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Introduction
‘Bende gij d’r inne van ons…?’ loosely translates in English to: ‘Are you one of ours?’.
This question might seem a bit odd these days, but not so long ago, in Noord-Brabant, this would be a common question. Families tended to be so large that, after a couple of decades, aunts and uncles would have trouble keeping track of their own nieces and nephews!
Even only one generation back from adults now, families would still be quite large. My own mother was one of twelve. Although, 4 of her siblings did not make it to adulthood. This was not uncommon for the area she grew up in, rather, it seemed to be the norm.
When my ‘oma’ turned 75 she had to hire a hall, because for ‘oma’ to have all her children, their spouses and her grandchildren there, she would need to be able to seat about 40 of us, and by then some of the grandchildren were married and/or dating as well! Adding great-grandchildren to the mix, these days, a family ‘do’ would encompass double that number. About 80-odd people on just one little branch of my family tree!
So, going back a generation or two, you can see why the question ‘Are you one of ours….?‘ would be quite a common one!
Aim
My aim, and the aim of this site, is to get all my cousins up to 9 generations back to be able to answer the question ‘Are you one of ours…?‘ positively. ‘Yes, I am one of us!’
I’d like to find everyone who is related to me as a 1st through to 8th cousin, incl. those so many times removed.
Going further back is going to be too hard to prove, I think. DNA is probably going to miss out on some cousins who are related further back than 4th cousins and paperwork is going to be very difficult to obtain from before Napoleon introduced the new administration systems around 1800. So 7th and 8th cousins are already going to be a struggle… but with your help, we’ll see how far we can get!
To start, have a look at the list of names and see if you recognise any of them. If so, see if you can find our common ancestor on this site and please let me know when you do!
If you don’t know who our common ancestor would be, but you’d like to find out, drop me a line via the ‘Contact‘ page, and we’ll see what we can find out together.
Wendy-Anne Appleby-van Grinsven
April 2016 (site last updated: Aug 2023)
Please note: I have done my best, but I am not perfect; check my information first before you put it in your own tree.
If I have made a mistake somewhere, please do let me know! Drop me a line via the ‘Contact’ page.
Bende gij d'r inne van ons...? 