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Pieter De Jong, Sr. was a farmer in an area outside the village of Arkel, The Netherlands known locally as Drie Heulen.  He and his wife Gijsbertje had 13 children.  10 of them lived to adulthood.  He emigrated with his wife and seven of the children (three died during the journey) in 1866. He purchased a farm in Black Oak Township of Mahaska County, Iowa. During his life in the United States, he expanded his farm to 154 acres from its original size of 80 acres, and assisted his sons and sons-in-law in expanding their farms. He lived to be 82 years old. In his lifetime, he witnessed the loss of his wife and most of his children. Yet he also lived to see many of his grandsons continue the farming tradition, as well as the birth of several great-grandchildren. 

His third son, Martinus, was my great great grandfather.  He emigrated with his wife Grietje and their oldest son, Pieter J., from Hoogblokland,  Netherlands in 1865. Their youngest son, Arie, a baby at the time, was left in the care of his family and emigrated the following year with his grandparents. Tragically, Arie died on the journey, a victim of the SS England cholera outbreak. 

Martinus purchased a farm in Black Oak Township of Mahaska County, Iowa. His farming operation was actually larger (160 acres) than his father’s when he passed away at the age of thirty-nine. He left a widow and six children, all under the age of thirteen.

Martinus' second surviving son, Arie C. De Jong, was my great grandfather.  He was the first member of the family born in the US.  He lost his father at age nine. Arie C. subsequently worked for his room and board at a neighbor’s farm. His formal education ended at the fifth grade level. As a teenager, he returned to the family farm, and along with his brothers continued to farm the land his father had purchased in 1868. As an adult, he rented farms in Prairie, and Richland townships in Mahaska County, Iowa.. Eventually, at age 48, he purchased his own farm near Peoria, only to lose it during the great depression of the 1930s. Technically, the farm didn’t revert back to the lender until eight months after his death, so he never witnessed the foreclosure.

I have also included the stories of the surviving children of Pieter De Jong, Sr and Martinus De Jong.

I have included all the family trees passed along to me. Many are not complete. I suspect some are still being worked on, while others remain in hibernation, waiting for a family member to pick up where others left off. 

In order to compare one family member’s position in the tree in relation to that of another, I have assigned a number to each generation. Generation #1 is Pieter Sr. and Gijsbertje De Jong. Generation #2 includes Martinus De Jong and his brothers and sisters. Generation # 3 includes Arie C. De Jong, his brothers and sister, as well as his first cousins.

Most of this material was collected during the years 1998 - 2001.  . In that time I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with, or speaking with, or even meeting face-to-face, a lot of wonderful people. Most of these folks I did not know. Yet they all contributed what they could. Sometimes even the smallest tidbit of information was all that was needed to achieve a major breakthrough.

There are so many members of the family to thank. Here are but a few: Julie L. De Jong, Arthur J. De Jong, Jane Van Oss, Mel Deur, Rose Vander Ark, Joline De Jong, Paul Vos, Gerald Vander Hart, Waltressa Fopma, Beatrice De Jong, Josephine De Jong, Mary Pothoven, Kenn Haven, Fran De Jong, Ruth Vander Kraan, Sonja Chase, Charlotte De Jong, Norma Van Rheenen, Wanda Van De Krol, Lois Uitermarkt, Dean De Bruin, Ruth Vander Hart, Orley Van Engelenhoven, Pauline Tysseling, Alice Vande Haar, Wanda Prinsen, Wilbur De Young, Lois Wethington, Norm Steinaker, Phyllis Mapes, Leona Vermeer, Ben Van Veldhuizen, Dick Van Rooden, Marylin DeYoung, and Lucienne Verburg. 

Thanks also go out to Marie Davis at the Douglasville Family History Center branch of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mabel Daniels of the Keo-Mah Genealogical Society, Joe Miller, who maintains the S S England web site, Cathy McCarthy of the Friends of McNabs Island, Anneke Landheer-Roelants, a genealogist in The Netherlands, Christine Mak, archivist at Central College, Jim Dahm of Pella, Iowa, Shirely Weller of Pella, Iowa, Carrie Kirk of the Johnson County Genealogical Society in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, the family of Rob Baars who helped with Dutch to English translation, J.G.J van Booma of the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie in The Netherlands, Rev. Jeff Van Der Weele of Prairie View, Kansas, Walta Russ of the Norton County, Kansas Genealogical Society, Ardie Grimes, a genealogy researcher for Norton County, Kansas, and Mike Borders and Dan Hoffman for their advice on scanners and software. 

There is one other person I would like to recognize. Her name is Irene De Young. She deserves special mention not only for her contributions to this effort, but also for her standing within the De Jong family. For those of you who have read the family trees carefully, you will recognize that she is the youngest daughter of Pieter De Jong, Jr.  She is just one generation removed from landing on the shores of America in 1866. How many people can say that these days? My wife Julie and I had the pleasure of meeting Irene in the summer of 2001 in Prairie View, Kansas. There’s nothing quite like skipping over a few generations to get back to the source.