These small pictures were in stereo, taken by Opa Kerlen with a special tool/camera. They are not sharp at all when enlarged, so here they are in their original format.
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Semarang 1922
Month: November 2016
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Boat trip 1924
In 1923 Opa and Oma were on leave in the Netherlands and Opa decided to hire a boat so his sons and cousins could make a 14 day trip over some Dutch lakes and canals. He had promised Hans this for some time.
From the book I quote:
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Red Herrings?
Over the last few days I’ve been popping “Kerlen” into browsers and a myriad of Genealogy sites in the hope of finding more Kerlens, more information, anything! I started at the most logical place. The top of our known family tree. There’s not much around about Gerard Kerlen. It’s like he just appeared from nowhere and decided that Zutphen was the place he’d like to live and start off a family called Kerlen.
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Copper Wedding Anniversary
Copied from J.G. Kerlen’s memoirs:
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The Chronicles of the JGKs
Boy does this family like their “Js” and “Gs”! The especially like the combination JGK. In the picture above there are three Kerlens with these initials. My dad, my eldest son and I all carry these initials.
On 15th November 1890 my grandmother Carolina Juliana was born in Rotterdam. When she was a little girl her parents took her to the D.E.I. They lived in Semarang. When she was 19 years old she met my grandfather Johan and in March 1911 they got married there.
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Oma & Opa Kerlen’s House
My grandparents Johannes Kerlen and Johanna van Weel moved from the Dutch East Indies to The Netherlands for a short while (about two years) and finally moved to South Africa in 1960. Their first house was on 2nd Avenue in Linden, Johannesburg and then moved to 84 1st Street Linden. They lived in the house until Oma’s death in 2010.
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The Kerlen Village
I’ve been casually researching the family name for a long time. Whilst randomly searching the internet for the name Kerlen I came across this little village/hamlet in France called Kerlen. You’ll notice from the screenshot that several other nearby places start with “Ker”. I am led to believe that this may mean “House”. I vaguely remember coming across something once that explained that Kerlen meant: House of Len.
There is a French connection to the Kerlen family. Apparently it is a French Hugenot name. An anecdotal tale from my Opa to my mother explains that Kerlen is a derivative of another similar French name. How true that is I don’t know.