I revisited some posts I did some years back on my maternal ancestors recently and realized that I needed to update the post from 2015 on Dutch Immigrant Women in my family. I started writing this update on March 26, 2025 and the 27th would have been ten years to the day exactly from when that first one was published. A whole year passed again before I sat down again and determined to finish it. And now even more time has passed. Perhaps I had to wait for the graphic that I have added just now. It's from an old postcard I picked up at an antique shop today.
In my initial post, I mention Gertrude Bos Kiel as one of the three Dutch immigrant women in my family tree. I never found a record of her in the United States before her marriage to Gerhardus/Gerrit Kiel in Kent County, Michigan in November
of 1881. Most census records indicated she arrived in that same year of 1881 and so I speculated that she came, alone, specifically to marry him.
Turns out that was not the case. She instead made the journey with her immediate family which included her 64-year-old widowed mother, Maaike Jurgens
Dijkstra. Maaike then is another Dutch immigrant woman in my family tree and the next generation back in my mtDNA line! Prior to discovering this, I had no idea that she was ever on American soil. I had been able to connect Gertrude to her family in records from the Netherlands. I had noted that although I located a death record for her father, I did not locate a death record there for her mother. It had never occurred to me before, though, to consider that she may have emigrated.
Another researcher added the image of the family's passenger list to Maaike's profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree (Maaike Jurjens Dijkstra 1817-deceased, ID# KLVJ-BR3). It was horribly transcribed to begin with and contains errors in the record itself as well. Luckily an astute researcher identified it and was able to properly connect it to the family line. The transcription indicates that A.L. Dykstra, a 64-year-old male came with a 28-year-old female G.Y. Blos, 35-year-old female T.Y. Blos, and 31-year-old male Y.Y. Blos. Also listed was 28-year-old male M. Oldenburger, 4-year-old female M.F. Bas, 3-year-old male J.F. Bas, and 9-month-old B.F. Bas.
The sex of these individuals were all wrong on this passenger list and the transcribed initials did not always correspond to what is known about the family either. A.L. is Maaike, the mother. G.Y. is Gertrude/Gertje so her sex is accurate. T.Y. is her brother Feike, Y.Y. is her brother Jacob. Their father Jan died in the Netherlands in 1863. M. Oldenburger is Feike's wife Martje and their three young children. The oldest two were named Maaike and John, which corresponds to traditional naming customs.
So this shows that instead of coming alone, Gertrude came with her mother Maaike (widow of Jan Feikes Bos) plus two brothers (Feike b. June 1850
and Jacob b. June 1855). Feike was married; his wife and three children also came at the same time. The brother Jacob later married Jeltje Zuidersma in
1883 in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the family settled.
The unfortunate part is that I do not know what happened to
Maaike once she came to the United States. I have a listing for Gertrude Kiel and her family
in the 1884 state census and her mother was not living with her at the time. I've tried to track down some records on the two brothers but don't see any evidence of Maaike living with them either.
She is likely the Maaike Bos listed in the Grand Rapids city directory for one or two years (one specifically says she was the widow of John), but that is the first and last confirmation of her stateside. At this time, I have not been successful in locating her in any other records. There does not seem to be a record of her death there.
After a brief glimpse that illuminated her life trajectory just a little bit more, the light has once again dimmed. As much as I'd like to find her final resting place and honor her with a visit, her whereabouts remain a mystery. I carry her maternal DNA in my blood. Perhaps her memory will one day stir again and reveal the answers I seek.
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