Finding Jacob

Most of the last 28 years I have used my married surname de Bruyne. The first thing people say when addressing me is “Is that how you say it?”, then “where is it from?”, then “are you related to Kevin?” (the Manchester City Belgian footballer).

I was told when I first met the family that the name was Dutch, my father in law was born in Penang, Malaysia and his father Thomas Yean de Bruyne was born in Sumatra. Thomas’ father was called Jacob and he worked for Deli (Maatschappij).

For the past 20 years I have been researching and sharing the lives of our ancestors, including my husband’s 2 Scottish great grandfathers but have never ventured much into Dutch research. A couple of times I have searched in some genealogy databases for “Jacob de Bruyne”, there were so many it would be an impossible task to work out which one he was or eliminate those that could not be him, a little like looking for John Smith!

Some 8 years ago my husband took an Ancestry DNA test. After a 6 week wait for results, finally the email notification that it had been analysed and results on Ancestry website arrived! Disappointingly it did not show any Dutch ethnicity, but he did have a few Dutch people in his shared matches. I regularly checked for new matches as I now manage 11 Ancestry DNA tests for various family members and had lots of success in finding long lost relatives, reconnecting with family including husband’s 2nd cousin who now lives in Netherlands, who shared Jacob as their great grandfather. We corresponded and have met with the Dutch cousin and learnt some interesting information about the family. Dutch cousin has his grandparent’s marriage document, written in old Dutch and very difficult to read, but you can make out some names.
The first thing we learnt was Jacob’s “wife” was named Mawa, family story says she was Burmese. Secondly, the surname…Dutch cousin uses Bruyn, we use de Bruyne, on marriage document is Jacob Bruijn.

I went back to the many online genealogical databases in a vain search for Jacob Bruijn, this is also a very common name in Netherlands and Dutch Indonesian records are not yet digitised, although there are some indexes.

Then one morning in early June 2021 my husband had a new DNA match on Ancestry, 69cMs quite high for him (approx. 3rd cousin, sharing 2nd great grandparents) and an amount that if my match would be fairly certain to figure out their relationship. Her name was Gabriela….their shared matches included Dutch cousin 2nd cousin and other known Bruyne family.

Before I got too excited and rushed a message to this new cousin, I had a look at her Ancestry DNA profile to see if I could learn something about her. Lots of people do not add any clues as to their identity but I was lucky Gabriela had a small family tree, mostly people in tree were from Paraguay…odd. Most significant thing I learnt was her paternal grandmother (her father’s mother) had 6 names (common in Catholic South American countries), one of these names was BRUYN.

I sent her a message (via Ancestry website) with fingers tightly crossed and amazingly she replied (does not always happen with DNA matches). She told me “my great grandfather was Cornelis Bruijn, migrated from Netherlands to Paraguay to work on the railway! She also said he had changed his surname to Bruyn as it was difficult to pronounce in Spanish.

Next step was to research her great grandfather, I discovered he married in the catholic Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, and luckily registration document includes all parents names and to cut a long story short this was enough to find the family group in the Netherlands.

The DNA match strength was shouting at me that Jacob & Cornelis were probably brothers, but I could not find a brother called Jacob. I found Cornelis had a cousin called Jacob Bruijn, around expected age and the populations register (a bit like a census, tracks peoples places of residence) showed that Jacob seemed to go to sea…did he sail to Sumatra? I was now struggling with Dutch handwriting, I had managed so far by using Google translate on typed/printed documents but it does not work on handwriting. Family Search also has lots of templates from Netherlands that shows what various documents and a dictionary of Dutch words which proved very useful.

I now had an experimental tree for the Bruijn family with lots of information and documentation, but could not confirm I had correct Jacob. I left this line of research for a while and focus on some other DNA test matches.

