Reijer
1574 Holland

Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city in the province on North Holland, grew from a straggling fishing village at the confluence of the Amstel and the Y Rivers into a prosperous post and market town. By the year 1600 it had become the world's most important harbor and was home port for more than a thousand ocean-going vessels. While there was wealth and prosperity throughout the city, we cannot claim that out earliest ancestor was a rich merchant with great social status. In fact, just the opposite was probably true.

1. Reijer- Our earliest ancestor, who we knew only by his given name, REIJER, lived in a neighborhood called the Jordan, a medieval district west of the old city walls. The inhabitants there built their houses where they wanted and the area had become a maze of narrow streets and alleys lined by small, tumble down houses. Amsterdam's poorest citizens, unskilled laborers and peddlers, the bottom rang of the economic ladder, lived there. Yet in spite of the poverty, it developed a liveliness and sense of community unique among Amsterdam's neighborhoods.

The 17th Century map-maker Johan Bleau, produced exquisite atlases in his Jordan house on the Bloemgracht and Govert Flinck, one of Rembrandt's best known pupils, lived near by. Rembrandt himself would move to the Jordan in 1660. The street-callers sold oak husks, to fill pillows, and carbolic stone, a primitive disinfectant said to work wonders in ridding a home of fleas and cockroaches!

Livelihoods were made at jobs of cleaning out privies, sorting coffee beans, shelling shrimps, repairing pots and pans, peddling goldfish or hiring out as a „Knocker-up,„ a job that required waking people up at fixed hours by knocking on their windows with a long pole. Push cart sold fresh strawberries and smoked sprat. And always there was a barrel-organ, huge machines encrusted with drums, bells, statues and colored pictures of famous battles, being cranked by one man to make the music, and another to collect the coins from the citizens passing by.

Here it was that our earliest ancestor lived and raised his family. The streets in the Jordan all had flower names and Reijer and his wife lived on the Bloemstraat (Flower Street). We know little more about Reijer. the oldest existing records for the Dutch reformed church in Amsterdam begin in 1578. No baptismal record has been found but we are able to estimate his birth at about 1574, based on the fact that most grooms in that era were between 25 and 30 years of age and that his son was born in 1604. if this child was not his first offspring, then of course, he would be older still.

If he had a patronymic, it has not yet been discovered. He could have been Reijer the boat worker or Reijer who lived near the bridge. He might even have been Reijer, the son of Reijer, to carry on his father's name. After all, that was the name he gave his son, a name which descendants have carried down into the 18th century. all of these are tantalizing possibilities. future research may provide the answers.