Finding Trijntje: A Family Mystery
- Lex Knowlton
- Oct 25, 2025
- 7 min read
My Great-Grandfather, Jakob Roskam, moved to the United Kingdom from a small, rural farming community in the Netherlands in the Post-War years. He learned many skills during his upbringing—one of which was land reclamation, sorely needed in those tender years after the war. Within a year, he met my Great-Grandmother, Violet Higgins, and they married, had my Nana-Nieske, and then had four more children. A long, happy life, and many wonderful years of marriage. But Grandad Roskam, as I called him, had once lived another life. One that could have completely changed the course of my family's history—and led to my never existing. You see, before Grandad left the Netherlands for new lands, he had been married. But his wife had tragically died from cancer. That was all we knew. We had no name, no picture—nothing but a small snippet of information from a man long since deceased.
He was 35 when he moved to Flintshire, Wales. By all accounts, he should have been married, settled down and farming his own land by that age. But years of tumultuous politics, followed by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, had put a hold on many people's lives.
During those terrifying years, it was common for Nazi officers to raid farms, taking whatever supplies they wished. They used to stop by my Great-Grandfather's family farm in Hemelum once a week to help themselves.
But then the war was over. Holland was liberated. Life had to go on. And go on it did.
So I had nothing more than a story, a whisper on the wind. I had done very little research into my Dutch family—I will admit I was slightly intimidated by the thought of researching in non-English archives. But it was time. I wanted to find Grandad's first wife. Not only for myself, but for my Nana, who was incredibly close with her Father. I knew it would mean a lot to her to have even just to have a name.
Don't ask me how, but I stumbled my way through the internet to Alle Friezens—I think it was via WieWasWie. Both INCREDIBLE sites for researching Dutch Genealogy. WieWasWie for a broader search. Alle Friezens for Friesland specifically. It was the latter that really opened things up for me.
I typed in Jakob Roskam and hit the search button... it returned 19,573,070 results. I was going to have to narrow my search fields... Roskam is a popular name, and they were all having LOTS and LOTS of babies!
I used the advanced search feature and selected marriage, and then narrowed my time window to 1930-1950. As I hit the enter button, my heart skipped a beat.
Three results were now available. And only one of them was for a groom. I thanked the Genealogy Gods—because honestly, when is it ever this easy? And I clicked on the only result that could be my Grandad—a marriage record for the 6th of November 1947.
There it was before me—a name.
The first thing I did was take a screenshot and send it to my Nana. She was over the moon to finally have a name and a bit more information about Trijntje. But I still had some lingering questions.
I'd always assumed that Grandad had married much earlier. Pre-war. Most people were marrying in their early to mid-twenties at this time. He hadn't married Trijntje until 1947, and less than three years later, my Nana would be born in Flintshire, Wales. So what in the world was going on? What happened?
So, where to next? Well, I knew Trijntje had died, and I now had her full name and the names of her parents. So back to Alle Friezans' advanced search bar I went. I input the information I had and hit search again. The results were surprising.
Trijntje Muizelaar died on the 30th of November 1947, three and a half weeks after their marriage. And now I was left with even more questions - questions I fear I may never truly know the answer to, as they may already have been carried from this world into the next. The death registry gave me little information, and I quickly learned from the fantastic people in the Dutch Genealogy Facebook group that the cause of death wasn't recorded on civil records back then.
Trijntje was buried at Koudum General Cemetery and would eventually be joined there by her Mother and Father and two of her siblings.
As the above newspaper article shows, Trijntje died in Sneek. This would support the story of her dying from cancer. Sneek, today a 30-minute car ride from Hemelum, was the closest sizable city in 1947, with a population of around 10,000. Compared to smaller rural villages, which only held around 500-2000 residents. Sneek, as a city, also had a hospital: St. Antonius Hospital. It would have had advanced medical care and staff compared to the smaller clinics or general practitioners in the rural areas. While we don't know for sure, this is why she died in Sneek - it seems a plausible hypothesis.
My Speculations
I'm not sure when Grandad met Trijntje Muizelaar. He likely knew of her at least while growing up. In many archives, the two family names (Roskam and Muizelaar) appear together in various photos or articles. But families were large and extended in that area of the world, so it's entirely possible that they weren't overly familiar until later in life. One of his brothers was also settled with a family in Koudum—so perhaps she was a friend of his sister-in-law, or he met her while visiting his brother.
Trijnte was born around 1924, probably in Koudum, where most of her siblings were born. She was one of 17 children—not unusual in the area. Grandad was 1 of 15. Unfortunately, there is no record of her birth.
Koudum is a slightly larger town west of Hemelum, where Grandad grew up, but as an itinerant worker, he is recorded at various intervals living around the Gaasterland region. The meeting could have occurred in any number of ways around this small, tight-knit area.
Did they know that she had cancer and had but a few weeks to live, and despite it all, decided to marry? Or was it a shock? Unexpected? Did they marry in a church, or was it only a civil ceremony? Is there a photo? All these questions linger in my mind. But I'm yet to find an answer. I have scoured every crevice of the internet I can think of, I've attempted to contact the local Dutch Reformed church (Nicolaaskerk) in Hemelum to try and find out if they hold any baptism, marriage or burial records for either my Grandad or Trijntje, but have sadly received no replies. And I've sent messages to people all over the world who have her in their tree. The answer is always the same: she is a distant relative we know nothing about —just another name and date on a chart.
But Trijntje was more than that. She was a daughter to her loving parents, a sister to her many, many siblings. She was a farmhand and maid—a hardworking young woman who had survived a brutal war and occupation. And most of all, she was my grandad's wife - a woman remarkable enough for him to marry.
Was Grandad trying to escape the grief after her death? Was that why he left the Netherlands at 35 years old to seek a new life in a foreign land?
I can only guess at the answers to all these lingering questions and let my imagination soar. I only met my Great-Grandad once when I was 4 years old, and we went to the UK for a visit. But I've heard many stories about him over the years. From all accounts, he was a wonderful, kind, generous, loving man. The kind of man I can imagine marrying a girl he loves, simply because he loves her, despite a diagnosis looming overhead.
If you are related to Trijntje Muizelaar and have any answers to these questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. I would love more than anything to find a photo of her when she was older. To see what she looked like when she knew Grandad.
You can contact me here via the contact form, on Substack or on my Facebook page Knext Gen Genealogy
Disclaimer:This article is based entirely on publicly available historical records, including archival documents, civil registrations, and other genealogical sources. It is intended for the purpose of documenting and exploring family history using verifiable and accessible information.
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