Maria Christina ten Bruggencate (1838-1871)

Maria Christina ten Bruggencate (dutch link) died 27 Feb 1871 in Amsterdam. She was the daughter of Johan ten Bruggencate and his first wife Geertje Fransen. She is my 1st cousin 3x removed. Maria was born in 1838, and her mother died in childbirth, when Maria was four years old, leaving her father with two small children. In 1846 he married his widowed first cousin Aleida ten Bruggencate, who had had four pregnancies, probably no living children (but I have not been able to confirm the death of the last child.) The family probably said: “you two, get together, Johan gets a mother for his children, and Aleida will be provided for.”

Aleida and Johan have one child together in 1846. When this child died in 1851, the father is listed as “left for North America.” Same for when Maria Christina’s brother died in 1851 “father now in North America.”

Maria Christina married in Amsterdam Friedrich de Graaff, a German. In the marriage enclosures is a certificate, in which four witnesses state

that they know from personal knowledge, that her father left for North America in 1751, and that his present residence is unknown; so she cannot get her father’s permission for her marriage, nor can she produce a death certificate.

Maria and Friedrich go on to have two children (a boy and a girl), of whom at least the son marries in Amsterdam in 1894.

While the fate of her father was not known to Maria Christina, I have been able to piece together his American story, and you can read more here (dutch link), as well as in several blogposts.