Hermanus Piek and Johanna Catharina Bekerink emigrated to the United States together with their three children. They settled in Clymer, NY.

Lives in the Netherlands

Hermanus Piek was born in Bredevoort, a small town near the German border in the eastern part of Gelderland, on 29 November 1805. He was the sixth son in a row of Jan Derk Piek and Hendrika Zwietink. After him, a younger sister was born.

On 20 March 1839, he married Johanna Catharina Bekerink. She was born in Winterswijk on 1 December 1814. She was a daughter of Abraham Bekerink and Frederika Schreurs.

He worked as a transporter, carrying goods for a fee. On 6 Mey 1842, one of his competitors, Bernardus Willemsen, filed a legal complaint against him for slander. On 22 July 1842, he was acquitted from all charges by the court.

Hermanus and Johanna Catharina had three children:

1. Jan Derk Piek, born Winterswijk 14 November 1840
2. Jan Derk Piek, born Winterswijk 1 October 1842
3. Johanna Frederika Piek, born Winterswijk 18 December 1846.

The two boys probably died in infancy.

Emigration

The parents of Johanna Catharina, Abraham and Frederika, emigrated to the United States in 1846. They settled in Clymer, NY. Hermanus Piek, Johanna Catharina Bekerink and their daughter Johanna Frederika emigrated around 1851 and joined her parents in Clymer.

Lives in the United States

Hermanus and Johanna Catharina remained in Clymer for the rest of their lives. On 29 December 1864, their daughter Johanna Frederika was married to Derk Jan Schreurs, son of Jan Hendrik Schreurs and Janna Geertruid Oonk.

Johanna Catharina passed away on 28 December 1886. Six months later, Hermanus died on 12 May 1887. They are burried side-by-side on Clymer Hill Cemetery.

Gravestones of Hermanus Piek and Johanna Catharina Bekerink

Last week, my friend Mary Risseeuw from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin and I gave a presentation at the International Congress for genealogical and heraldic Sciences in Maastricht. The title was "We're all fresh and healthy. Emigration from the Netherlands to the United States in the 19th century. The slides are now available online.

I've just added a Dutch genealogy store to the site. In this store, visitors can buy books, DVDs and prints about Dutch genealogy, history and culture. I've selected publications that I think would benefit somebody researching his Dutch roots. The store is powered by Amazon. This website receives a commission for all sales, enabling this website to remain free.

Have you ever wondered why first names seem to run in Dutch families for generations? In the Netherlands, people used to name their children after family members. This way, first names can stay in the family for centuries.

The best known example of naming children is when a child is named after it's grandparent. But other forms of naming are possible too.

Census records can be a great source of information because they list all the inhabitants of a house, usually one or more families together with their domestic staff. Since 1850, the Dutch census records form a continuous registration where you can find who lived where at all times.

Zuid-Holland is a province in the west of the Netherlands. It borders on Utrecht and Gelderland in the east, Noord-Brabant and Zeeland in the south, the North Sea in the west and Noord-Holland in the north.

The capital city of Zuid-Holland is The Hague (In Dutch Den Haag or 's-Gravenhage). Other large towns are:

• Rotterdam
• Leiden
• Dordrecht
• Gouda
• Delft

Jan Hendrik Warnshuis, brother of Hendrik Jan Warnshuis, was not at all like that brother. He was an upright, God-fearing, conservative leader in the church in Clymer. I have also concluded that he didn't have much of a sense of humor. He was Dominie Dunnewold's right-hand man and was a leader in keeping order among the congregation. He made home visitations with the dominie and, on occasion, substituted in the pulpit for him. Sometimes he read a sermon, sometimes he preached one of his own. It has been said that the congregation greatly preferred to hear him preach rather than read because he wasn't a very good reader.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, conditions in Europe were poor. Crops were failling all over Europe and many people hardly made enough money to feed their families. For this reason, many people decided to emigrate to the United States, where farmland was plenty and people hoped they could begin a new life. In the Netherlands, some people also had religious reasons to emigrate. The had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church and were being oppressed by the goverment. The United States offered to them not only better economic prospects, but also the chance to celebrate their religion as they saw fit.