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Sipke Zorgdrager -- Tot Verbetering van Bestaan

9/21/2022

My great-grandfather, Sipke Zorgdrager, emigrated from Terschelling in 1868.

We know this not from U.S. arrival records, but from a special set of Netherlands records entitled Emigranten naar Amerika en Andere Landen (Emigrants to America and Other Lands). Between 1831 and 1877, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs kept a record of emigrants from each municipality. The exact starting and end dates vary by province.

The emigration records are viewable on the FamilySearch website (www.familysearch.org). They are organized by province. Terschelling is now part of Friesland, but was included in the Noord (North) Holland records. The Noord Holland emigration records cover the years 1848 to 1877.

S. P. Zorgrager, 28, with a wife and one child, left Terschelling in 1868. In the column for recording the emigrant’s reason for leaving, the clerk wrote “Tot verbetering van bestaan” – to improve economic standing.[1] This was the reason recorded for most emigrants.

Sipke’s family was on of 19 parties that emigrated that year. Among them were 11 married men, with a total of 39 children, five single men, and three single women. From 1865 to 1870, some sixty parties left – most married men with families, several single men, and a handful of single women. The peak emigration years were 1868 and 1869. Future installments of this blog will analyze the emigration in more detail.

Sipke and his wife, Trijntje de Vries, had been married six years when they emigrated.[2] Their first child, Pieter, was born in October 1862;[3] he died in February 1864 – only 16 months old.[4] A second child, Maria, was not born until September 1867.[5] The 1 June 1870 U.S. census recorded the family living in the household of Peter “De Fries” in Stephenson County, Illinois.[6] Pieter was Trijntje’s brother.

Sipke and Trijntje (indexed “Seipke” and “Fria”) told the census-taker they had one child: Mary, age 6 months. Perhaps her age was understated, but more likely the Maria born in September 1867 died enroute or soon after the family arrived in Illinois, and another daughter born in the winter of 1869-70 was named Mary. This Mary Zorgdrager married Henry Hoffs in Sioux County, Iowa, in 1889.[7] The 1900 census states that Mary Hoffs was born in Illinois in November 1869.[8]

Emigration was a family affair. Two of Sipke’s brothers and a sister also emigrated, as did some of Trijnte’s siblings. The Zorgdrager and de Vries families will be treated in more detail over the next several weeks. For now, the question is: what drew North Sea islanders to the northern Illinois prairie. The question will be answered in a few weeks. The next installment will first tell a bit more of Sipke’s story.

Footnotes

1. Nederlands Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Netherlands Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Emigranten Naar Amerika end Andere Landen, Noord Holland, 1868; Family History Library film 8,189,679, image 113.
2. Burgerlijke Stand Terschelling, Huwelijksregister (marriage register), 1862, no. 9, 15 May 1862, Sipke Zorgdrager and Trijntje Jans de Vries; transcript and image viewable at www.wiewaswie.nl.
3. Terschelling Geboortsregister, (birth register), 1862, no. 90, 15 October, Pieter Zorgdrager; transcript and image viewable at www.wiewaswie.nl.
4. Burgerlijke Stand Terschelling Overledene (deaths), 1864, no 25, 28 February, Pieter Sipkes Zorgdrager; transcript and image viewable at www.wiewaswie.nl.
5. Terschelling Geboortsregister (births), 1867, no. 62, 2 September, Maria Zorgdrager; transcript and image viewable at www.wiewaswie.nl.
6. 1870 U.S. census, Stephenson County, Illinois, Ridott Township, p, 1, dwelling 6, family 5, Peter De Fries household.
7. Iowa State Board of Health, Return of Marriages in the County of Sioux for the Yeaer Ending October 1, 1890, License 139, 16 December 1889, marriage return 30 December 1889, Henry Hoffs and Mary Zorgdrager; digital image, Ancestry, Iowa, U.S. Marriage Records 1880-1845.
8. 1900 U.S. Census, Sioux County, Iowa, Enumeration District 130, Capel Township, Sheet 7 [stamped 19A], Dwelling 107, family 108, Henry Hoffs.

