SNGF - The Time Machine

I've been away for a long time (doing research for a friend), but this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun has tempted me back!  The directive is to identify which event in ancestral history you would like to be a part of via Time Machine.  Well, that is easy for me -while any day in any life would be a thrill to witness, one event really struck me when I first learned of it.
I would like to be a part of the travels of my Great-great grandparents and family to America in 1856.  Teunis Snijders and Grietje van der Bie left their home in Goudswaard, Zuid-Holland and sailed from Rotterdam to New York with their 2 boys, 8 and 10, and my 3-month-old great-grandmother Trijnte (later Kate Snyder, married Levi Cole).  When I first found this passenger list (long before Internet databases) I had a young daughter myself.  I knew how difficult it had been for me simply to get this child a few miles down the road (in my car) to the grocery store!!  I could not (and still cannot) imagine traveling off to a whole new land, new language, new people with 2 kids and a three-month-old.  Oiy!  The Snyder family traveled somehow from NY to Michigan where they lived for a time in Washtenaw Co., then moved on to Kent Co.  Years later I learned that Grietje's mother, Trijntje van der Jagt and at least 3 brothers and a sister also came to the United States and settled in Allegan Co.
I have the greatest respect and admiration for these - and my other - immigrant ancestors and I wonder if I could do what they did?

Time off

I've been busy with other people's families for a while and have not had time to do any more here.  A little research for a former client and some research for friends to identify their ancestral towns of origin.  They are in Europe and hope to go visit towns if I can identify them, so there is a bit of a time schedule to work to.
I can relate to their interest as Karen and I went to many of our towns in the Netherlands on our trip - and had a wonderful time.  I hope to get back - maybe this fall - and visit some archives on the next trip.  Also visit some new towns, eat some pannekoeken, and take a lot of photos!

more on the Morrens

So now I know that the woman listed with the family in the church register is NOT the mother of the children.  But another interesting finding is that one of the children listed, Cornelia, actually died in the Netherlands and never was at the North Holland Church!

On the 17 April 1866, Cornelia Morren, age 14, daughter of Willem Morren and Lubbertje Hop, deceased, died.  It reported and signed by Willem Morren, father.  Signature is the same as on his marriage record.

Morren marriages

Once I found the birth registrations for the Morren children naming their mother as Lubbertje Aalts Hop, I had to resolve this conflict. Up 'til then, I had named Neeltje Dekker as the mother. After all, she is named in the list of the family in the North Holland Church register, census records and she is buried beside Willem Morren. SO next up was a search of the marriage registers.

Here is the marriage certificate of Willem Morren and Lubbertje Aalts Hop.

What this says is (briefly) that on the 19th of January 1848, Willem Morren, bachelor, age 24, farmer, born in Ermelo, living in Harderwijk, son of Jan Morren and Cornelia van Welsum
and Lubbertje Aalts Hop, maiden, age 24, no occupation, born and living in Harderwijk, daughter of Aalt Lubbertsen Hop and Petertje Willems, both deceased
were married, having filed the following papers: certificate of groom's military service, extract of the groom's birth record, extract of the bride's birth record, and extracts of the death certificates of both of the bride's parents. (That last part I cropped off)

Next to find was if there was a death certificate for Lubbertje Hop.  And, for sure, it was there.

It starts out with a staement of who is making the report of death and then states that on Wednesday the 26th of December 1860, Lubbertjen Hop, wife of Willem Morren, born and resident of Harderwijk, daughter of Aalt Lubertsen Hop and his wife Petertje Willems, died at the age of 36.

Thanks to all the detail in these records, it is easy to see that they are talking about the same person.
Just to put the final piece in place, I next found a marriage record for Willem Morren and Neeltje Dekker. I don't have the certificate scanned, but here is the online extract of the marriage:

This gives Willem's parents, so we know it is the same Willem, and also identifies him as the widower of Lubbertje Hop.  In 1865, Willem married Neeltje and a couple years later they came with the children to America.