In March 2022 I participated in the #30daysofgenealogy on Twitter, where you share your research experiences. For day 19 I posted

“Current research goal. Establish whether Jacob Bruijn born 1865 Zaandam #Netherlands is my husband’s great grandfather, who migrated to Indonesia #Dutch #Holland”
Later that day I had a private message on Twitter:
“I’m sure you’re fine but just in case I can be of help I’d be delighted : I speak Dutch (was born in Den Haag) and did my Master’s research in Indonesia (write up in Australia).”

How could I turn down such a wonderful offer of help!
I shared my experimental Ancestry tree with my new friend and waited. Amazingly only four days later I got an email and a link to a Ancestry tree, Jacob riddle solved.

I had the wrong Jacob, the one I had was his cousin, the correct Jacob was Gabby’s great grandfather’s brother! Not sure how I had missed him in population register, but one detailed Jacob leaving for Sumatra in 1884 to work for Deli. Lesson learned, always good find out about documents when searching in new places.

So we now know where he came from: Zaandam, Zaanstad, Noord-Holland, Netherlands, just north of Amsterdam and can now trace family back to Jacob Cornelisz Bruijn born 1675 lived in Zaandam!

So what do we know about Jacob? Sadly not very happy story with much still unknown, as with all family history when you only have documents.
Jacob was born on 12 February 1861 the eldest child of Cornelis BRUIJN and Jannetje LEGUIT, probably at no. 392 Dam-straat in Wijk 2, Zaandam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands, this is where he is registered with his parents on the 1849+ Population Register (a bit like a census) and his father was a shopkeeper.
He lived 1862-1880 with parents and siblings at Molenbuurt no. 331 and a maid. His father a “winkelier en cigarenmaker” (shopkeeper and cigar-maker).

Jacob was the eldest of 5, his 4 siblings were:
 Jan 1862-1915 – “musicus muziekonderwijzer” music teacher
 Margaretha 1864-1924 – “onderwijzeres” schoolmistress
 Cornelis 1866 – 1927 – Gabriela’s great grandfather migrated to Paraguay
 Geertruida 1868-1925 – “onderwijzeres” schoolmistress

In 1877 Jacob moves to Breda, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands, perhaps for schooling? He returned to Zaandam two years later August 1879. On 1 Jan 1880 he was recorded as Kantoorbediende (office clerk).

On 17 March 1881 Jacob was described entry for militia service as “1m 66cm tall (5ft 5ins), oval face, high forehead, blue eyes, round chin, blond (can mean light-brown) hair + eyebrows.”

In 1885 Jacob left the Netherlands and went to Sumatra to work for Deli Maatschappij which is a trading and distribution company in the timber, construction product and tobacco industries, it began as large tobacco plantation and production operation established in 1869 by the Dutch.

At some point Jacob met Mawa and they had at least 2 sons: Cornelis Jacob born 4th February 1890 in Boven Langkat, Sumatra and Thomas Yean born approx. 1891 in Sumatra.

On 24 November 1893 Jacob is back in Zaandam, Netherlands. He is staying with his parents at Stations-straat no.224, “arriving from Langkat, Sumatra in Nov 1893. Occupation Kantoorbediende (office clerk) no mention of wife & children so perhaps simply on home visit not residence?

Two years later we find Jacob listed as a patient from 10th October 1895 in the “Institution: Buitengasthuis” Department: Men Insane/sick in Buitengasthuis, Amsterdam and discharged 26 days later on 5th November 1895.

Jacob is next listed as living at Stationsstraat 102, 1506 DK Zaandam, Netherlands in Zaandam, Zaanstad, Noord-Holland, Netherlands on 13th January 1904 with his 2 sisters Margaretha and Geertruida. This is when his father passed away, his mother having died in 1899.

In January 1907 Jacob moves to The Hague (Gravehage), the 1913 the population register says he is living at Westeinde 58, 2512 HE Den Haag, Netherlands.

He died on 27 May 1927 at the age of 66 in The Hague, S-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.

Having found who Jacob was and where he came from, his story still leaves us with many questions:
* Why did he go home?
* What did his children know about him?
* Who was Mawa?   the Jacob Bruijn descendants have several DNA matches with a German family who migrated to USA, was Mawa part German?