elder ones and in the end we were labourers. Making an honest living though, which is the most important. Plus, I think I have already gone back to about the fifteenth century for most of the rest of the family. Now it's just a case of finding the specific people and their stories. 

As always, I will keep you posted!

Step first cousin once removed

Doing genealogy can be so frustrating at times. Trying to find someone a near impossibility. And at other times people just seem to drop out of nowhere. With histories that I have never heard about. Of course the question at those times is as well: do I have the right person. Perhaps there was another person with the same name, same date of birth? Perhaps...

So, as an amateur sleuth, I do what I have done several times in the past: asked for help from others who dig into their families as well and might know where I can find certain stuff. And today they came up trumps!

The person I am talking about now is the person I had found only recently, in fact, during the Christmas holiday. A sister of my paternal grandfather married a man who had two children from an earlier marriage. The eldest of those two children was a boy and he served in the Dutch army in what was then the Dutch colony of Indonesia.

When Japan invaded, he, likely along with the rest of his outfit, was captured. Over the course of the next year, he was transferred to different camps. He became ill in October of 1943 and died on December 31st of that year of beri-beri. 

It's fantastic and sad at the same time to find a story like this. On the one hand it makes a great story for the book I am planning. But on the other hand: my father didn't know anything about this person, even thinking his step-uncle had two girls. It seems as if Jan has been lost in time. Forgotten. 

The only thing left to find now (apart from a few more details of course) is a photo. To make sure he will not be forgotten again!

Back on the trail

The father of my great-aunt
also known as my great grandfather Gerrit

After a short foray in English, Irish and Canadian genealogy (not finished just yet), I felt it would be nice to get back to my own family again as well. Using a different host to my tree (Ancestry instead of MyHeritage) might give me some new insights.

Well, so far, so good. I knew a great-aunt of mine had married her former employer. The age difference was quite big: 18 years. But the thing I hadn't found before was the fact that he had been married before. In that day and age, marriage nearly always ended by the death of one of the partners, so it came as quite a shock to see that his first wife outlived him by several years! Which led me to try and find their divorce records. 

I found them and found that he had filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery: she was practicing carnal relations with somebody other than himself. I especially loved that word practicing. As if she was just trying out something to be used later with her own husband. But that may just be me. Anyway...

The mother of my great-aunt
also known as my great grandmother Fetje

Not only was he married before, he also had two children with her. A boy, born in 1916 and a girl, born in 1922. When I put the boy's name in, all of a sudden, there was a link to his date of death and the place of his death. Indonesia in the middle of the war. 

More research was required and when I had done that, I found that he actually died somewhere in Birma in 1943. At the height of the Japanese occupation and in the middle of that madness they call building a train line! You may have heard of all the British, Australian and American soldiers stuck in Asia, but the Dutch had a presence there as well. Indonesia had been one of our colonies for years and quite a few Dutch had made their home there or had been sent there as part of the Royal Dutch Indonesian Army (KNIL). 

Of course I need to verify a few facts now. Plus I want to know what my family knows about their step-cousin(?), if anything. Most of my immediate relatives were born during or after the war, but were there stories? 

Another mystery to be solved....

Day 10: The elusive Stan

MY great-grandfather

It mightn't really be a Christmassy subject, but as you know I am shoulder deep in genealogy, even though I haven't really done that much for several months now. However, I have lately been working on it again, albeit not my own family.

Anvilcloud in Canada also has family out there and he was wondering about when and where and how his forefathers made their way over to Canada. And of course where they came from to start with. So, since I am a paid member of several of those genealogy sites, I thought I might lend him a hand. 

Most of the people are easy to find. Census records in England are great and you can find a lot more information about people than you can on any Dutch records I have found. So far, so good. And then I got to Stan. And as it says in the title: the elusive Stan at that. He is just not to be found. 

AC: look real close at the 4th line

Granted, I did find his birth and Anvilcloud had provided me with his death date as well. And after some severe digging I think I found when he left the country. Which would be in about 1906. I think. And I even found a better link telling me when his future wife made her trip, which was great (she travelled with his elder sister a few years later). But other than that: Nothing! 

How can somebody disappear so well? And don't worry, I tried everything. His first name, his middle name, his initial, his birthdate, his last name in several different spellings and every time I come up empty. I did find someone with his last name working at a place where Stan supposedly worked as well, but the first name is different, although it could of course be a brother. 

I will crack Stan, I know I will. But by golly, it's frustrating!

Something old...

You may know I do delve into my family's history quite a bit. Finding stories from long (and not so long) ago, finding photos, letters or other things. I am the only one in our family of three who is really this interested.

According to my mother, my brother is not that into it and my sister is interested, but not to the extent I am. So, when my mother was clearing away a few things, there was quite a distinction between what she got and what I got. My sister got the tapestry making stuff (nope, not for me, I will stick to knitting and crocheting and sewing) and I got the baby comb. There used to be a baby brush as well, but that has been long gone. 

Apart from that though, my mother had another treat for me. Her wedding gloves! She wanted to give me something else as well, but that too had been lost. Or had it, because an hour after the gloves she bolted upstairs and into a room to open a drawer to open a box and there was the piece that kept her veil in place during the wedding. 

I will take it to a framer's today to have both pieces framed. It will take pride of place together with their wedding photo. 

Back

Another great grandfather. And yes, he has a wooden leg

As you may have read, Brom and I spent a week in the Netherlands. We visited my parents and I spent most of the first few days lying on the couch nursing my head. In between feeling a bit sorry for myself, I got out the photo albums (again) and went through them (again), but this time I asked my mother for help. And lo and behold, several great aunts and uncles and great-grandparents made their way into my vision. Especially the great grandparents were good news. Unfortunately my mother only had her paternal grandparents and the day before I left, my mum and I made our way to her eldest sister who had photos of the maternal side. Plus stories and even a letter. 

Now, that is what I did mainly: research in my past and I loved it. The thing I didn't love was how warm my parents' house was. Since I live in a completely different type of house without central heating, having to deal with central heating all of a sudden was weird. I am usually somebody who complains of the cold, but this time I moaned about the heat. Normally I wear one or two shirts and nearly always a nice thick cardigan. I had to leave the cardigan and quite a bit of time was spent in a t-shirt only. 

My aunt, aged 3

Another thing I did quite miss was the quiet. Don't get me wrong, my parents live in a nice and quiet neighbourhood, but I could hear the road, and people and late at night the train. The worst was the crows though. I always sleep in the attic and the crows were making their nest not far from the window. You could hear them scrabble on the roof and of course that eternal and infernal crowing. 

Despite the not so nice things, I did enjoy myself. But I am glad to be home again.