Henry Gene Straatmeyer's family tree STRAATMYER SIDE (6 generations)

 UR FAMILY TREE

(as we wrote it in 1997 and 2011)

 

STRAATMEYER - Throughout the years, the name has been spelled five different ways, Stratmeyer, Straatmeyer, Stratemayer, Stratemeyer and Stratemeier.  The last way I have spelled it above is the original spelling in the church book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Loquard, Ostfriesland, Germany.

 

Records I received from Robert Borchers has my lineage listed like this:

 

SIXTH GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Kordt Stratemayer, born 1662  (birthdate unconfirmed and death date unknown).  Married Gepke Hendrichs, born 1667, died 3.17.1720.  This grandfather was also known as Kordt Geerdes.  Several generations passed before the name came back.  From this point on the family name bounced around from Gerds, Gerdes, or Girds to Gerd Coorts to Coort Gerdes to Harm Coorts to Coort Harms to Harm Gerdes.  A son of  Harm Gerdes named Jan Harms added Stratemeier to make his name Jan Harms Stratemeier.  This happened sometime during his lifetime or at his birth which was from 1/21/1765 to 9.14.1832. It more likely happened when Napoleon conquered Ostfriesland and made us Friesians change our names. That happened in about 1800.

 

FIFTH GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Gerd Coorts, born 1692, died 5.30.1765.  Married Etje/Ette Janssen on 2.20.1724.  She was born 1691 and died 2.25.1748.

 

FOURTH GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Harm Gerdes, born 11.22.1734, died 5.23.1794. Married Metje Gerdes 5.1.1757 (there is no error here - both have the same last name.  She was born 4.2.1736 and died  6.24.1792.

 

THIRD GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Jan Harms Stratemeier, born 1:21.1765, died 9.14.1837.  Married Trientje Jacobs 4.28.1793. Married Helena Christians 5.10. 1816.  She died 6.11.1837.

 

SECOND GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Jacob Janssen Stratemeyer, born 3.26.1794 and died 4.9.1870.  He married Mareka Brunkes Siebolds 2.27.1820. who was born 5.7.1797 and died 11.6.1886.

 

FIRST GREAT GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER: Brunke Siebolds Stratemeier, born 2.17. 1820. Married Geeske Wilken Wagenaar in 1855.  She was born in 1833, died in 1884. 

 

Born to this union was (1) Trientje Alberts Straatmeyer who was later to become my "step" grandmother through my great grandfather’s (Geerd Wibben) second marriage. It was her first although she had three illegitimate children before she married Geerd.

 

Trientje had quite a life. In the Loquard Church book she is listed as being the first child of Brunke Siebolds Stratemeier and his wife Geeske Wagenaar. She was born on ????  Information from the church book says she had three illegitimate children. The church book says the boy was illegitimate. She worked helping a farm family in Upleward before she was with child. The son, Brunke Jacobs was born 3.18.1879 in and baptized on 3.27.1879 in the Loquard Lutheran Church. He died and was buried in Loquard on 8.2.84, being just over five years old.

 

Her second child, born 11.23.1880, apparently died right after birth. It was given no name and there was a question as to how the child died. There was an investigation by officials and it was determined that the child had died of natural causes. The child then was buried later that day.

 

Her third illegitimate child Gesina was born on 9.23.1882 in Loquard and was baptized on 8.25.1883. The church book notes that “the mother will take her children (Brunke Jacobs was still alive) to America. Whatever is best. The child has been baptized.”     

 

The second child born was Jacob Brunkes Stratemeier on 8.12.1857 in Loquard. Nothing more is said of him other than he left for America. A book by Juren Hoogestraat, a Lutheran pastor says he left for America in 1882 at the age of 25 and ended up in Lennox, SD. He was married to Anna Van Hove. When he died my grandfather, who had lost his wife Anna, married Jacob’s widow and the two families melded together.

 

The third child born was Mareka, on 7.15.1863.She was baptized in the Loquard Lutheran Church on 8.9.1863. It says she left for America with her father.

 

The fourth child born was Hindertje Evers on 10.2.1867. She was baptized on 10.27.1867. She died on 5.8.1869, being only about 19 months old.

 

The fifth child born to this union was my grandfather Hinderk Evers on 8.22.1980. He was baptized on 9.11.1980 in the Loquard Lutheran Church. The church book says he left for America with his family.

 

There is a mystry about how the remaining Stratemeier family got to America. Jake perhaps when with others before the remainder went. After wife and mother Geske died on 7.11.1884 it appears the family sailed for America the same year.

 

 

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We solved one problem of the puzzle of the Straatmeyers, but that created another.

 

Hilda Bruns in Canum, the local genealogist, said the Straatmeyers were not natives of Ostriesland.  They came from somewhere else, but she doesn't know where.  Around 1700 they located in Loquard.  Sometimes we heard that the Stratemeiers were from Rysum, but these two villages are about a kilometer apart.  In about the middle to late 1870's and 1880’s they almost all left for America.  Geerde Folken said her mother knew of a Stratemeier who was married to a Heronimus, but since her mother was dead, she didn't know where the Stratemeier woman was from or where she was buried.  Hilda Bruns said, "They are all dead if any of them stayed.”  The majority went to the United States.  She said the church records are not good from that time, so probably we will find no further information about them.  I did try to look at the records of the Loquard Lutheran Church, but it was 4 p.m. on a Saturday evening, and the pastor was leaving for a church service shortly.  We could not go back because we were leaving on Sunday.  It is interesting that the only Lutheran Church we saw in Krummhorn was in Loquard and that the Stratemeiers may have been baptized Lutheran.  All the other churches in Krummhorn and Reiterland were Reformed. 

 

The puzzle which the new information created is, "Where were the Stratemeiers before they lived in Loquard/Rysum region.  Did they come from another part of Germany?  Or did they come from Holland, the Groningen area, which speaks the same language?  Or were they from somewhere else?

 

I found a Straatsma hardware store in Dokkum, Friesland, Holland and talked to the owner.  He said he had heard of the Straatmeyer name in Holland.  In Amsterdam phone book, I only found one Strathmeyer - which isn't the same as Straatmeyer, but close.  I asked him what the name would mean if it were a Dutch name.  He said "straat" meant street and "meyer" was the short for mollenaur which means an operator of a mill (windmill).  Therefore, Straatmeyer, in Dutch, might mean "the operator of the windmill (which ground flour) which was located by a street."

 

When I asked the Krummhorn Ostfriesians what Straatmeyer meant, they said the same thing that I have always said, "street mower." That’s in low German.