Matrilineal Monday - Grytje Ettes Kloosterman



Friesland traditional dress

Grytje Ettes Kloosterman, my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother, was born in Augsbuurt in the Friesland province of the Netherlands on 7 April 1788. She was baptized nearly one month later on 1 May 1788 in Augsbuurt. Her parents were Ette Jacobs and Wytske Jans. Her maternal grandfather was Jan Johannes Kloosterman. Before she was seven years old, Grytje’s father died in January 1795. Her mother died when she was twenty.

On 3 January 1812, when Grytje was 24 years old, she gave birth out of wedlock to a daughter. Tijtske Jan, an innkeeper in Burum registered the birth and said that the child’s name would be Ettje Sijmons. As the typical naming customs of the Netherlands was adding the father’s given name (called a patrynomic), I’m reasonably sure that the father was a man named Sijmon.

At the age of 36, Grytje marrie Feike Gerrits Bos in Kollum on 26 Jan 1824. Feike had been previously married to Tryjntje Hendriks who died on 11 October 1822, three days after giving birth to a daughter, Martje. This left Feike with the infant along with three other children, Gerrit age 6, Hendrik age 4 an Hiljte age 1. The infant Martje may have also died, for another daughter was named Martje in 1827. Grytje and Feike had two other sons as well, Jacob born 23 Dec 1824 and Jan born in 1826.

                In 1841, Ettje Sijmons Kloosterman, Grytje’s daughter, was married to her stepbrother, Gerrit. In May of 1848, Jan Feikes Bos married Maaike Dijkstra. Two months later, on 23 July, Feike died. In 1850, Jan’s wife gave birth to a son whom they name Feike Jans Bos. In 1852, a daughter Gertje was born to Jan and his wife. On 2 March 1857, Grytje died at the age of 68.

Photo Credit: Yvette’s Dutch Genealogy Homepage.