a bit more on the Coles

I left out the best part of the comments on the back of the photo, written by Grace (my grandmother), "Anna made all our dresses."
The first of this family in the US was Peter Cole who came with his wife Thona van Beek in 1852. Their son Levi was born 2 years later in Ottawa Co., Michigan. Levi was the father of these 7.
I have been searching the Koole family (and the alternate spellings) in records of Zeeland. Sadly, many of the records were at Middleburg when it was bombed in World War II and were destroyed. Happily, many had been transcribed, or at least indexed earlier in the century, so those copies are available. At this time I think I have the line traced back to Pieter Coole who married in 1702 in Zonnemaire. He had been married before, so he probably was born before 1675, but I have not yet found a record of the earlier marriage (possibly a different town).

and so it begins...

Most recently I have been trying to extend the Cole line back. I currently have some FHL film I'm looking at. I knew the Cole family was Koole in the Netherlands, but have found in these records that it was also spelled Kole, Coole, Kool...

Here are the Cole siblings in Grand Rapids in August, 1904, about the time their father died. From left: Cornel 22, Jennie 15, Pete 28, Grace 17, Tunis 24, Mabel 13, Anne 26.