Jacob Jans Cleve (1711-)

Jacob Cleve was baptised on 3 Apr 1711 in Westerlee, Groningen, second son and 4th child of Jan Jacobs (Cleve) (dutch link) and Antje Roelfs. He is my 6th great-granduncle, on my mother’s side.

He probably did not live long; his father names later, with his third wife, two more sons Jacob, the last one in 1733. This one probably goes on to have children with Geessien Beerends: at least a Jacob Jans Kleeve names a daughter Asse in 1767 in Westerlee (he has three other children as well.)

Jan Jacobs Cleve or Kleeve, or sometimes without a surname, just Jan Jacobs, married first Antje Roelfs, who is my 7th great-grandmother. He had seven children with Antje, they named the first two daughters Engel. As Antje’s parents were Roelf Jans and Wipke Willems, Engel should be his mother. So on a hunch I searched for the combination Engel and Jacob. And I was lucky, because Engel married as her second husband Jacob Hindrix:

Banns for Jacob Hindrix from Groningen and Engel Jans van Meeden, widow of Jacob Cleve on 21 Jun 1685 in Meeden

I say I was lucky, because previous husbands are not indexed in the allegroningers database, so if Engel had married anyone else, the search would have been quite a bit more complicated.

While Meeden church records do seem to start in 1668, so far I have not been able to find neither Engel’s first marriage nor any baptisms with Engel and Jacob as parents. I guess that has to wait for another brainstorm.