Recent changes in this family tree
Changes on this site in comparison with earlier versions
(March 2020) Transfered the site to another hosting provider with better
service and more options to modernize the site.
(March 2015) Removed all family-members born in the 20th century and
later because of privacy issues.
(August 2003) The last changes on this site are pure cosmetics to make
the text easier to read. Hope you will find it useful.
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.
Recent changes on this site
- 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