The Kokernoot (as the name is spelled in Holland, pronounced "Kokernote") family in Holland is poorly documented before the nineteenth century, but the family of David's mother, Betje (later Betsy), who adopted the surname "van der Beugel," is well documented for several generations before David.
Jewish marriage records in Holland can be obscure, and written in Hebrew. Here is one that is neither. Betsy's brother Salomon, sixteen years her senior, was widowed in 1801 with three children under age five. He didn't remarry for another fifteen years (that's this record, below) so it seems plausible that his children grew up with Betsy's two children, born in 1802 and 1805. Salomon had three more children with his second wife, Dina, in 1816, 1818, and 1820. Betsy would have known the oldest two of these, since she didn't follow her husband to New Orleans until January of 1820.
This marriage record is interesting for two reasons. First, it's extraordinarily detailed. We learn facts about our own family, such as the date and place of Betsy's mother's burial. Second, in 1831, after Dina had been widowed, she brought her three children to New Orleans at Betsy's expense and the middle of those children, Moses, accompanied David Kokernot on his disastrous shipwreck voyage to Texas that same year.
Notice that "van der Beugel" and "Cohen" are used almost interchangeably, the former for civil matters, the latter for Jewish, in relation to Salomon's father. Betsy did this, too. She can later be found in New Orleans documents identified as Kokernot, van der Beugel, Cohen, Cohn, or Kohn, in each case further identified as "widow of the late Levi Moses Kokernot."
| Document from Utrecht Archives, "Registers van de Burgerlijke Stand,
1811-1950"; "Huwelijken 1816-1818", p. 56; FHL film #121924.
Click the image below for a larger one (1.1 MB), but you won't find it easy to read, even if you do read Dutch. This translation, right, was kindly done by Rob van Drie, of Amsterdam, who used a copy from the Utrecht Archives, which he said was not much better. Thank you, Rob. Reprinted here with his permission.
|
No. 116 . Today, June 19th 1816, 11.30 A.M., ...[appeared] before me Samuel Cornelis Musschenbroek, member of the Utrecht town council, commissioned to .... [civil registration] Salomon Nathan van der Beugel, merchant, widower of Branco Hartog Elias, born Amsterdam, living here, 45 years of age, son of Nathan Salomon van der Beugel, not present [at this matrimony] and Roosje David van Praag, deceased, on one side, and Dina Mozes Groenewoud, without profession, born Maarssen, living here, 23 years of age, daughter of Isaak Moses Groenewoud, merchant, and Judik Berlijn, living here, on the other side, after being read according to law, In the first place: an extract taken from the circumcision register of mister Magnus (?) Joachim Moses, issued by the Commission of the Civil Registration of the city of Amsterdam on the 3rd of last month, and an extract taken from the register of names of the civil registration of Amsterdam, March 3rd 1812, from which can be concluded that Salomon Nathan van der Beugel is a son of Nathan Salomon van der Beugel and of Roosje David van Praag, according to a statement by the groom, and that he was circumcised there December 14th 1770; In the second place: a deed of notoriety [akte van bekendheid] executed January 10th of this year before the Justice of the Peace of the second canton and sanctioned by the Tribunal, where the original is deposited, from which can be concluded that Dina Moses Groenewoud is the daughter of Moses Groenewoud and Judik Berlijn and that she is born on June 2nd 1793 in Maarssen; In the third place: an extract taken from the burial register of the Jewish community in Amsterdam, dated April 20th 1815, that proves that the wife of Salomon Nathan Cohen is buried there - in Zeebrug (=Zeeburg?) February 3rd 1801; another deed of the 28th of last month, executed before Gerardus Hendrikus Stevens, notarian here, from which can be concluded that there is no sign of life or dead of de father of the groom, and an extract taken from the burial register of the jewish community in Amsterdam, from which can be concluded that the wife of Nathan Salomon Cohen is buried there January 12th 1810; Moses Isaak Groenewoud, here present, giving - also on behalf of his wife - his oral permission to this marriage; and declared the groom under oath - sworn in my hands - that his grandparent are deceased and that he can't give written proof of this; Fourth: the deeds of the proclamation of the banns of the husband and wife to be, proclaimed the 2nd and 9th of this month and immediately after the third proclamation posted on the front of the town hall, against which no opposition was made; Fifth: chapter six of the code of matrimony; After that I - after they both stated with loud voice that they wanted to be man and wife - declared in the name of the law Salomon Nathan van der Beugel, widower of Branco Hartog Elias, and Dina Moses Groenewoud to be united in marriage. Of all this I wrote a deed in the presence of Bart Koeleman Stegers, servant, sixty years old, Willem van Steenwijk, without a profession, fifty years old, Gerson Wolf Polak, merchant, fifty five years old, Frans Luijten, warden (?), thirty eight years old, all living here and all of them declaring under oath that they never heard that the grandparents of the groom were alive. After being read this license was signed, declaring the groom, the brides father and the first witness not being able to write. W. v. Steenwijk D M Groenewoud Gerson . Wolff . Polak S.C. van Musschenbroek F. Luijten |
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© 2006 Alan Barber