[Great Hall of Rockwall] Frisian pride in the Chicago Tribune

[Karen Boomgaarden]

What a great article. :-)

When my home church (Silver Creek Reformed, in German Valley IL) 
celebrated her 150th anniversary in 1998, my mother did her level best 
to educate the natives (LOL--she married into the town, my father's 
people founded it in 1847, a year before the church was established) 
that they were NOT GERMANS as "we" were always taught, but OstFrisians 
(from what is now Germany, in and around the city of Emden on the North 
Sea). She met total and stony resistance; stubborn Frisians, anyway... LOL

Re: "DeVries": Some of you have heard this before, but IMO it bears 
repeating. Frisians traditionally used a patronymic naming convention 
for centuries, often skipping back generations and thereby making it 
extremely difficult to track families and relatives. When the 
Hanoverians took over in the 18th century (I think that's right....I 
know it was the Hanoverians, the century is iffy) they passed a law 
stating that all families would henceforth use proper surnames. They 
even circulated a *list* from which to choose. Well... the majority of 
families decided to go with "DeVries," which as stated in the article 
means merely "the Frisian." Just one more way to stick it to the 
Hanoverian Man and make it JUST as difficult to track--since now 
hundreds of totally unrelated families shared a surname.

And ja--I have DeVrieses in my family tree. :-)

Grietje



Kelli Quinn wrote:

>
> Hope no one got hit hard in last night's storms. Here's a story that I 
> found in this morning's Trib that I know a certain lady on this list 
> will be interested in, and the rest of us will find informative.
>
>
> <snippage of article and stuff and suchlike that there>