For some time I was not able to do any further research on our family. At the beginning of this year I received a letter from a commercial organisation that claimed to know that they knew very much about the AUTSEMA-family, and would provide this information if I paid enough for it. They even claimed we had a family-wapon. Since there is no easy way to collect data about a family in the Netherlands other than to dig in archives, I figured that they could not possibly have done this because they claimed they knew many things about a large number of families. To collect so many data I thought this would only be possible if they used the Internet so I decided to do some research on the Net my self.

In the first place I was disappointed that there was so little information about our family available on the net. In a few official sources our name showed up a number of times, but the information I was looking for (family around the 17th century) was not available. A large part of the province of Groningen (that is where our ancesters lived for so many years) does not provide any online information about ancestors. I was struck by the notice that, allthough they lived there so many years hardly anything was available about this family in genealogical literature, sources in libraries, on the Internet, etc.. The commercial bureau that claimed to know so much about our family was unrealiable, but the positive effect was that they stimulated me again to spend time in further research in the history of our family. So I would like to thank them.

The information gathered on this site is double-checked by the use of different sources. In cases where this was not possible I have made a note about this. This also means that there is more information available than published on this site. This is only meant for relatives of this family.

• To give you an impression of the the environment our ancestors lived in, I have added all the pictures I made during my trip to the province of Groningen in January 2002.
• Around March 2002 I received an email from the US. It came from a man called John Ausema and he asked if I was interested to know more about the AUSEMA-family, who had the same ancestors as our family. Off course I was interested and he directed me to Nathalie Ausema, who had some material about the Ausma and Ausema-families. Thanks to her I received this information and this was the definite confirmation of the link between the Autsema and Ausema-families. This information was the source for the description of earlier families than the ones mentioned in an earlier version of this site.
• In the beginning of 2002 I have visited the province of Groningen and looked for confirmation about a number of issues. I have found a lot of this information in the Rijksarchief (State-archives) of Groningen. I visited Uithuizen and Warffum, places where our ancestors lived around 1700 and 1800, walked around in this almost empty landscape where agricultural work is done on large farms and there are only a number of villages.
• I found out in the archives that one family was much larger than I assumed earlier. This was the family of Grietje Berends en Jannes Tjarks Ausema. They got 11 (or 12) children. This family is crucial for the birth of our lastname because a part of this family adopted the lastname AUSEMA and another part used AUTSEMA. The origin of this lastname can possibly be found in the fact that one of the members of this family (Cornelis Jannes) owned a farm called Ausmaheerd in Uithuizen. This farm still exists, but is no longer owned by a member of our family. Around the time that people were forced to use a lastname he lived on this farm and that was probably the reason that he chose the name of this farm to be his lastname (AUSEMA). It was also around this time that a part of this family started using the name Ausema and another part used Autsema.
• From the Dutch Genealogical organisation I ordered a CD with data from marriage, burial and baptism-registers in Groningen. I could use this CD for further confirmation and double checks on persons that were mentioned in this family-tree.
• From earlier research in the Archives of Groningen I could trace back our family till generation VII. I did not find any information about the parents of this generation (generation IX), but received information from Johannes Autsema, born 1911 in Appingedam about this family. I was surprised that - when I was travelling around on the Internet - I found a family AUSEMA that claimed to have the same ancestors as our family.
  
  At this moment I assume that these people are the same as our first known ancestors. I think a part of this family lived their lives with the name AUTSEMA and others did it with de lastname AUTSEMA. I am not absolutely sure about this assumption, but I will certainly do more research in this issue.
  
  
• I translated a part of the site in English. This is the part about the ancestors of the Autsema-family. It can be viewed by clicking here.



• Also subject of further research is the possible connection between several different lastnames: ‘Autsema’, 'Ausma, ‘Auwema’ en ‘Aussem’.



• I have some doubts about the origin of our family-name. In earlier writing I received information that the first part of our lastname was related to farming in the Netherlands. But two different sources state otherwise, namely that 'Autse' or 'Ause' is a contamination of the firstame 'Auke' of 'Aue'. Auke is a firstname in a province Friesland in the Netherlands (the province that is located left to Groningen).
But... I never found a person called Auke in our family. (Sources: Nederlandse Geslachtsnamen door Johan Winkler (1885) en Huizinga’s complete lijst van namen)

• I reversed the numbering of generations on this site since this is more usual in genealogical literature.



• Some children were born in our family and some people have died.

• I am very pleased that since this year I am in contact with a number of members of our family in the United States. The information I received from them is appreciated very much and is included on this site.

Arnhem, The Netherlands, March 2020