Journey to His Past

I have been writing Journey to His Past for less than a year.  I have enjoyed sharing my husband's family with you.  Kirk's ancestry has taken me to states and countries that I haven't researched with my family.  As the new year approaches I thought I would share a few fun things with you.

The Top 3 Blog Posts were:

1. Dutch Naming Tendencies
2. Luijendijk to Luyendyk to Leyn Dyke to Leyndyke
3. Timothy Francis Corcoran and Helen Smith Marriage License.

Mrs. Helen Corcoran, wife of Timothy F. Corcoran, passed away Sunday afternoon at her home, 1000 Lafayette Ave., SE.  Besides her husband she is survived by two sons, Bertrand F. and Howard J., both of Grand Rapids; five grandchildren; two sisters, Mrs Joseph Pfaff and Mrs Lucy Smith, both of Chicago, Ill.  The deceased was a member of the Macabees and the Claudian League.  Funeral Mass will be sung Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock in St. Andrew's Cathedral.  Mrs. Corcoran reposes at the Ronan Funeral Home were (sic) relatives and friends will recite the Rosary Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock. 

One hundred nineteen years ago today, Kirk's great grandparents were married.  Cornelius Linedyk and Nellie Bush, as their names were recorded in the Kent County marriage book, were married in Dorr Center, Michigan.  

The table below is from the transcription that I took when I visited the county clerk's office.  This simple entry in a county marriage ledger prompted a few questions.

1.  Why is Nellie's name recorded as Bush?  Her maiden name was van den Bos.  I would love to know the story of their marriage.  What did her parent's think of their daughter getting married to a man twice her age.

2.  Where in Dorr Center were they married?  A church, friend's house, justice of peace or ?  Cornelius was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the time, which is about 20 miles North of Dorr.

Unfortunately, Cornelius and Nellie were only married six and a half years.  Cornelius died in 1900, leaving a   22 year old wife with two young children, ages three and five.


 

I am posting this under Mystery Monday, but it could be under the Madness Monday theme.  I have been trying for the past five years to find Abraham Van Oeveren in the 1880 and 1910 United States Census records.  Short of going through the Grand Rapids census pages one by one, I have looked and looked.  I have been known to look through page by page, but it is usually a much smaller area to look at.  I am guessing my inability to locate them is due to the last name and how it was transcribed.  I even searched for him using each of his children's names.

This is what I know:

• Abraham Van Oeveren was born to Abraham and Neeltje (de Bruin) Van Oeveren in 1865 in the Netherlands.
• The family came to the United States around 1871.
• Abraham Van Oeveren married Janna 'Jennie' Kosten in 1885, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Abraham and Jennie had six children:  Ada in 1890; Nellie in 1896; Jeanie in 1902; Abraham 'Bud' in 1905; Lois in 1911; and Edward 'Russ' in 1915.
• Abraham can be found in the 1900, 1920, and 1930 Census living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

My husband and I painted our living areas this summer a rich, warm, chocolate brown.  Upon completion, my eyes rested on the hallway wall to the bedrooms.  It was the perfect place for a gallery wall.  The average person would have looked for art prints to display.  Not me, I decided to hang family pictures.

With a little help from Pinterest, a project was born!  I went through my family pictures and decided which ones I wanted to hang.  I wanted to show the Leyndyke and Glover sides of the family.  I narrowed the final selections down to 29 photographs, one marriage certificate and one FAMILY photo letters hanging.

Here is the end result.