Jan Hendrik Menke (1745- )

Jan Hendrik Menke was baptized 24 Feb 1745 in Amsterdam, eldest son of (Jan) Hendrik Menke (dutch link) and Catharina Elizabeth Zimmerman. He is my husband’s 4th great-granduncle. Sponsors at his baptism were Johan Coenraad Flecke and Johanna Doorn, who don’t seem to be related. As a matter of fact, very few of the sponsors of the children of Hendrik and Catharina seem to be related: in 1746 a Johan Hendrik Menken is sponsor (the father is also Johan Hendrik Menken, so it could be the father himself), and the mother Catharina herself seems to be a sponsor of one of her twins in 1748. Only in 1751 there is a probably related sponsor, Johan Hendrik Zimmerman, present, but I have not been able to figure out how he is related; he is not listed in the Amsterdam databases ever again, as sponsor, or as father, or as groom.

Jan Hendrik’s parents both came from Germany, his father from Boer (probably Buer, unfortunately there are at least two: one near Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, and one near Melle in Lower Saxony), and his mother from Eijserloo (poss. Iserlohn in North Rhine-Westphalia). It seems likely they had few relatives in Amsterdam, although at the banns her uncle Maurus (Moritz) Uijlenbroeck was her witness. So there was at least one.

I had not pursued the uncle before, but thinking how unusual it really was to have so few relatives as sponsor, I checked whether he was married in Amsterdam. And he was: he married Anna Maria Vleij/Vlij/Vle in 1715, and a Vlij (but not Anna Maria) is sponsor for some of Hendrik’s children. So there has to be some relation, and more research has to be done. But that is the joy of genealogy, there is always something else to pursue.