Important Zijlstra archive, ‘Stealing’ for food, Our Charlemagne, Living together in 1822, Free from a surname

IMPORTANT ZIJLSTRA ARCHIVE Family of the president of De Nederlandsche Bank (The Dutch Bank) On 1 August 2020, an archive of the farmer’s family of prime minister Jelle Zijlstra was donated to Erfgoed Fundaasje. This business and family archive had been kept for a long time on the Sylstra farm in Klooster-Lidlum, south of Oosterbierum, and came into possession of Thea Brandsma-Zijlstra because her family was the last to work on her ancestors’ farm. This archive is very valuable because the family has kept the business accounts nearly without gaps from the end of the 19th century until the 1990s. Further work is being done on this inventory and will be completed eventually.

‘STEALING’ FOR FOOD
What 62-year-old laborer would steal? Maaike Alles Sybrandi (1815-1903), great-grandmother of the president of De Nederlandsche Bank.
There are many people among the working class who work for a meager living every day from four in the morning until six in the evening. They go out hungry. Maaike is a laborer, as is her husband, both of whom have been convicted of stealing.
This was only a short time ago.
Read more: Kertiersteat Jelle Zijlstra – introduction and no. 27 (use the search tool)

OUR CHARLEMAGNE What is Charlemagne doing here? Nearly everyone in the Abendland (the western world) has blood coarsing through their veins of this bully and at the same time Father of Europe. As such, he also has a place in this pedigree, as the umpteenth person, namely number 570,270,302,208. What does that say of ‘high’ descent? If you calculate that the number of ancestors per generation is doubled, then in the time of great-grandfather Charlemagne, theoretically you’d have 570 billion ancestors, and at around 800 AD, Europe had a population of only about 35 million. So relative, and at the same time so close. For instance, if you are interested, click number 8,701,634 in this pedigree: Floris V count of Holland and Zeeland, ‘Der keerlen god’ (God of the peasants) and ‘‘Hear’ fan Fryslân’ (‘Lord’ of Frisia), at least, so he calls himself; or Mathilde Plantagenet and all of her ancestors, number 139,226,153. And if you have gotten a taste for it, there is also number 17,820,946,945 Gorm den Gamle, the Old, the first king of Denmark. Well, anyway. Others will do research up to Adam: Offringa: From Adam To Esther

LIVING TOGETHER IN 1822
Before they got married, Baukje Jans Jousma and Rinze Lucas Nauta in Bitgum had three children. Unmarried cohabitation was uncommon in the potato farming region at the beginning of the 19th century, but at that time, was it considered not done?
This is not to say that Bauky and Lucas are living a life of debauchery: Lucas wants to know that he is the father, /…/
Socio-historical research into this particular phenomenon may provide insight into presupposed taboos of the time.
Read more: Genealogy Jousma (use the search tool)

FREE FROM A SURNAME? Job Sytses Sytsma, a worker in Bitgum, signs his first name and patronymic in full in a deed in 1823: Job Sytses – it is the custom in his time to use nothing but initials. Instead, Job writes his last name here with the last component, Job keeps it at: sma. Does Job Sytses want to show that it is possible to have proper names? Free from family names, new modes and mores? Read more: Genealogy Jousma (use the search tool)