Today I finally finished my Super-Duper-Handy-Dandy Dutch Birth Record Translation Helper. This is actually just a pdf form I created to help me translate/make sense of the birth records I’ve found so far for the LEMMENS family. Essentially, the ‘fillable’ fields are where the genealogical information was recorded on the original. I have tried to make it look as similar to the original record as possible so that I don’t lose myself in the language.
Dutch Birth Record of Eduard LEMMENSSuper-Duper-Handy-Dandy Dutch Birth Record Translation Helper output
I will probably fine-tune the pdf as I continue to use it but will make it available in my Useful Links section as a download, in case it helps anyone out there. If you share it, please link to this post rather than the direct link – thank you!
I also made up a little Dutch Number ready reckoner so that I can translate the numbers more easily.
A kind soul offered to help me in my ‘Belgian quest’ and I’m very grateful as it opened up a lot of different doors for me. As well as some BEFAYS info, he managed to locate my great-grandfather Eduard’s birth not in Belgium after all, but in Holland! This ties in very neatly with the ‘Dutch Pilot’ description on the census record mentioned on the previous post.
Eduard’s birth record confirmed his father as Frederic as well as gave his mother’s name:
Birth Record of Eduardus Gustaaf Frederic LEMMENS, 1886
Rough translation:
Birth record 18 February 1886 – VLISSINGEN [prov. Zeeland, The Netherlands]
Father: Frederic Jean Lemmens, 31 years old, from Vlissingen, profession “loods” [sea pilot]
Mother: Celine Marie Vanwouw, without profession, from Vlissingen
Male child born 18 February 1886 at 08:00 am
called EDUARDUS GUSTAAF FREDERIC LEMMENS
This record is signed by witnesses Petrus Carolus Lamoot, pilot, 43, and Eduardus Josephus Baels, 39, pilot, both from Vlissingen, and the father.
So now I know the older lady in the photograph, my 2nd great-grandmother, is Celine Marie VANWOUW and they lived (at least for a time) in Vlissengen, Netherlands (aka Flushing).
When I added the data into my family tree, a gravestone record was suggested to me which gave me birth and death dates for Frederic & Celine (Eduard’s parents).
Grave of Celine Marie VAN WOUW & Frederic Jean LEMMENS in Northern Cemetery, Flushing (Vlissingen)
Mevr. Lemmens & Frederick Lemmens (and a mystery daughter?)
I haven’t written a lot about my mother’s side of the family – in fact, I just checked and I don’t seem to have written at all about them! This saddens me but it’s largely because her family history is centred around Belgium and so the records are not easily accessible to me (physically OR ‘literally’ as I don’t read French or Dutch). Hopefully that will change with a little help from growing records and Google Translate.
This weekend my mother passed on a photo that my grandmother gave my mother of HER mother’s parents – got that? Basically I got a pic of my mother’s maternal great-grandparents (and maybe a great-aunt in the background). So that’s great – an ‘ID’ed family photo… almost. The problem is my grandmother has forgotten their names (!) although she’s pretty sure her grandfather’s given name was Frederick.
So I blow off the digital dust on my Belgian ancestors to check their names to discover I don’t actually have them on there yet. I know that my grandmother was one of nine children born to Eduard LEMMENS and Gabrielle MINNE. Eduard himself was one of seven siblings seen in the photo below:
Children of Frederick LEMMENS
(The youngest girl lying on the floor looks most like the mystery woman in the first photo – could it be her?)
Since I don’t currently have a ‘world’ membership, I wasn’t expecting much from searching a Belgian on ancestry, but I actually may have struck lucky! The very first result was a British 1901 census entry for a Fredrick LEMMENS born in Ostende, Belgium. My grandmother was born in the coastal city of Ostende, Belgium and the man’s age fit (b.1855), so it immediately interested me. This man was on board the S.S. Truro in Hull that night and recorded as a ‘Pilot Dutch’ but it didn’t seem to be a Belgian vessel or crew.
A quick glance at some of the other results didn’t show any other connections but Google threw up a record on the Oostende Archives site of a sea fishing captain who “sailed for shipowners” [G. ASAERT, Analytical inventory of fishing reels (1818-1843 and 1860-1910), Brussels (ARA), 1986]. So could that delightful outfit that looked to me like a milkman’s uniform actually be a captain’s uniform? [update: Another descendant of Frederick Lemmens (RV) informs me that he is not wearing a captain’s uniform but was probably his summer jacket. Frederick apparently always wore the hat because he was bald! :)]
On the back, someone has written in pencil, ‘Daphne & Gwen at Mt Cook’. This information is repeated underneath in my grandmother’s unmistakable pen scrawl (presumably in case the pencil faded) before adding ‘1939’.
Gwen, on the right is my grandmother, and on the left is Daphne, her best friend.
I know this because Grandma often spoke of her ‘best friend, Daphne’. I wish I could remember the stories – unfortunately, I don’t – but I definitely remember her name, Daphne. So when I came across this photograph again, I decided to learn a bit more about the woman who featured heavily in Grandma’s early life. I messaged my father and asked if he knew her surname. Morrison. She became a doctor and married a doctor, and Dad thought her married name was Adams.
Googling ‘Dr Daphne Morrison New Zealand’ resulted in only 2 appropriate hits. The first, a brief mention in what appears to be the ‘women’s section’ of The Press newspaper on Boxing Day, 1944. (It was interesting to see the surrounding wartime articles and advertisements aimed at women on the full page.
The Press, 26 December 1944, p2
Dr. Daphne Morrison, who has been assistant house surgeon at Dunedin during this year, is visiting Picton for a week or two before taking up her new duties as house surgeon at the Waikato Hospital.
Second, a page on genealogieonline with her bmd information which showed Dad was correct – she was a doctor who did indeed marry a Dr Adams.
Of course, without confirmation I can’t be completely sure but the dates and places were very similar to my grandmother’s. My ancestry search didn’t yield anything although when I googled ‘Daphne Phyllis Morrison’ this information was found on the ancestry site. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I am still unable to find records or trees relating to Daphne despite this information apparently being there.
I found some other information here where it says she had 7 grandchildren but the ancestry links suggest that none are still alive (which I don’t really believe). So I post this information in the hopes that a family member may contact me for more adorable pictures of Daphne and Gwen’s friendship and perhaps have some of their own to share with me.
You may have seen a lot birthplace pedigree charts posted online recently.
I created charts for my own and my husband’s family’s countries of birth knowing that it would visually represent something that I think is pretty rare.
My pedigree:
My husband’s pedigree:
Notice anything?
5 generations of English heritage on both the maternal and paternal sides, all the way through.
And this pattern has continued further back too. In fact, the ONLY ancestor I’ve discovered not born in England (so far) was born in America (6th generation) to English parents, due to her father’s service in the British military. Surely, she is considered English too?
Either way, I’d like to know anyone else who has this. I’ve been led to believe it’s pretty rare due to a programme aired (ten years ago now) where people who thought they were completely English found out they were anything but.
Is it so rare?
If you would like to compile your own chart, head to AnceStories for a pre-made template.
My husband’s pedigree: