Hessel de Walle created a wonderful website with texts of graves in churches, mourning signs, stones with names, silverware, signet rings, etc in Friesland. In many cases, this includes a photo of the object.
The website has the following search options:
- Gemeente: Municipality
- Plaats: Town
- Typen: Types.
- Achternaam: Last name
- Voornaam: First name
- Patronymicum: Patronymic
- Beroep: Occupation
- Foto: Photo
- Portretzerk: Grave portrait
- Latijn gebruikt: Latin used
The easiest way to use the database is to open the list for Achternaam (last name) to check for names of your Frisian ancestors. If there are too many hits, you can filter by Gemeente (municipality).
Example: Geertje Heslinga’s birth spoon
I used this database for my research into the ancestors of my client Roberta Estes of DNA-Explained. One of her ancestors was Geertje Heslinga. In the database, I found a reference to a silver spoon, with an engraving to commemorate her birth in 1755. We were able to visit the museum where Roberta got to hold the spoon, as I described in this blog post.
Roberta Estes holding her ancestor’s spoon. Photo by author
Silver spoon commemorating the birth of Geertje Geerts Heslinga
About Yvette Hoitink
