Netherlands Archives - Zalewski Family Genealogy

Jacobus Van Parijs (1810-1848)

Posted on 25 February 2017by Brian Zalewski

The eighth ancestor in my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks project for 2017 is my maternal 4th-great-grandfather, Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS. I am related to him through my mother â†’ her mother (Marjorie DeBROUX) â†’ her mother (Mildred VAN PRICE) â†’ her father (Peter VAN PRICE/VAN PARIJS) â†’ his father (Charles VAN PARIJS) â†’ his father (Jacobus VAN PARIJS).

The Van Parijs line was one that was difficult to find until I found it, if that makes sense. I started with my great-grandmother’s maiden name of Van Price and that’s all I had for years. I could never find more information. Then one day I ran across a forum posting somewhere that stated that Price and Parijs are interchangeable since they have the same sound. Once I starting searching for Van Parijs, everything fell into place. Van Parijs roughly translates to “of Paris” which makes me assume the line originates somewhere in France, which makes sense since the the line is found in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Jacobus Bernardus Van Parijs was born circa 1810 in Watervliet, East Flanders, Belgium which is adjacent to the Dutch border. His parents were Phillipus and Anna (JUNIS) VAN PARIJS. On 21 May 1835, he married Janneke DEES in the IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands which is on the southern side of the province. Their son, my 3rd-great-grandfather, Charles, was born in July 1846, the last of their 5 children.

Jacobus died not too longer after Charles’ birth on 1 January 1848 at the age of 38. I have no specifics on his death besides the record of it, so I don’t know what took him that young. In 1848, there were many diseases or accidents that could have happened. His son Charles is my main Dutch connection and my immigrant ancestor who took his family to America in around 1874.

In terms of DNA, I have not found any direct connections that descend from this line specifically, so it is unknown.

Photo: IJzendijke, central square. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 by Michielverbeek.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

52 Ancestors #1: Charles Van Price

Posted on 17 February 2014by Brian Zalewski

I was going to choose a commonly researched ancestor for my first post, but I decided to do it on an ancestor I don’t post about as often. My first 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post is about my 3rd-great-grandfather, Charles Ludovicus VAN PARIJS. The Dutch surname was Americanized to Van Price not long after immigration. This caused a lot of grief in the beginning, as I’ll talk about.

Charles was born in IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands on 6 July 1846 to Jacobus and Janneke (DEES) VAN PARIJS. There isn’t much else known about Charles’ childhood, but he met and married Johanna Marie KREBBEKX on 22 December 1870 in the nearby town of Hoofdplaat. He and his family emigrated to the US around October 1874 and they finally settled in central Wisconsin along with many other families from the Netherlands and Belgium. Johanna and Charles had 8 or 9 children, depending on the source of information. My ancestor, Peter, was born in Zeeland right before they left for America in 1874. Mysteriously, there is no definitive date of death for Charles as I’ll talk about, since he basically vanished.

Belgian Dutch Surname Saturday

Surname Saturday: VAN PRICE

Posted on 27 November 2010by Brian Zalewski

Charles Van Price — Photo from Charles' Passport. Note his name listed as just "Price."

By the time the VAN PRICE surname ended in my ancestry, it had already been changed at least once. My great-grandmother, Mildred Vida (DEBROUX) VAN PRICE, was the last to have the surname before she married my great-grandfather. Her father, as he is listed on later documents and his headstone, was Peter VAN PRICE. Though, he wasn’t born with that name. His name when he was born was Pieter Franciscus VAN PARIJS.

For years, I didn’t have much more info on the VAN PRICE surname in my tree besides the two people listed above, and I didn’t have anything on Peter except for his name. That all changed on day when searching for information using Google. I was looking for information on the Van Price line, but I always hit a brick wall. I had happened to find something that mentioned that “Parijs” was sometimes written as “Price” in America. So, I searched for Van Parijs and ran across a Dutch Genealogy website, Zeeuwen Gezocht [Zeeland Archives]. It turns out that the VAN PARIJS family is from the Zeeland area of the Netherlands and this website was a treasure trove of information. From there I found information going back many generations. I know that “Van Parijs” roughly translates into “of Paris” in French, so I’m wondering if this family came from France, since I have traced them back into Belgium.

From the archive website I found Peter’s parents, Charles Ludovicus VAN PARIJS and Johanna Maria KREBBEKX. Then Charles’ father was found as Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, then Phillipus Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, and finally Joannis VAN PARIJS. This is as far back as I’ve been able to find, though I haven’t dug in and done much research in a few years. By this time, the VAN PARIJS family was located in the East Flanders, Belgium area.