Our Family History
Welcome to Zoë, Wouter, Mathilde and Imme's family history pages.
These pages represent an ongoing project to document our family reminiscences, ancestry and folklore.
If you would like to contribute, please contact Zoë. Photos, corrections and details of additional family members are most welcome! Please click here to read about those people who have already contributed.
If you have arrived at this page because you are researching part of this family, please get in touch as I have more information than appears on this website, especially for branches off the main lines going back. If you have access,you can also see our family tree on Ancestry and Genes Reunited
Click here to start exploring the Jansen-Toft family tree
The website now contains:
- Lots more Cleavers and Wilsons, including several new photos. Special thanks to Janet Morley for sharing her research on this. We have lots of unidentified Cleaver/Wilson photos - please have a look at http://www.kuvik.net/ztoft/additionalpages/wilsoncleaverphotoarchive/page1.html and if you recognise anyone, get in touch!
- Back a generation on the Karsies line
- Back a generation on the Star line, and several images of the Star entries in the original Parish Registers (Doop- en Trouwboek)for Oosterwijtwerd
- Back a generation on the Bishop and Sheldon lines (ancestors of Margaret Toft nee Smales)
- More details of cousins on Flip Jansen's side of the tree, and 1 generation back on each of the following lines: Kreeft, Du Pree, Driessen, Verwers, and 2 generations back on the 't Hooft, Verolme and Vroegindeweij branches
- 2 more generations further back on the van Stigt branch, taking us to the 1740s, introducing new names to the family - Visser, van der Werff and Verhoeven
- More relations on the Longland branch, and a fantastic photo of Sarah Longland nee Whitney. Special thanks to Gerry Thompson for sharing his research and the photo.
- A generation back on the all-female line, to Margaret Warburton b. c 1790
- Information from the 1911 census on the Wilson and Toft families
- Several new photos of the Wilsons including Hilary, Alec and Vera (nee Followell)
- Draft version of the story of Cornelius Faller and Adelheid Pfaff and their emigration to the UK. Please get in touch if you can add more to this story
- More info on the Wilson family, especially Charles Kingsley Wilson's siblings, thanks to relative Janet Walding (descended from Annie Wilson)
- Updated the pages on the Toft family history with images showing location of Shooters Green Farm, and the baptismal record of Richard Smith Toft
- Several more photos from the Jansen and Toft families
- Three photos from Inge and Etienne's wedding in April 2007
- A generation further back on the Shelton line (who married into the Toft line in Abbots Ripton), thanks to Karen Dalrymple in Perth, Australia
- A copy of the inquest held into David Plews' (1811-1868) suicide. David Plews is one of Mathilde's Great-great-great-great-great Grandfathers!
- A further generation back on the Gray line, and two new maiden names who married into the Gray line: Foreman and Wilkinson
- A couple more generations back on the Finkle line, to at least the 1760s with Mathilde's Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (!) John Finkle from County Durham
- More Plews information added, with several corrections, thanks to contact with Stephen Pickles
- The Cleaver line now goes back to 1710, in Warwickshire
- About 10 photos of Notre Dame Convent (the school attended by Mary and Kathleen Wilson, before it was torn down)
- Lots of new detail on Wilson relatives - taking a direct maternal line (Mott) back to the 1650s in Essex
- About 15 new photos of Northampton, including houses where several of the Wilson family lived, and some where Violet Church lived.
- About 30 new photos including Kate Toft, Richard Toft, Zoe Toft, Violet Church, Esther Gray, Peter Toft, David Toft, Mary Wilson, Rebecca Shotton, Richard Bielby
- We now know the name of Grandma Toft's Great-Grandmother - Mary Howkins - who was married to William Cleaver. William Cleaver was a canal boatman and censuses show him not only in Northamptonshire, but also in Limehouse (London) and Birmingham. The name of his boat was "Perseverance". An earlier boat of his (1871) was called "Reform". Mary Howkin's father was also a boatman.
- Up-to-date image showing overview of Mathilde's entire tree (on the left of this page)
- Several generations back of direct ancestors of Flip Jansen - on one line back to c.1700 (Arris and Reintje van Zelder)
- Confirmation of a definite link with Cornelis Verolme (the ship builder) - he is Mathilde's second cousin four times removed. Their common ancestors are Jan Verolme and Margrieta Driessen.
- A few more photos on the Star and Oostenbrug lines
- A few new photos of family members on the Star and Oostenbrug lines
- Several new photos of family members on the Jansen side
- A major breakthrough on the search for ancestors of Flip Jansen (Mathilde's Opa) - whereas previously we had only very scant information we have now been able to trace back several generations on his line in many cases back to the late 1700s, including an (apparent) direct link to a famous shipping family in the Netherlands, the Verolme family
If you wish to view a complete list of updates made to this site since it began (February 2006), please click here
Overview of Mathilde's tree so far
