The Family tree for   Ronald

                           Michael

                           Suzanne

                           and

                           Adam

         SCHAAP

 

 

Why a family tree,  how did it all start & interesting findings

 

Why? Well that's easy, there were so many stories about members of my family, gone to America, gone missing, never spoken about, etc. etc. that I considered it to be a good move to write it all down. Wondering how to go about it made me think of a family tree. On top of that a bookseller (the kind that leaves books at the reception of businesses) had a software CD for sale of a family tree program.

Now I had the inclination and the means, but no details. Even my Grandfather’s name on my Dad's side was unknown. Luckily my Mother in law has a good memory for dates and names, so interrogating her gave me something to start with.

Then came a picture from Holland of a family tree of my Mother in law's family, Groeneweg. This was done as a present for my Wife's Aunt's anniversary. It went back 9 generations, but only gave the names of Fathers and their Spouses, no Brothers or Sisters. But it was a good second kick start anyway, because also just about at that time I started to experiment with the internet and after many, many fruitless hours, days, months of "surfing", I finally found something interesting.

 

How? Via the Mormon site "familysearch.com I found the website of Piet Groeneweg. There were a few different Groeneweg family trees on that website, and it took again many hours, but bingo, I recognized the name of one of the Spouses of the family tree I mentioned earlier. I got cheeky and put in a search for Aarsen, my Wife's family name, and bingo again, there they were on the internet Adriana Groeneweg married J.C. van den Aarsen.

That got me really hooked, a fully finished family tree.

 

Soon after on one of my visits to Holland (for my Brother's 25th anniversary in 1997) and I happened to talk about my new hobby with my Mum. "Well", she said, "Tante Els (the Wife of one of my Mum's Brothers) has done some research of the Dopper family" (my Mum's). So I borrowed a car of one of my Brothers and my Mum and I went off to Rotterdam for a visit to my Aunt. That was an eye opener, my Aunt certainly had done some research. She had actually gone to Stadskanaal where the "Hotel Dopper" was situated and obtained an enormous amount of family information at the local council archives. She had also researched in depth my Grandmother's family Hoedemakers. It was all a bit messy, as she hadn't had time yet to sort it all out, but I had photocopies made of the whole lot to take back home with me.

The next interesting thing was a visit, as a result of my Aunt's story, to the Hotel Dopper. My Brother Theo offered to drive so of we went and we had a cup of coffee in the hotel where my great Grandmother worked, at least that much was certain. Unfortunately she was not married when she had my Grandfather and information about my great Grandfather, presumed (by me anyway) to be Cornelis Dopper, is up to now conjecture only. On one of the walls in the reception area of the hotel hung a relief picture of Cornelis Dopper.

The Hotel belonged to the Father of Cornelis, who was born there.

While we were there Theo ran out of cash so we had to go to a bank, as we stood in the que for the teller the subject of Dopper came up (I can't remember how) and the man in front of us in the que, Herman ter Veen, was the president of the "Cornelis Dopper Comity" in that town. He invited us to his place of work for a cup of coffee and some more information about Cornelis Dopper. He also told us that just a couple of days earlier the town remembered the day Cornelis died 50 years ago. Apparently there had been a large article in the local newspaper about their local celebrity, but he did not have a copy of that paper for us.

Not a problem for my Brother, after thanking Herman for his kind efforts we left with a lot of information, but no newspaper, so Theo just stopped in front of a house in Stadskanaal and said to me "just wait here", 10 minutes latter he came out of the house with the local paper that had the Cornelis Dopper story in it. He certainly isn't shy.

 

However, at that stage I still didn't know much about my Schaap family. That all changed when at Christmas 1998 we received a card from America, this was very strange, because I didn't know anyone there. It turned out to be a Cousin from my Dad's side. His Mum, my Father's Sister, had died early and when her Husband remarried family contact unfortunately dwindled from little to nothing.

This Cousin Gerard Somers and his Sister Diny who still lives in Rotterdam were interested in family contact. He also mentioned that via a distant Cousin they had some family tree information of their Mother's side, “hurray”, finally some info on my Schaap family. This distant Cousin Wim Schonenberg had a Neighbor interested in genealogy and he researched the roots of his Friend's family. Diny sent me a copy of all the information they had received from Wim. It was quite a lot, all the way back to Jan Schaap & Willemke Dekker.

But even with all that information I got no further on the internet, the only thing I found was a mention of Jan Schaap & Willemke Dekker on familysearch.com, which showed that they came from the town of Almkerk in Brabant.

 

Meanwhile, the Aunt who researched the Dopper connection died and her Children Peter & Marijke and Jose, the Wife of another Son Kees, took on the challenge to expand on the information. We had a nice get-together on my next visit to Holland in 2000, which gained me the current Dopper information, plus details of all my Dopper Cousins, their Spouses and Children.

 

The next step came as a bit of a surprise; I found a website with a Heiltje Schaap from Almkerk. I emailed the owner of that website, Teun van der Vorm and after a couple of requests for more info he came through with seven more generations of my Schaap family, all the way back to approx. 1550.

