By now, most people have a story or two about reconnecting with
an old high school friend using the popular social networking site,
Facebook. But for Morgan Hill residents Martin and Mary Anne Groen,
Facebook played an important role in getting them in touch with a
long lost relative from the Netherlands, who a few months ago, they
didn’t even know existed.
By now, most people have a story or two about reconnecting with an old high school friend using the popular social networking site, Facebook. But for Morgan Hill residents Martin and Mary Anne Groen, Facebook played an important role in getting them in touch with a long lost relative from the Netherlands, who a few months ago, they didn’t even know existed.
His name is Hendrik Heerschop. He is 52 and lives with his wife and two children in Fryslân, a province in the Northern Netherlands where he owns a business restoring gravestones. He is Martin’s third cousin.
Just a few weeks ago, Hendrik flew to Ripon to meet his newly discovered Californian relatives and spent almost a week in Morgan Hill at Martin and Mary Anne’s house. Despite having only recently met, they hit it off quickly. It was as though they’d known each other their entire lives.
“We are similar. We have the same humor,” Hendrik said. He also went on to say that he and Martin’s oldest son, Nik in particular acted very similarly.
For the Groens, this experience started a few months earlier when Mary Anne received a peculiar message from Hendrik through Facebook, claiming to be her long lost relative from the Netherlands. She considered dismissing the message since her husband said he never heard of anyone named Hendrik in his family. But she noticed that on Facebook, Hendrik was mutual friends with Martin’s first cousin, Lee Groen, so she responded to him.
“The interesting thing about Facebook is that you can see who they know too. It’s kind of like having a friend introduce you to someone at a party,” Mary Anne said.
It turns out that Hendrik had spent the past few years trying to fill in the gaps to his family tree. He had quite a bit of it mapped out, but there was one person missing entirely, a man named Johannes Albert Groen, the brother to his great-grandfather. No one in his family knew what happened to him, nor his wife or kids.
“I asked a cousin of my father. She’s well over 90. She’s never heard anything,” Hendrik said.
Hendrik continued his investigation. His luck changed when he looked on a website called findagrave.com. There he found a gravestone for Feike Groen, which was the name of one of Johannes’s sons. But the grave was in Platte, South Dakota. None of Hendrik’s relatives mentioned that Johannes’s family might have immigrated to the U.S. But he left a note on the page anyway. Hopefully someone would see his message. He got a reply one week later from Lee Groen, who was doing research of his own for his family tree. He was looking at Feike’s gravestone on findagrave.com also and saw Hendrik’s message. The two talked via e-mail and confirmed that they were related. They sent each other their respective family trees which filled in a lot of gaps on both sides.
Before this, the American Groens had no substantial knowledge of their family tree in the Netherlands.
“My family didn’t go backwards into Holland. We knew that was our origin, but we had no contact with relatives back there or know who they were,” Martin said.
After his connection with Lee, Hendrik quickly got on to Facebook and started e-mailing every one of Lee’s friends with the last name “Groen” and came in contact with many more relatives.
After Mary Anne responded to Hendrik’s Facebook message, they continued to write back and forth and got to know each other even before Hendrik visited. It helped that they could look at each other’s pictures and read their profile information.
Ever the diligent researcher, Hendrik was able take all the new information and piece together the details of Johannes’s journey to America. “Since I have my business in restoring gravestones, I’m always interested in history,” Hendrik said.
He learned that Johannes Albert Groen arrived in Platte, South Dakota April 11, 1893 along with his wife and children. They traveled 12 days by sea, five days by train and two by horse and wagon.
Johannes’s son (and Martin’s grandfather) Feike died in 1938. He was 39. A few months later his widow, Jenny Winters Groen moved to Ripon, with six of her children, while four stayed behind in Platte. Martin’s father, Rein was one of the children to make the trek to Ripon. At the time he was 9.
“The stock market crashed and the banks crashed and they lost their life savings. That was one of the issues my uncle talked about,” Martin said, regarding his family’s decision to leave South Dakota.
By the time Rein was in his 20s, he met Jane. They married and moved to San Jose. In 1960 they moved to San Martin and acquired a ranch. There they grew apricots and raised cattle. Martin and Mary Anne were married in 1990. The two moved to Morgan Hill in 1995. They have three kids.
Martin, a Bay Area high tech salesman is two years older than Hendrik.
The first stop on Hendrik’s trip to the U.S. was in Platte, where he got to not only meet new relatives, but see this town his ancestors immigrated to so many years ago.
“I’ve seen all of Platte where the Groens farmed and houses where they lived that are now abandoned,” Hendrik said.
He went to Ripon next where he met a whole new set of American relatives, including Martin and Mary Anne.
Hendrik stayed in Ripon with Martin’s brother for a week. Afterward, Martin and Mary Anne invited him to stay at their house in Morgan Hill.
Hendrik said he had an amazing trip meeting his new relatives. “I waited almost one and a half years to come here and search everything out. I love it,” Hendrik said.
The experience has been just as incredible for Martin and Mary Anne. “It’s very interesting. It’s tying the bow on your heritage, saying, OK, that’s where I’m from,'” Martin said.
Martin and Mary Anne hope to make it to the Netherlands soon to meet all the relatives on that side of their family tree. Hendrik plans to make sure they do so.
