User talk:Dcjenkins

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Jan Jansma and Pleuntje Wiersma [30 August 2013]

Hi Dave, I received your message about Family:Jan Jansma and Pleuntje Wiersma (1). I am not related to this family, but I do specialize in Frisian genealogy and their page is part of a project to document the marriages from Ferwerderadeel and Leeuwarderadeel, Friesland.

You mentioned that you think they are your great-grandparents. What is the line from, say, your parent to Jan and Pleuntje? Do you believe they immigrated to the U.S.? I see on Find-A-Grave there was another Jan Jansma that immigrated to Lynden, Washington http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6831168. If Jan and Pleuntje are your great-grandparents, I connected into additional information on WeRelate, so it goes back 14 generations on one of the lines! Well, let me know the pieces of the puzzle you are sure of, then I would be glad to help you sort out the Frisian connections. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:26, 23 August 2013 (EDT)

I added a little more information to their person pages Person:Jan Jansma (11) and Person:Pleuntje Wiersma (3) (aka Pauline). They settled in Skagit, Washington, and died in Mar 1969 and Sep 1973 respectively. --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:44, 23 August 2013 (EDT)

Wow, thank you for getting back to me so quickly. My mother's name was Joan Jansma (maiden). Her father's name was Mynard (Mike) Jansma, Born 9 July 1915. Mynard's father's name was John Jansma which I understand in the Americanized name for Jan. His father (Jan) was born in Ferwerd. His mother's name was Pleuntje Wiersma and she was born in Hallum. My Aunt said that Jan and Pleuntje immigrated to Canada and Mynard was born in Edmonton. They all then came to America and settle in the Skagit Valley/Whidbey Island area of Washington St.

Does any of this match up with what you have?

I'm just doing this out of personal interest so I appreciate any assistance you can give me. No pressure....I was excited to get any response at all!

Thank you again, Dave--Dcjenkins 17:48, 23 August 2013 (EDT)

It certainly does match up! Mynard would have been named after Jan's father Meindert, in fact, this was the spelling of his name in the 1930 census. I created a page for him here: Person:Meindert Jansma (13). The Social Security Death Index listed his birth year as 1914, so that is what I noted on the page. They crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. in May 1916 with their final destination listed as Grand Rapids, Mich. Their previous residence was listed as Engen, B.C. A great site for researching your Frisian ancestry is http://www.allefriezen.nl. You will be able to search for and view scanned birth/marriage/death records there. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! --Jennifer (JBS66) 13:10, 30 August 2013 (EDT)