Janssen

Garbrand Roos and Teentje Janssen b. 1764

/ Kirstin Miller

Garbrand Roos and Teentje Janssen 5th great grandparents.

Garbrand Harms Roos was born in 1764 in Niedersachsen, English is Lower Saxony- the German state. Aurcih is a district in Lower Saxony which contains the municipality of Krummhörn, that includes the little village of Visquard where Garbrand was born. Visquard is less than 4 square miles in size.

Google Maps, Visquard, a photo of the little village

Teentje Dirks Janssen was born on April 18, 1775 in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), Germany. It’s on the notrth western coast of Germany, on the Wadden Sea, part of the North Sea. Garbrand and Teentje married around 1797 and had at least 3 children: Maria Garbrand Roos, Jan Garbrand Roos and Harm Garbrand Roos.

Garbrand has a definition in ceramics as the final firing. “Garbrand garbrand (keramik) Definition of garbrand (keramik) in German English dictionary: finishing firing (ceramics)”. And “Probably an altered spelling of North German Garbrand or Gerbrant, from a Germanic personal name, composed of the elements gar, ger ‘spear’, ‘lance’ + brand ‘fire’, ‘flame’.

Germany, the place and the people, have thousands of years of complex history, a person could spend a lifetime learning, understanding. Lower Saxony, the Roose family probable ancestor home, included chieftains, counts and countesses, kings and queens and Paleolithic reindeer hunters. France, Holland, Napoleon, Prussia, Russia, the Kingdom of Hannover, the Roman Empire, and more were rulers through the years.

Sources

Kuna Kuntje Jansen b. 1833

/ Kirstin Miller

Kuna Kuntje Enen Jansen 3rd great grandmother

Kuna or Kuntje also known as Katie came to America when she was 49 years old. She made a quick stop at the New York harbor then landed in Baltimore in 1883.

From Baltimore she, husband Casjen and children Enno, Gerd, Entje and Hilke moved on to Iowa and settled in Butler County. The 1890 census was lost in a fire, the first record of the Kuna is the 1900 census. She lives with her son Enno and his family including 8 year old Mary Viola Frerichs, who would marry George Gerald Roose 12 years later. Kuna and Casjen share a beautiful handcarved headstone in the Parkersburg Oak Hill Cemetery.

Frerichs family emigrates in 1883

/ Kirstin Miller

In 1883 Enno Frerichs (2nd great grandfather) and family sailed from Bremen, Germany to Baltimore, Maryland. From Baltimore they would have taken a train to Freeport, Illinois joining friends and family already settled in America. Railroad companies produced pamphlets many in  German, advertising the lands for sale in the Plains: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska. Local agents were listed along with details about crops, social life, religion and the financial make up of the specific towns. Railroads and the Making of Modern America University of Nebraska Lincoln is an educational site with plentiful sources.