Small towns

Almelo, the town my father’s family came from is still a small town, and certainly it was in the 18th and 19th century. As a result, people tended to marry their relatives.

My second great-grandfather Hendrik Jan ten Bruggencate (dutch link) is a case in point. His first wife Aaltje Selhorst was also his aunt, as she was his mother’s half-sister. The age difference between the sisters was 29 yrs, and Aaltje was two years younger than Hendrik Jan.  They had to get dispensation from the Queen in order to get married. Hendrik Jan and Aaltje had one daughter, who died at one month of age; Aaltje died about three month later.

Hendrik Jan and his second wife Trina Johanna ten Bruggencate were first cousins; their mothers were sisters, and their fathers were also first cousins.  Of the four witnesses at there wedding, one was their mutual uncle Gerrit Mokkelencate, two were unrelated, and one was Gerrit ten Bruggencate, who claimed to be unrelated, but was in fact a second cousin once removed. I guess that was far enough to be considered not related, however, his son Barend marries later with Hendrik Jan’s daughter Jansje.

While Jansje and Barend were only third cousins once removed, thus barely related, their daughter Dieks (my grandmother) married again a first cousin, the son of Barend’s sister Maria Christina and Arnold Gast.

These are only a few examples of cousins marrying cousins. Not only was the town small, but the social group where you could find a spouse was even smaller. They belonged to the middle class, the store keepers and the bourgeoisie. Finding a non-related spouse was near impossible if you could not go outside the physical and social place where you belonged. And while many did find spouses in other town, many stayed in the close community.

Of course, this is not limited to Almelo, or to my family. Everywhere people tend to congregate with whom they know and like, and family usually belong to that group. But it makes for a rather messy family tree, it’s more of a bush. And it makes for quite a challenge to keep everyone straight.