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.

Of course the only reason I know he exists is because of all the work that Marguerite has done whilst researching the family history. The lady is a legend. I’m not sure how she found out his details but find them she did. In all the years I’ve been “Googling” the family name I never once thought to Google his other name: Gerrit. For some reason as a last grasp at something I did so tonight and I found something and I’m rather excited about but worried that it may be a red herring.  I hope not but I’ll leave that for others to decide. Who knows, maybe Marguerite has come across this before?

After typing into Google I was presented with a list of results. Not many but more than I’d normally get. One of these results looked interesting. I found it on a document that was written by the Nederduits Gereformeerde Gemeente Zutphen. Now, if you’ve been paying attention to the person profiles listed on the site you will know that Zutphen features quite heavily with the Kerlen family, especially in the early years.

I think we all have a pretty decent grasp of Dutch/Afrikaans to be able to translate the name of that page. The Netherlands German Reformed Community of Zutphen. Well that’s how I translated it anyway. Back to what I found:

Now there’s a name I’d never seen before! Andries Godfrid Kerlen! His mother and father are no other than Gerard K and his lovely missus Anna Catharina! Woohoo! A potential new line of Kerlens! So we know his birth date, the day he was christened (I had to confirm with my dad that Doopdag means christening) and we know the religious man who did the ceremony. In John parlance that’s a damned good result! But it’s not the result I’m writing about (I have however added him to the family tree here).

Now these people at the NGGZ actually have a whole library of documents, all downloadable for free and all easy enough to search through and find any instance of “Kerlen”. They’ve rather handily broken down all the research they’ve done into manageable chunks. So I went through each document searching for any appearances of Kerlen. I drew a blank with a lot but on one of them I came across some names that I’d never seen before:

06.03.1794 Geboortedag: d. 6 maart – Doopdag: d. 9 do
Kind: HARMANUS
Ouders: Wijnand Kerlen – Petronella Jansen
Predikant: D. v. Wullen

So here we have another Kerlen family living in Zutphen at the same time as our family. What are the chances they knew each other? I’m saying back in those days there was probably a pretty good chance they had each other on the 1700s version of Facebook. Now of course we all know we can’t go around claiming these sorts of things without some sort of verification. So… down another rabbit hole went I.

I fired up my trusty browser and did a search for “Wijnand Kerlen” and I happened upon two results:

Another Harmanus Kerlen but born way before the first one I found and a couple of new names.:

Type of event : birth/baptism

Name of child : Harmanus Kerlen
Date of birth : 16-02-1734
Place of birth : Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Nederland

Parents :
Name of father : Guert Kerlen
Name of mother : Maria Moraij

Witnesses :
Witness 1 : Hermanus Kerlen
Witness 2 : Catharina Nee
Witness 3 :

Religion :
Gereformeerd

The second result was similar, very similar in fact:

It looks to me as though we have twins! Yes, I’m aware these births happened in The Hague, but I think I can explain that away in a minute or two. Here’s the clincher though which leads me to think these men are related to us. I found these results on a website called Anticus, which you can find here.

Anticus.net is a small genealogical database dedicated mostly to research in the south of the Netherlands, the Auvergne in France, and the Antwerp and Flanders regions of Belgium. A wiki is available with information about various prominent families of Europe.

That’s how they describe themselves. Anyway I did the next logical thing and did a search for Kerlen on their site. Guess what I found?

Type of event : birth/baptism

Name of child : Gerhardus Kerlen
Date of birth : 11-03-1736
Place of birth : Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Nederland

Parents :
Name of father : Guert Kerlen
Name of mother : Maria Moeraij

Witnesses :
Witness 1 : Hermanus Kerlen
Witness 2 : Catharina Neegefanger
Witness 3 :

Religion :
Gereformeerd

Do you see why I am excited? A Gerhardus Kerlen! Again, not 100% verifiable that he had anything to do with our Kerlens but what are the odds of it being another one? Slim I think (I hope anyway). So I’ve built a story below and fee free to correct me if you think I’m incorrect.

I’ve tried putting the puzzle together in the hope it makes sense. There was two consistent witnesses to the birth of all three of the sons of Guert Kerlen and Maria Moeraij. They were Hermanus Kerlen and Catharina Neegevanger. Possibly Guert’s parents or at least his father and a partner? Gerhardus Kerlen born in 1736 would be at the right age (24) to have a son called Gerard Kerlen born in 1760. Obviously this needs more research but there is hope. The only hole I can see in this theory is the age of Wijnand Kerlen (60) when his son was born.

Am I clutching at straws? Is this a red herring? Am I being too hopeful? Feel free to comment below.

Thanks

John