Kate, aka Trijntje from Terschelling

9/3/2022

My paternal grandmother surely knew me, but I have no memory of her. She died in March 1951 when I was only 17 months old. I was probably 40 years old when I first saw a picture of her.

She was known as Kate. It seems I have never obtained a copy of her death certificate. Her obituary in the Sioux County Capital named her four surviving children, but it told nothing about her beyond the fact that she would have turned 67 the day after she died.[1] Nothing. Nothing about her husband (who had died in 1944). Not her maiden name. Nothing about parents or siblings.

She was presumably Dutch, but censuses make clear she was born in Illinois. A marriage record helps. John Fonkert, 27, married 19-year-old Katie Zorgdrager at Newkirk on 17 February 1903. Parents of the bride were Sipke Sorgdrager – yes, with an “S” – and Trijntje De Vries.[2]

With the online databases available today, is easy to track Kate’s family back to Terschelling, a North Sea island off the coast of the northern Netherlands. But when I was just beginning my search in the early 1990s, it wasn’t so easy.

Part of the problem was that I could not find any U.S. record of a Kate Zorgdrager (or Sorgdrager) who matched my grandmother. “Sip” Zorgdrager lived in Sioux County in 1900, but he and his wife Mary had no children at home.[3] To this day, I don’t know where Kate was.

Census searches for the Zorgdrager name are not straightforward. I have seen the name indexed “Syadager” and “Zoryedruger.” Kate’s family used “Z,” but her uncle’s family settled on “S.” The 1890 census does not survive, but the 1885 and 1895 Iowa censuses offered hope. Sipke Zorgdrager and apparent wife Tryntje lived in Holland Township in 1885. They had a 1-year-old daughter, but her name was Tryntje.[4]

I can’t recall exactly how it happened, but it eventually dawned on me that Kate was an anglicized version of Tryntje. You see, Trijntje is a shorted version of Kathrijntje, which itself is a diminutive form of Katherijn. Thus, Kate.

That’s how my Terschelling adventure began. Of course, there is no birth record for Kate, or Trijntje, but the family appears Stephenson and Winnebago counties in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.[5]

Sipke’s family had apparently immigrated between 1865 and 1870. Today, the civil marriage registration of Sipke Zorgdrager and Trijntje de Vries can be viewed on the Wiewaswie (who was who) website. Sipke, 22, married Trijntje Jans de Vries 15 May 1862 on Terschelling.[6]

When one blogs, one doesn’t always no where the blog will lead. While I can’t promise a straightforward path, the intent of this blog – at least for now – is to tell the story of Terschellingers who emigrated to Illinois and Iowa between 1865 and 1870. Sipke and Trijntje were among them.

FOOTNOTES

1. Sioux County Capital, Sioux Center, Ia., 8 March 1951, p. 1.
2. Iowa State Board of Health, Return of Marriages in the County of Sioux for the Year Ending December 31, A.D. 1903, John Fonkert and Katie Zorgdrager.
3. 1900 U.S. census, Sioux County, Enumeration District 136, Holland Township, sheet 5B, dwelling 94, family 94, Sip Zorgdrager.
4. 1885 Iowa State census, Sioux County, Holland Township, p. 201 [stamped], dwelling 26, family 26, Sipke Zorgdrager.
5. 1870 U.S. census, Stephenson County, Illinois, Ridott Township, p. 1, dwelling 6, family 5, Peter De Fries household. 1880 U.S. census, Winnebago County, Illinois, Enumeration District 234, Seward Township, p. 13, dwelling 109, family 110, Sip Zordrager.
6. Burgerlijke Stand Terschelling, Huwelijksregister (marriage register), 1862, no. 9, 15 May 1862, Sipke Zorgdrager and Trijntje Jans de Vries; transcript and image viewable at www.wiewaswie.nl.

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Sipke Zorgdrager -- Tot Verbetering van Bestaan

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