And the Parents Are...

Everyone researching their family lines eventually hits a brick wall.  One of mine was finding the parents of Agatha, wife of Henry John Degraaf, my grandmother's grandmother on my dad's side. For years I didn't even have her maiden name.

I knew quite a bit about Agatha.  She was born in 1820 in Holland.  She married Henry and had children before immigrating to the United States in 1866.  The family arrived on the ship, The Hibernian, which sailed from Liverpool to Quebec.  Somehow they traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan where they most likely joined family and friends.

The Hibernian

Henry and Agatha are found on the 1870 and 1880 censuses in Grand Rapids as well as in several city directories of the period.  Henry worked as a carpenter and a baker.  He was an elder at the Holland Reformed Church. Their children grew up, married and gave them grandchildren.  On a sad note, their youngest son, Louis, was killed when he was hit by a train at the age of 24.

Henry died in 1895, probably in Grand Rapids, though the only record I have of his death comes from family notes.  Agatha died in 1898.  Eventually I found a copy of her death certificate. She died in Banks Township, Antrim County, Michigan.  Banks is almost 200 miles north of Grand Rapids and why Agatha was there is a mystery to me. 

Village of Ellsworth in Banks Township Between 1895 and 1912

Her death certificate gave her name as Mrs. H. J. Degraaf.  It states that she died from a concussion after a fall.  She was 78 years old.  The informant, who was not named, gave the name of her father as Vanbell (finally – a last name!) and the maiden name of her mother as Agatha Van Bell – which was crossed out and overwritten as Christina ? (could not read!).

That is where the story stopped until I watched a webinar called Researching Your Dutch Ancestors by Yvette Hoitink.  Now I know so much more...

WieWasWie (WhoWasWho) is a website that presents historical personal information from archive collections in the Netherlands.  It also has family trees that users have contributed.  The English version of the site has a search box and hints about spelling.  If you type Agatha Vanbell in the search box you get no results.  If you type Agatha Van Bell you get three.  If you type Agatha van Bel you get 28.  Not all of those match our Agatha, but some of them do.  

One of the documents is the 1860 population register (Bevolkingsregister). Part of the information is indexed but you can view the image to see even more.  

We learn that in 1860 Henry, Agatha and their children (including my great grandmother Maria Christina who later married Eugene Timmerman), is living in Den Helder.  The names are in Dutch and birth dates and birth places are given.  We confirm that Agatha was born January 21, 1820 and learn that she was born in Hattem, Gelderland.

Back to the search results and we see a record for the birth (geboorte) of Agatha van Bel in Hattem.  Her parents are...

Simon  van Bel and Christina Maria van Crimpen

More research shows that Henry's parents are

Jan de Graaf and Aaltje Koffeman

New names to research!  

Marie's New Family Tree

A few other things I learned about Agatha and Henry:

Henry's oldest daughter Alice (Aaltje) was born to his first wife, Aaltje, who died when Alice was just eighteen months old.  Henry married Agatha the following year.

Agatha and Henry had a daughter, Christina Maria, who died as an infant in the Netherlands. 

Agatha and Henry both had siblings, some of whom came to the United States.  Maybe one of them ended up in Banks Township, Michigan.

There is always more to research! 



Note for those who go to WieWasWie: 

Some of the text on the site and most of the documents are in Dutch so it helpful to have a translation app handy.  I use Google Translate.