Morren children

At the Family History Library, I set out to get copies of the birth registrations for the immigrant ancestors - or as many as possible. For the Morren family, I had birth dates as recorded in the North Holland Church register. [see Dec. 6 post] So it was not necessary to look in the tien-jarige tafel (10-year index). I started with Aaltje Morren, as she is my direct ancestor (great-grandmother). I pulled the film covering the time of her birth (according to the church record) 30 Nov 1854.
What this says is that on the first of December, 1854, Willem Morren, age 30, farmer, came to the the registrar in the town of Harderwijk to report that on the 30th of November in the village of Hierden, his wife Lubbertje Aalts Hop, age 29, gave birth to a female child named Aaltje. Hmm, right date, but not the mother I'm looking for. Could there be 2 Willem Morrens having 2 daughters named Aaltje? Born on the same day????
Well, maybe a mistake was made.

What about the other children? The oldest was Petertje, born 11 May 1849.

Hmm, right date and name, same other woman for the mother.


Kornelia, born 3 November 1851. Same story. Aaltje was next, born 1854.





Jan was the next child after Aaltje, born 2 September 1857 according to the church, and his birth registration -- and also the child of Lubbertje Hop.



And the youngest was Willempje, born 18 December 1860.


Not likely that an error was made in recording the name of the mother 5 times!! Not likely that there are 2 Willems each having five children of the exact birthdates and names! No, clearly the mother of the children of Willem Morren was Lubbertje Hop. So who is Neeltje Dekker, named in the North Holland (Michigan) Reformed Church register and buried beside Willem Morren in North Holland Cemetery???
A new puzzle to solve.

To the FHL for research

In 2002 I went to Salt Lake City with a friend for a week of research at the Family History Library. We went with the NGS group, which was nice as it gave you someone to meet for meals, discuss problems or finds and just chat. The members of this group came from all over the US. We found it interesting how some of these people headed straight to the US Census films. For them, this was a goldmine!! (There was not so much content on the Internet back then.) Since we had all the census near to hand at home, we headed out for filmed local records.
I had prepared for the trip by searching the FHL catalog from home and found my own goldmine. Since my family is all Dutch, I had one specific area to work. Lucky for me - zillions of records from the Netherlands are filmed. Also, they have civil registrations of births, deaths and marriages starting quite early (relatively speaking!). When Napoleon took over the Netherlands, he instituted a system of civil registrations. For most of the country these began in 1811. A couple years later, Napoleon was out but the civil registration stayed. For a few short years (it seems to vary by locality), the records are in French, but then revert to Dutch.
So there I was, with thousands of rolls of microfilm covering all the areas of the Netherlands I was interested in. And many of them have indexes! In many cases they have other films called tienjarige tafels - literally ten-year tables, or indexes covering 10-year spans.
Of course, you do need to know where the person or family of interest lived. There was no overall index for the country. Now there are many online sources, but most of these are for a province or smaller area. The most comprehensive is Genlias (www.genlias.nl) which has indexed records from many parts of the country (though not all). Many more sites are now adding digital images of the records. But when I started this, film was the way to go.
And I was in seventh heaven! I was going back and forth from microfilm reader to printer, saying "thank goodness for Napoleon!" and "Gotta love bureaucracy!!" for making so much material available for research. And also, of course, thanks to the Genealogical Society of Utah for filming these records and the records keepers for allowing that.
And so, armed with names and dates from the North Holland Church register, and a place name from the gravestone of Willem Morren, I looked for the birth registrations of the children, including my great-grandmother.

Back to the Morren family

Back in August I started with the Morren family, posting pictures of gravestones, later photos from the village in The Netherlands and a chart of what I knew to start with.When I began gathering information on my ancestors, I had copies of family information my Dad's aunt had compiled. Aunt Nellie had written out her siblings and spouses and all the siblings of her father and their spouses.
Then I found the North Holland Reformed Church register at the Herrick Library in Holland. This listed my grandfather's family and also his father's.

Grandpa is Wietse, the third from the last child of Halbe and Aaltje.
My great-grandfather is also listed as a child in his father's family.

Foeke and Jeltje came to the US with the 4 oldest children.
Also at this same little church was the family of my grandfather's mother - the Morren family. Here Aaltje is recorded as a child in her parents family. It was easy to make the step backward because this church register follows the Dutch tradition of retaining the maiden names of the women after marriage.


For the most part, the church records match Aunt Nellie's. In general, census records also match this family group. In 1870 Aaltje is listed as Albrecht, but everyone else is right - it is definitely the family. This was all I knew for a long time, until I went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on a research trip.