However this came with a word of caution, he pointed out that the Gerrit Schaap connection was not very positive, and to this day I have found many children of Jan Schaap and Willemke Dekker, but not Gerrit. The only saving grace is that Gerrit fits nicely in between what I hope to be his Brothers and one Sister.

One of these Brothers Otto Schaap took his whole family, including married children (except for one) to America in 1848. And I am currently in contact with one of his descendants Bill Phillips, who put the Otto story on the web.

 

I will keep looking and searching for proof one way or the other regarding Gerrit and maybe some time in the future I can afford to spend some time in Holland to search the archives, or maybe some of my interest will rub off on my Brothers in Holland and they will go and do some research.(where is the clip art for flying pigs?)

 

Finally, thanks to responses from members of the “[email protected]” I have found Gerrit on the familysearch.com site with as Parents Jan Schaap & Willemke Dekker. No details on his wife and other children yet, but that will come in time.

 

Now I really need to concentrate on van den Aarsen connection, there don’t seem to be many genealogist in the van den Aarsen family.

 

What is interesting?

 

Distant Cousins

The most interesting part of this hobby is getting in touch with lost relatives. It all started with a postcard from America. A first cousin of mine, Gerard Somers 18AA3, contact was lost because his mother (my dad’s sister died early and his father remarried). I have now visited his Sister, Diny Somers 18AA2, who still lives in Holland and I am in regular contact with the “Dutch Yankee”.

 

Repeated Christian names

Christian names must have been important because many a times when a child died the next born of the same gender of course was given the name of his / her deceased sibling, often this happened more than ones. The mortality rate of children was very high.

My father was the second Gerard and his sister the third Hendrika.

The most this has happened is with 4x Arien, sons of Pieter Dekker 11AA2.

 

American Schaaps

My g-g-grandfather’s brother Otto Schaap14AA3  took his whole family, 11 children, some married with children, (except one married son) to the new land America to escape the religious oppression. However after his wife died in America he left all his children and grand children and went back to Holland to live with his Son who stayed behind. There is a large Schaap family around the lake Michigan area, with towns like Holland, Zeeland, Overisel etc. His Son Cornelis Schaap 15AE10 wrote a letter to his Grand children to explain why and how. Refer “Descendants of Jan Schaap”

 

 

Schaap (Sheep)

Where the name Schaap (Schaep) came from is not clear, the name was in use well before Napoleon, around about 1800 decreed, that all his subjects should have a family name. The furthest back I have got is Jan Schaep 06AA1 born about 1537. Someone before him must have had something to do with sheep, because that’s what it means in Dutch.

 

Napoleon occupation, about 1795 - 1815

I must admit that I have seen very little evidence of what I learned at school about Napoleon and his ensuring that every one had a family name. All the families relating to my rather ordinary ancestors have a family name well before Napoleon did his thing

 

 

Marrying Cousins

Family inter marrying especially when there is a skip in generations seems very difficult for family tree programmes, all of a sudden there is this parallel branch of all the same people. Only a manually drawn tree structure can handle it, unless there is a smart software package I am not aware of as yet.

 

Death ends

There are of course many death ends for instance Johannes Nuvelstijn was an orphan, left at an orphanage with a note stating his name. We can only assume that nuvelstijn was his mother’s name.

The same goes for my grand father Hendrik Dopper, however his mother is known and there is an overwhelming circumstantial amount of evidence that the Composer/Conductor Cornelis Dopper was his Father. This evidence is added to by articles in a book about Cornelis’s life by the Dutch “Cornelis Dopper Group”. They write about rumours by neighbours etc. It is unfortunately difficult to get hold of from outside Holland. Maybe one day when I am in Holland again I may try to buy it.

 

 

Staying put

It is amazing how some families stay in the same locality for many generations. My wife’s family has for about 10 generations lived in a suburb of Rotterdam called Kralingen. One after the other was born and has died in that place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information on how it all hangs together.

 

The code, which follows the “Family name”, is a numbering system I have used to allow for families to be grouped together, rather than just a jumble of alphabetically sorted names. Every family branch starts of with the “Stam Vader”. All Brothers and Sisters are listed together in order of age.

 

              AA:                        Main tree line of each individual family.

 

              AB,AC,AD etc:     is used for sub branches, Children of Brothers, each letter is only used once per family.

                                             Children of Sisters become “A” of the Father’s line.

 

              The number in front shows the generation level, i.e.

                                             14AA is 5 generations up from 19AA.

The same number in any branch means the same generation, Brothers, Sisters or Cousins. A lower number means an earlier generation.

 

I have arbitrary used number 19 for my Children, that gives room for 18 generations back. Currently the furthest back so far is Hoorewech 04AA (abt. 1520)

 

              The last number groups Brothers and Sisters in order of age.

 

 

Robert Schaap 18AA1

[email protected]

Australia

August 2003

 

I have tried to be as careful as possible, but apart from the fact that nearly all of my information is second hand, it is also typed in by my hand. Therefore you know what comes next. Don’t take any of this for gospel, it is supposed to be fun only. But if you have any new information, details, or corrections, please, please let me know on;

[email protected]