Gerrit Lucas Broekman (1819-1871)
Gerrit Lucas Broekman (dutch link) died 27 Mar 1871 in Warnsveld, Gelderland. He was the son of Gerrit Lucas Broekman and Johanna Maria Peterson, and he is my husband’s 2nd great-grand-uncle.
He was born in 1819, and became a pastry baker unlike his father who was a bread baker. I love the different specialties in the bakery business; his brother was a rye-bread baker, there are various different kinds of pastry bakers (these designations are however hard to translate into English).
In 1838 he registered for the draft.(1) His length is described as 1 El, 6 Palms, 6 Thumbs, and 4 Stripes. These units used to differ by town, but after the Netherlands adopted the metric system an El was the same as a meter, a palm was 10 cm, a thumb was a centimeter, and a stripe a millimeter. Gerrit was thus 1 meter 66 cm and 4 mm tall (a bit over 5 feet). He did not serve, he paid for a substitute, who started serving in May 1838.
In 1857 Gerrit was twice admitted to the hospital (Buiten Gasthuis) for short periods of time.(2) It is unclear why he was admitted. This hospital was originally meant for sufferers of the pestilence (which was why it was located outside (buiten) the city, but by Gerrit’s time it was used for all kinds of patients (mostly the poorest): incurable diseases, mental illness, and infectious diseases.(3) It is unclear, why he was there.
His health did not improve very much however, we find him in 1865 in Warnsveld as a boarder in the household of Hendrik Jan Dijkman.(4) Hendrik Jan probably ran a boarding house, or a nursing home, he has lots of boarders. Gerrit had come from Vorden (another town in Gelderland). He lives there for six years, and died in Hendrik Jan’s home on Mar 27, 1871. It is unknown where he is buried.
Amsterdam has been great in providing online access to all kinds of data, and it is all free: The military records, the hospital records, baptisms, marriages, burials, and a myriad of others, that can shed light on the lives of your Amsterdam ancestors. They are only in Dutch, but if you are going to do research on Dutch ancestors, you really should learn some dutch.
I would like to know what Gerrit suffered from, my guess is tuberculosis (from the fact that he was sent to Gelderland, out in “the country”), but that is only a guess. His hospital admission do not say anything, and dutch death certificates do not give cause of death.
(1) Archiefbank Stadsarchief Amsterdam: 5182: Archief van de Secretarie; Afdeling Militaire Zaken en rechtsvoorgangers, online database. 1838 : #262. Broekman, Gerrit Lucas. geb. 2 Sep 1819, Amsterdam. https://archief.amsterdam/inventarissen/inventaris/5182.nl.html#MRSAA00016000055
(2) Gerrit Lucas Broekman, 1857. Patienten Registers, (Amsterdam). Index and/or images online at https://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/archieven/archiefbank/indexen/index.nl.html
(3) Buiten Gasthuis, Amsterdam (Dutch only)
(4) Bevolkingsregister Wichmond (wijk D), arch.#3026, inv.# 12, blad 570 and blad 627. Gemeente: Warnsveld, Periode: 1861-1872.
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