Another set of ancestors of Richard DeKorn and my grandfather Adrian Zuidweg are my 4x great-grandparents, Joost Peek and his wife, Annigje van Besten.
I wrote a couple of blog posts about their son, Teunis, who was a pioneer of Kalamazoo, Michigan: 3x greats Teunis and Jacoba (Bassa) Peek, part I and 3x greats Teunis and Jacoba (Bassa) Peek, part II
As I explained previously, the name Paak used most often by my family in the United States was actually Peek in the Netherlands. It is possible they were going for a more phonetically correct spelling (by American English standards).
These are the life stories from Ancestry:
When Joost Peek was born on October 28, 1787, in Zijderveld, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, his father, Cornelis, was 41 and his mother, Teuntje, was 34. He married Annigje den Besten on September 28, 1814, in Everdingen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. They had six children in 13 years. He died on November 29, 1832, in Everdingen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, at the age of 45.
Annigje den Besten was born in 1785 in Everdingen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, the daughter of Maaike and Jan. She married Joost Peek on September 28, 1814, in her hometown. They had six children in 13 years. She died on April 3, 1865, having lived a long life of 80 years.
One of those six children, Maaike, died in infanthood.
I have been blessed with most of the pertinent records on these two. I do still need a baptism record for Annigje and military record for Joost, but I have Joost’s baptismal record, as well as their marriage record and death records for both.
This is the front cover of the book that contains their marriage record.
And this is the marriage record:
Instead of posting Joost’s death record, I will post the transcription and translation that was done through a Facebook group by Carla Ratcliff. Where it says “I” it is Carla. We learn from this record that Joost was a builder by trade.
Transcription in Dutch : #19
In het jaar achttien honderd twee en dertig, den dertigsten der maand November, des voor middags ten tien ure, zijn voor ons Jan Hendrick Kny (ij)tt Burgemeister Ambtenaar van den Burgerlijken Stand der Gemeente van Overdengen gecompareered: Antonie van Ooijen oud vijfen en derig Jaren, van beroep Bouwman wonende te Everdingen en Andries van Meeuwen oud vie ren dertig Jaren van beroep Bouwman, wonende te Everdingen die ons verklaard hebben, dat op den negen en twintigste der maand November des jaars achttien honderd twee en dertig, des morgens ten drie ure, binnen deze Gemeente is overladen: J (I) oost Peek oud vijfen veertig Jaren Bouwman wonende te Everdingen den ag ten twintigste October zeventien honderd vijf en tagtig geboren te zij (y)derveld?, echtgenoot van Annnigje den Besten zonder beroep aldaar woonachtig zoon van Cornelis Peek en van Taientje van Zenderen beide overleden. En hebben wij declaranten een geburen met ins deze acte na gedane voorlezin onderteekend.
[DeepL translations are done by a DeepL machine]
deepl translation : #19 ( I made corrections to deep l translations!!)
In the year eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the thirtieth of November, at ten o’clock in the afternoon, Jan Hendrick Kny (ij)tt Burgemeister Civil Servant of the civil registration of the city of Overdengen( has been composed for us) gecompareered = APPEARED BEFORE ME: Antonie van Ooijen, (aged five and thirteen years) 35 years old, by profession ( Bouwman) BUILDER, living in Everdingen, and Andries van Meeuwen, aged thirty one years, by profession (Bouwman) BUILDER, living in Everdingen, who have declared to us that on the (ninth and twentieth) 29th day of November of the year eighteen hundred thirty-two, in the morning at three o’clock, (there were overloaded)ALSO IN THIS IN CITY: Joost Peek, aged forty-five years (Bouwman) BUILDER , residing in Everdingen, on the twentieth of October seventeen hundred and thirty-five, born in his (y)derveld?, husband of Annnigje den Besten, son of Cornelis Peek and of Tientje van Zenderen, both residing there without profession, both (showered) DEAD. And we have signed a letter to the declarants with in this act after the preceding sentence.
From this death record, we can see that even the witnesses to Joost’s death were all builders.
Annigje outlived Joost for over thirty years. She also died “elsewhere,” in Vianen. This death town caused me all kinds of frustration until I bothered to look up Everdingen where she was born, married, and lived. I discovered this in Wikipedia: “Everdingen is a former municipality in the Netherlands. Together with Zijderveld and Hagestein, it had been part of Vianen municipality since 1986.” So all these little towns were very close. When Annigje was in her 60s she lived in Hagestein. Joost was from Zijderveld.
This city gate of Vianen is from the 15th century.
By User:China_Crisis – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2214906
The Family Kalamazoo 