Tangled Webs, The Tale Gets More Complicated

In previous blog postings, I discussed various examples of tangled interrelationships in my database. This time, we visit the towns of Nijkerk and Putten in northern Gelderland. Have a look at the following drop chart. (Click on it to see the full picture. Better still, open the image in a new browser window.)

Previously, I used an image program to produce a nice, easy to read chart. This time, there were just too many people to include, so I decided to take the easy way out, and just scan my rough, hand-drawn chart. In this chart, the black rectangles represent direct ancestors and the red rectangles represent distant cousins.

I began this saga of exploration researching some descendants of my 4th great grandparents Steven van Coot (1743-1813) and Helena van Hagen (d.1799). In my pedigree, these are persons #108 and #109. When I got down to their 2nd great grandchildren Gerrit van de Nautena (1862-1945) and Jannetje van de Nautena (1865-1931), I noticed that they both married a child of a van de Beerenkamp. Although these were in-laws, I just had to dig deeper. Gerrit married twice, to two sisters, Willempje van Korler (b.1853) and Maartje van Korler (b.1855). Their mother was Maria van de Beerenkamp (1820-1856), a daughter of Hendrik Elbertsen van de Beerenkamp (1797-1888).

Hendrik Elbertsen had another daughter, Willempje van de Beerenkamp (1822-1901), who married Abraham van Wijland (1821-1872). The name van Wijland was familiar. It turned out that Abraham and Willempje were the parents of Hendrikje van Wijland (1865-1893), whose husband was my great grand uncle Cornelis Moll (1855-1907), child of my 2nd great grandparents Herman Moll (1822-1902) and Johanna Anthonia Laboths (1821-1887), persons #24 and #25 in my pedigree. That is, the van de Beerenkamp family provides a link between two separate lines of my ancestors!

As if we haven't seen enough interrelationships so far, if you look more closely at the van de Beerenkamp family, you'll see even more. For example, we have yet another case of siblings marrying siblings: Aart Elbertsen van de Beerenkamp (1799-1872) married Maria Bleumink (1807-1874). Aart's younger brother Aalt Elbertsen van de Beerenkamp (1805-1866) married Maria's younger sister Jannetje Bleumink (1809-1866).

And we also have a couple of cases of cousins marrying: First, Willem van de Beerenkamp (1837-1897) married his first cousin Johanna van de Beerenkamp (1851-1931). Second, Willem van Wijland (1853-1917) married his first cousin once removed Aaltje van de Beerenkamp (1849-1919).

Looking at the chart, I wonder what other interesting interrelationships might be uncovered with further research.

Before I close off this epistle, I'd like to offer one more observation: Among the thousands of individuals born in the Netherlands in my database, I have very few cases of illegitimate births. And one of them shows up in this drop chart. My database does contain a number of cases of "miraculous" births, occurring less that nine months after the marriage of their parents. But during the 18th and 19th Centuries, illegitimate births seem relatively uncommon in the Netherlands.

Cheers! Hans