Barent & Lucas Coeymans, 17th century miller & sawyer

Barent Pieteres Koijemans/Coeymans first arrived in 1639 from Utrecht, The Netherlands, with his brother Lucas. First, Barent became an apprentice at a mill owned by the Van Rensselaer family. Later,  "Barent The Miller" purchased a tract of land that was given his name: Coeymans is a town in Albany County, New York, USA.
Barent married a daughter of Andries de Vos. His children were Andreas, Samuel, Pieter, Adriaentje, Jannetie and Geertie. Barent's daughter Adriaentje was born on October 19, 1672. His son Pieter married Elizabeth Greveraad on October 5, 1713. Barent died in 1710.

While Barent became known as "Barent The Miller", his brother Lucas Pieterse Coeymans became known as "De Houtsager", i.e. "The Sawyer". In 1675 Lucas bought a saw mill called "The Proesten Mill" on the east bank of the Hudson. Lucas married, too, and had a daughter Jannetje, baptised on October 19, 1684. 

Sources: OpenLibrary.org, Wikipedia.org and rootsweb.ancestry.com. 

Treasure Chest Thursday - My Grandparent's 1917 Marriage Certificate

Recently I received a little "treasure chest" from my uncle Cees de Jong. Among many other papers pertaining my grandparents, it contained my grandparent's marriage certificate:

My grandparent's marriage certificate

Pieter de Jong

My grandfather, Pieter de Jong (1892-1973) married my grandmother Willempje Cornelia Zijderveld (1892-1976) on March 29, 1917 in Dordrecht, South Holland, The Netherlands. They had 10 children and a miscarriage from 10 pregnancies in the period 1917-1935.
The 1930s were a time of unemployment and poverty, so my grandparents moved around 1930 from Capelle, North-Brabant, to Mookhoek, South-Holland, in search of employment. There, my grandfather started working as a hind on a farm and acquired a certificate for properly milking cows. After the war my grandfather found employment in building construction.

My Little Treasure Chest