Introduction
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This project began with a simple question
directed to Joann Osgerby Geybels, an American genealogist who lives
here in Belgium. Someone in Michigan asked: Would it be possible to locate
the birth certificate of Peter Carl Courtland and perhaps find some
information on his ancestors? His parents were Dirk Courtland and
Jennie Verboom, born on such-and-such a date. According to the family,
they came from “Scoitde” or “Scoitda”, somewhere “near Rotterdam”. They
emigrated in the 1880s and had three children with them, one of whom was
Peter Carl, who later became a veterinarian.
Considering the important European input
this project would require, Joann enlisted Jan Verhelst’s assistance, and
together they took this project to heart.
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| Peter Carl Courtland |
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Click on the photo to enlarge it. |
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What
does an American really mean by “near Rotterdam”?
Considering the size of the Netherlands in comparison to
that of the States, “near Rotterdam” could be anywhere in the Netherlands. We
searched through lists of names of all the Dutch cities and towns, and we asked
Dutch friends of ours for suggestions. Someone even thought that Scoitda might
be “Gouda”!
Courtland
is obviously not a Dutch name, although it could have originated from Cortland
or Kortland. We began to search online databases in the Netherlands, but to no
avail. During our search we consulted Dutch genealogists. Then coincidentally
we heard from our contact in the States that Dirk Courtland’s wife Jennie
Verboom, born on June 1, 1860, sometimes went by the name “Adria”. Both Adria,
(or Adriana) and Verboom are typically Dutch names. A Dutch genealogist
directed us to the Schiedam City Archives website where we discovered that
Adriana Verboom was born in Schiedam on June 1, 1860. Therefore Scoitda was
Schiedam!
On the
website
http://archief.schiedam.nl it is possible to research names online
and to request birth and marriage certificates. The name we
had been given for Jennie/Adriana Verboom’s husband was Dirk Courtland, born on
April 16, 1857. Much to our surprise we discovered that Adriana’s husband
was Dirk Spruijt, also born on that day. Even the names and birth dates
of their children matched the information we had been given.
Thus Dirk Courtland
was known as Dirk Spruijt in the Netherlands, and we found quite a bit of
information on him, as well as on his brothers, sisters, and parents. There was
no end to the birth and marriage certificates that we downloaded! But we still
wondered why the name “Spruijt” was changed to “Courtland”. We found no trace
of immigration records for the Spruijt/Courtland family in American databases.
Our American contact also
wondered whether or not William Courtland, a Dutch immigrant
who served in the Navy during the Civil War, might be Dirk's brother.
William’s American death certificate indicated that, in all probability, he had
the same mother as Dirk. However, we didn’t find a record of him in Schiedam.
After intensive research, we
discovered that Anthony Spruyt in Pretoria, South Africa had a reference
to Pieter William Courtland Spruyt, born on February 9, 1838 in
Dordrecht. We didn’t find the name in Dordrecht, but with the assistance of the
Dordrecht Archive Services, we found Pieter Spruijt, born in
Zwijndrecht, a town nearby Dordrecht.
The
Dutch story was nearly complete, with the exception of immigration information
for Pieter Spruijt (William Courtland) that we did not find in spite of
exhaustive research of American archives and databases. Therefore the reason
Pieter Spruijt became William Courtland remains a mystery, as does the reason
that Dirk Spruijt became Dirk Courtland.
Anthony Spruyt of
South Africa is related to Dirk and Pieter Spruijt. His grandfather Gerard
Spruijt (a nephew of Dirk and Pieter) was a remarkably intelligent man who
was employed as a Civil Engineer in Java in the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s.
After World War II he and his family emigrated to South Africa, where his
descendants still live. This branch of the family includes many
professional people such as engineers, medical doctors, architects, and lawyers.
One of Gerard’s daughters and her husband, a theology professor, returned to the
Netherlands subsequent to a disagreement regarding apartheid. They have
pursued professional careers at the universities of Groningen and Leiden.
Thus the Spruijt family is
spread across at least three continents: Europe, America, and Africa.
For two persevering
genealogists, this family study has been a fascinating voyage of discovery
through the Netherlands and the United States of the 19th century and
South Africa of the 20th century.
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Joann Geybels |
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Jan Verhelst |
Changed on
12-jan-2012 by
spruijt.courtland@kulentuur.be
