Seven years ago, in my post Janzen great-great-grandmothers’ maiden names after so long, I rejoiced that I found a small document typed by my grandfather Peter Janzen that indicated that the original (maiden) surname of his grandmother Elizabeth, married to Johann Janzen, was Friesen. I was very glad, since I’d had her photo for decades, but with her first (given) name of Elizabeth only handwritten on the back.
Well, this past June, second cousin Willi in Germany sent me very credible documents from a genealogical database suggesting that Elizabeth’s original name was Baerg. (Yes, I’m so behind on making posts here that four months have gone by.)
I am inclined to believe the document from the database is correct. However, I feel funny asserting that my grandfather didn’t know the name of his grandmother. So I’m left with questions.
I do know from learning more about this Low German-speaking side of the family, which originated in the Netherlands, moved to Prussia (now Poland), and then to Ukraine circa 1800, that the cultural norm was for widowed persons to remarry quickly. They were mostly farm families–always with so many children (no birth control), there were traditional gender roles where women didn’t raise kids on their own or earn a living on their own and men weren’t expected to raise kids on their own and keep house in addition to working on a farm/at a job, and then also, life spans were shorter. There were no modern treatments for many common ailments and diseases. All that is to say, perhaps Elizabeth had previously been married to a Friesen (the name on grandfather’s typed document) and so that was her surname when she married Johann Janzen.
Perhaps I’ll figure out this discrepancy one day.
family janzen 