Yesterday I met Brian,
His wish was the same as mine ‘visiting the old family farm(s)’
my mom knows only one so i asked her cousin (Ida) who is also totally ‘into family stuff’ too, to meet and guide us around.

I met Brian and friends on the train station and from there we drove to meet Ida at the first family farm, which has been since 1978 of here parents, where I visited myself also frequently.

Ida and I are double family, her father was a brother of my grandfather(96) and her mom(91) is a sister of my grandma(92).

we started and met Ida at the Hassink Farm
(for photo’s click here (for sale now)

this ‘Family Tree’ was planted during a Kaemingk-familyday there,
in summer 2006 where both Ida and I were too.

Luckily everyone had the same idea about how many time to spend together, so all day we were spending together with visiting farms, driving and taking photo’s as if we were tourists, but the most beautiful part:

We weren’t tourists, we all felt home at all the farms where only our ancestors had been, living, where they raised our (great)(grand)parents. And one where Ida had been growing up too.

Brian and I share the same great-greatgrandparents
they must have been great … Pioneers !

We have seen all around Hassink (where older Kaemingk generations have lived and being raised too, like Johan Gerrit too, one of the 12 children, from which Englebert is Brians greatgrandfather and Hendrik Jan mine)

On our way to the Teesink farm we came across the farms where Hanna & Liza have been living too.

The Teesink farm, is where all 12 children of Theodor Johann & Johanna Hendrika have been born and raised until they moved and or emigrated:  to USA: Englebert & Ted and to South Africa: Gerrit and to Canada: Arnold)
Later on Johan Gerrit, took over the Teesink farm.

From there we moved on to Broekhuis,
where the new owners were home and invited us to look inside,

which still had much the same or even traces of the past.

My grandfather and Ida’s father grew up here and so did Ida herself and her brothers and sisters.

Then it was time for lunch, and we headed for a “Pannenkoekenhuis” the one with the best pancakes in Holland.

On our way there we went in business

After the pancakes we went to church

The smallest one in all Holland
(the only one which fits in 1 picture)

We decided at this hour that,
now we are doing the Kaemingk tour,
we should do ALL, so there we went,
crossing the border with Germany

The story which my grandfather told us very often
that in this town, this road is the border, (still is)
and in the past they sold flowers on both sides of the streets and the signs were “Bloemen te koop” (in Dutch) and on the other side  “Blumen zu kauf” (in German)

 so the question is:
On which side of this street they lived?
Are our roots Dutch or German?

So there we went for ice cream, in the German part,
because it is typical Dutch to get your stuff where it is the cheapest I took Malaga taste which at us is called “Boerenjongens” (farmerboys) as long as I remember when we went for ice cream with my grandparents they took this one.. Brian discovered why
also without the ice cream it is a often given gift at birthdays in our Kaemingk family

Just after war time the price difference were the opposite, then coal got smuggled from Holland, by putting them in Footballs and kicking them over the border into Germany, which was forbidden but tolerated. (this story (in dutch and german) on the sign next to statue made for the oldest citizen a man at that time 102 years old, who wished to honor the smugglers

The greatgrandparents, and their descendants
of our great-greatgrandfather were all born in this town.
the one most far back in history was born in 1767

“wir gehen fahren zu Friedhof”
In this town we went to cemetary,
in search of relatives, all we found was it was updated
and only recent graves far relatives which the last name is spelled
“Kemink” (photo’s later)

From there we went back in Holland, to Ida’s house,

where she has very old family photo’s and letters
(see other posts in Family History)

And in the end of the day back home and to the train.

We all had a wonderful day!