The Kroodsma Family
The Dutch documents are provided courtesy of Meile Tamminga my second cousin in The Netherlands. Meile and his brother Jenzes have been extremely helpful in providing me information and documents about our Dutch family. The research they have done is truly phenomenal. They are just wonderful.
Pictures of the farm Hans Benjamins and Sara Rented and some advertisements in the local paper
Map of the town of Leeuwarden in the year 1825 and surroundings the farms where Kroodsma’s lived.
(Daniel, then old 33, has been born in Firdgum, a little village at the coast of Friesland, behind the seadikes. His father was Rinnert Daniel LaFleur ans his mother Aaltje Johannes Bakker. They are living then in the village Tzummarum, also in that region. Daniel does not have a profession; his father was "strandmeester" in Firdgum. I don't know exactly what that means, but I think something like coastguard (but then civilian). (Strand means beach, but the coast along Friesland generally is not sandy but clay). Isabella, then old 25, without profession, born in The Hague ('s Gravenhage). Her parents are Hendrik Bierman and Mary Gowland. Then living in the village of Stiens, where her father was "rijksontvanger", what means something like " state-tax collector". In those times every village had his own tax administration. Her parents are present at the office at the celebration. The act is signed by Daniel and Isabella and by her parents Hendrik and Mary. Also 4 witnesses, no relationship with the bride bridegoom. The official is jonkheer (noblesse) Titus Valerius van Cammingha. That the "jonkheer" officiated, means that the couple was from a well-situated family.)
