Willem Cramer (1730-b.1820)

Willem Cramer (dutch link) was baptized NH in Amsterdam on 26 Apr 1730, son of Godfried Cramer and Maria de Fremantjou. He is my husband’s fifth great-grandfather. His wife’s line is a dead end at this point (I wrote about that here), but today I will concentrate on his mother.

The Fremantjou (Fremantau, Fremantis, etc) line seems to me clearly french, but so far I have not found a a connection. Willem and his siblings were baptized Dutch Reformed, but Willem, Hendrik, and Alida Sophia are also registered in the Mennonite (Doopsgezinde) church, as are his mother and her sisters.

Maria’s father Hendrik de Fremantjou came from The Hague when he married in Amsterdam, at least two of his siblings were also from The Hague, when they married in Amsterdam. Unfortunately the church data of The Hague are not online yet, but most likely they were born there.

The line ended with Maria’s grandparents, Hendrik Fremantjou and Catharina Copijn. But somewhat accidentally I discovered some records in Utrecht:

Anthoni Jorisz die Fremantjou makes a deposition on 12 Nov 1674 with Notaris C. van Vechten “in regards to a riot at the house of his son in ‘s-Gravenhage, where his son, Henrick Fremantjou, was made out by a Willem de Steenhouwer to be a rogue, and the wife of his son to be a whore, and that his father, here appearing, was supposed to have said the same things; He admitted that he had indeed said that, but that it was taken out of context: his son had cost him a lot of money, would be a rogue, if he would leave the dragoons, and his wife would be a whore, if she would encourage him to do so.”⁽¹⁾

and

On 01 May 1658 Weyntgen Seegers van Beeck gives to the children of Belichgen Hendricx van Hamburch, her niece, married to Anthony Fremantjou, f400,-. Anthony Fremantjou lives in the Bergstraat in Utrecht.⁽²⁾

Here we have a Hendrik, who lives in The Hague, and his father is Anthony; and we have a married couple Anthony and Belichgen in Utrecht. Our Hendrik in Amsterdam names his first son Anthoni, so that makes sense as well. So I decided to pursue the Utrecht connection. And that proved very fruitful: Anthony married Belichgen as his second wife in 1645, and has five children baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church: Hendrik (1646), Willem (1648), Lijsbeth (1651), Maria (1655), and Catharina (1658), as well as a daughter Annichjen with his first wife in 1637. In some records Anthony is Anthony Jorisse, in some Anthony Frementjou (or a variation thereof). But there is still no relation with the French church.

At the same time in Utrecht there is a Anthony Jorisse (Frementjou) who has children baptized with Marie Flahau (or some variation) in the Walloon church in Utrecht: Joris (1650), Joris (1651), Barber (1653) and Marie (1655). A marriage I have not been able to find.

So, is there a relation between these two Anthony’s? There are no sponsors listed in the Dutch Reformed records, only in two of the Walloon records there are sponsors listed: for Joris in 1651: Gatey Joris and Margarite Martin; for Barber in 1653: Guillaume and Antoine Froidmanteau (now there is an interesting variation of the name).

And one more interesting find: An Anthony Frementjou is buried on 26 Oct 1715. He is listed as “bejaard jongman” (older unmarried man), his unnamed mother survives him. But I have no idea where he fits in.

For the moment this is enough, but an intriguing puzzle remains.

(1) Municipal Archive Utrecht. Notarissen in de stad Utrecht 1560-1905 (Records of lawyers in Utrecht). Cornelis van Vechten. Toegang:34-4, Inv. #U031a015, 1672-1675. Online: http://www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl.
(2) Idem. Carel van Doorn. Toegang:34-4, Inv. #U060a001, 1658-1660, #6