Wedding Wednesday - Common Ancestor

My grandparents, Lloyd and Catherine Broersma are 5th cousins. That means that they have the same 4th great grandparents. My grandparents were married in 1951. 183 years before their marriage, their common ancestors were married on 5 March 1768, in Paesens in the Netherlands. Their names were Sybe Jans de Jong and Dieuwke Dirks.

I recently got to visit the church that they were married in, in Paesens. It was built sometime in the 13th century originally as a Catholic church. Later during the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, most churches in Friesland were converted to the Dutch Reformed church.


The church is still in use today and I got the chance to go inside and look around. It has been remodeled inside, but still has a traditional look similar to what would have been over the centuries.


I thought it was pretty cool to see where these two family lines met in history. Another interesting thing was that on the wall it had the names of the pastors of this church through the years. So in 1768 the pastor who married my 6th great grandparents would have been Jan Adam Kesler.

     

Happy 60th Anniversary Lloyd and Kay Broersma

60 years ago today, my grandparents Lloyd Julian Broersma and Catherine Stap were married at 3rd Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Whatcom Co, Washington. That would be on 12 Oct 1951 if you didn't feel like doing the math.


On a side note, they didn't know this at the time of their marriage, but they are actually related. Lloyd and Kay are 5th cousins. They have the same GGGG Grandparents: Sybe Jans and Dieuwke Dirks. Sybe and Dieuwke were married on 5 Mar 1758 in Paesens, Oosdongeradeel, Friesland, The Netherlands. When we discovered this tidbit of information a few years ago, we showed my grandparents how they were related on a pedigree we printed out. They got a kick out of it and now they are the life of any party they are invited to.