Like the great-greats in my last post, Jan and Geertruijd (Engelse) de Korne, Dirk Gillesz Remijnse and his wife, Adriana Krijger (Kriger), are ancestors of Richard DeKorn, the man who had a great influence on my grandfather. Richard was Grandpa’s grandfather, and he lived with his parents at the home of Richard. Richard’s given name was Dirk, so he was named after his grandfather, Dirk Gillesz Remijnse.
By the way, according to Family Search:
In Dutch the word for son is zoon; in Old Dutch, it is soen, zoen or soon, which can be abbreviated to sz, z, se, sen and x. Daughter in Dutch is dochter and in Old Dutch it is doghter which can be abbreviated to d, dr, s, se, sen, sens, and x.
Using this info, we can see that Dirk Gillesz means that his father’s name was Gillis or Gilles.
According to Dirk’s and Adriana’s life stories on Ancestry:
When Dirk Gillesz Remijnse was born on November 22, 1786, in Kruiningen, Zeeland, Netherlands, his father, Gillis, was 29 and his mother, Hendrika, was 23. He married Adriana Krijger on August 26, 1810, in Kapelle, Zeeland, Netherlands. They had ten children in 15 years. He died on September 9, 1840, in Kapelle, Zeeland, Netherlands, at the age of 53.
When Adriana Krijger was born on June 11, 1787, in Biggekerke, Zeeland, Netherlands, her father, Jan, was 53, and her mother, Janna, was 31. She married Dirk Gillesz Remijnse on August 26, 1810, in Kapelle, Zeeland, Netherlands. They had ten children in 15 years. She died on April 14, 1845, in Kapelle, Zeeland, Netherlands, at the age of 57.
I would add that of these ten children, nine lived to adulthood, whereas Pieter died at age 8. It is possible that there were other babies who passed away, but I have not yet searched for them. For the most part, these children are 1-2 years apart, though, so it’s likely that the family was blessed with good odds (for those days) and that the majority of their children survived.
I found a death record for both husband and wife.
Dirk’s record:
Index of Dirk’s death record:
Adriana’s death record:
Index of Adriana’s death record:
I have not found a marriage record for this couple, nor a baptismal record for Dirk. But I did finally find a baptismal record for Adriana and ordered it from Zeeuws Archief. It arrived in time for this post!
At the birth of their daughter, Johanna, my 3x great-grandmother (who died in Kalamazoo in 1864), Dirk’s occupation was listed as bread baker. Probably a good thing, since he had all those mouths to feed! But think of him getting up really early and getting the ovens going. A pretty hard job, although a good smelling one.
I must confess that the birth date for Dirk and the marriage date that I show come from online family trees on “genealogy online,” a Dutch site. I do not have documents verifying them. So let’s just use them as place holders for now. Of course, the birth years are fairly accurate because of the ages listed on the death records, but I still need those documents!
Adriana was born in Biggekerke. This is a “ground sailor,” which is a term for a windmill that can be operated from the ground. Brassers Molen is a flour mill that was built in 1712, so it had already been around for quite some time when Adriana was born in 1787.
Brassers Molen from Wikipedia
Dirk hailed from Kruinengen, and that town also has an old flour windmill, Oude Molen (literally, Old Mill). This one was built in 1801 when Dirk was 25 years old.
Oude Molen from Wikipedia
If you would like to understand the role of some windmills in controlling the water in below-sea-level Netherlands, read Eilene’s wonderful post: Milling Water to the Sea
The Family Kalamazoo 
Your posts are always so interesting as I have/had no knowledge of anything to do with Dutch culture or history. Dirk saw that windmill built – that must have been an amazing sight to see 🙂
I love that these little towns still have these old windmills standing!!! They remind me of reading fairy tales as a kid. There was always a dangerous MILL STONE in them hahaha.
Your tenacity is admirable
I’m a little energizer bunny of family history ;). Thanks, Derrick!
🙂
True, but funny!
I recently am finding relatives who escaped to the Netherlands during the 1930s and stayed, so WiewarWie has become a resource. I am not inclined to send for records for all these people as they are rather distant relatives and my budget is limited. I prefer getting the actual records, but there’s only so far I can go!
Weirdly you don’t have to pay for all the records, just some. It might depend on where they are stored. There are a lot of mine that I got for free. MOST of them have been free, in fact. Maybe it’s because I’m going farther back in time now that I have to pay? I will only do it for direct ancestors unless something is driving me crazy. It’s not very expensive per record, but of course they add up.
I’m so impressed with the records you’ve been able to acquire!
Thank you, Liz! All in a day’s work hahaha. Take care.
You, too, Luanne!
Excellent, Luanne, as always. Hope you are feeling better after your shot. Be safe and sane.
I am, thanks, Sheila. Arm still hurts, but that’s the way it is. Stay safe and same for T!
I hope you find the records you are missing. More become available all the time. I just found some German records that have led me to some cousins in Wisconsin. Our ancestors were brothers who were the only family members to emigrate. Love the windmill photos. It is amazing how long they stay in use. We got to tour a working water mill in South Holland -very interesting. The miller grew up in it, the son of the previous miller.
Eilene, that’s exciting news! So glad you had that happen.
The windmills represent so much: practicality, beauty, working with nature, power, feeding people, draining canals (a use in the Netherlands that I did not realize), craftsmanship, I could go on and on haha. That is so neat about the miller and the miller’s father!
If it is of interest to you, I did a detailed post about the water mill: https://myricopia.com/2018/05/24/milling-water-to-the-sea/
I hope it is ok that I added a link to your post here.
Absolutely! Thank you.
Luanne,Been reading some of your framily history, your doing a wonderfu job on it. Hope mine turns out in the end as good as yours. Oh before I forget I was wondering do you have any records of Henry and Carrie, as far as there land and the house? Just wondering, some news I found out this week is that Henry didn’t build the park from scratch, when he got it he re done alot, but I have found out that Five other people owned the same acreage as Henry had and that in 1890 when one owner died, it stated he managed the the Long Lake Resort, so seem that the little amazing park of ours has many more stories to tell. I am getting it done up and you lady friend I did talk with her and she is willing to help me when it ready, hopefully by end of next month, but I have been sick for about ten days with Brochities, so haven’t really done to much this month so far. But will start this next week. Take care and thanks for all your help.
Paula