- Web Site for Janssen and Jansen/ Phelan Families
From http://www.karljanssen.com/wc_dutchheritage.htm
From Oosterhout to Our House
The earliest Janssens that I have found on our family tree are Jacob Janssen and Petronella Tomassen. I don't know much about them other than their names. They were probably born in the Netherlands around the 1770s, and got married shortly before 1800.
They had a son, Jacob Janssen, my great-great-great-grandfather, born 5 Jul 1800 in Oosterhout. He married Anna Christina Maassen in 1829. She was the daughter of Evert Maassen and Grada Jansen. I have conflicting reports of where Anna Christina was born. Some sources say Oosterhout, Netherlands, and some sources say Frasselt, Germany. While those towns are in two different countries, they are less than 15 miles away from each other. Even though Anna Christina's parents were Dutch, they may have lived just over the border in Germany. Anyway, they must have ventured back into Holland by 1829, because that's where Anna Christina married Jacob Janssen.
I have read one report that the couple had 14 children, but if that's the case, three of them must have died young, because only 11 made the journey to America. A document, dated 1853, listing the baptismal dates of the couple's children, only lists 11 names: Jacob, Edward, Christina, Petronella, John, Henry, George, William, Mary, Albert, and Gerrit.
The family immigrated to America in 1853 and settled in Kaukauna Township, Outagamie County, WI. They obtained 40 acres near Little Chute. This was a piece of wild land, which needed to be cleared of trees before it would be suitable for farming. Jacob built a log house in the woods, a "little shanty", using logs felled and hewed by his sons. Jacob rented the land for six years before purchasing it. He came to America with nothing, but at the time of his death he had about 100 acres of good farming land. He and his wife both died on the farm, Jacob in 1871 and Anna Christina in 1898. The family homestead was passed down to the youngest son, Gerrit Janssen, who continued to farm the land. The original log home was torn down in 1892, and Gerrit built a "modern" home in its place. Looking at early plat maps, one can see the location of the family land, under Gerrit Janssen's name. The present-day location is in Little Chute, on Highway N, about a mile and a half north of the intersection with highway 41. This land is now a typical residential area, with no visible sign of any farm having been there.
The early census records show that, at the time Jacob and Anna Christina came to America, there were other Jans(s)ens here who were born in Europe and settled in Outagamie and Brown counties. Some of the families from the Netherlands may have been siblings or cousins of Jacob Janssen. I don't have any concrete information about Jacob's siblings in the Netherlands, so I don't know for sure. On the other hand, there were also a few Jans(s)en families who were not Dutch; they came here from Germany, Denmark, and Norway. For that reason, I can't say that we're related to EVERY Jans(s)en in northeastern Wisconsin. Based on the prolific baby counts exhibited in the early census records, however, it does seem like the 14 children of the Janssen family started breeding like rabbits the minute that log cabin was finished, and their branches of the family tree cast a pretty wide shadow over the Fox River Valley.
Great-Great-Great-Aunts and Uncles
The oldest son of the family was Jacob Jansen (our great-great-great-uncle; it's hard to keep all the Jacob Janssens straight), born 28 Dec 1830 in Oosterhout. From all the records I've seen, he seems to have chosen the "one s" spelling of the name. He married Johanna Marie Hooyman in Little Chute in 1866. He got his own farm in Buchanan Township, Outagamie County, WI. For a while at least, his younger brothers John and Henry were also farming right down the road from him. John and Johanna had at least 9 children: Christina Marie, Maria Joanna, Gerarda Maria, Anna, Wilhelmina Maria, Petronella Maria, Jacob, Peter, and Aloysius. Christina Marie Jansen married John Henry Bach. Son Jacob (Jake) Jansen married Anna Mary Micke. Maria Joanna Jansen and Wilhelmina Maria Jansen married a pair of Vandenberg brothers. Anna Jansen also married a Vandenberg, though not a brother of the other two. As a result, we're related to a lot of the Vandenbergs in northeast Wisconsin, also spelled VandenBerg and VanDenBerg. Through this branch of the family we are also related to the families Gloudemans and Rooyakkers.
Everard, or Edward, Jansen was born 11 Oct 1832 in Oosterhout. He also seems to have chosen the "one s" spelling. He married Anna Dunn, who was born in Vermont to Irish parents. Edward lived on the family farm until he was 25, then spent about 15 years working for wages. About ten of those years were spent working for Henry Hewett, from whom Edward bought his own tract of land, in Buchanan Township, which he lived on for over forty years. He was a general farmer, and marketed dairy products, hogs, cattle, and some grain and hay. He and Anna had five children: Edward, Catherine Mathilda, Emma Cecilia, William, and John E. Jansen. Edward married Petronella (Nellie) Verstegen. She was the daughter of Arnold Verstegen. Arnold Verstegen was a real character and an early settler of the area. He shows up often in history books on the region, in part because he wrote a series of letters back to Holland which detailed what life was like in the early days of settlement in northeast Wisconsin. Although he is not directly related to us, five of his 24 children married into our family. Catherine Mathilda Jansen married Thomas Clune, son of Irish settlers. Emma Cecilia Jansen married John Doyle, probably also the son of Irish immigrants. William Jansen had a wife named Anna, and together they had nine children. John E. Jansen had a wife named Minnie. They had at least one daughter, who is still living today.
Christina Jansen was born in Mar 1834 in Oosterhout. She married Stephan Sanders, who was also born in the Netherlands. They had four children: Margaret, Johanna, Jacob, and John Peter Jansen . Margaret married Peter Evers. Johanna married Nicholas Schaefer. John Peter Jansen married Hendrika Geenen. I'll be telling you a lot more about the Geenens later in this story.
Petronella Jansen, called Nellie or Nella, was born 27 Dec 1835 in Oosterhout. She married Theodore Lamers. They had 20 children. I'm not even going to name them off for you, but suffice it to say that through this branch of the family we are probably related to most all of the Lamers in Brown and Outagamie Counties. I don't know who owns the school bus company with the Lamers name on the side, but we're probably related to them too. Dorus and Nellie's daughters married into the families Van Gompel, Jung, Van Dommelen, Ebben, Vanden Heuvel, Croell, Van Dinter, and Nelessen, so we have plenty of cousins in those families as well.
John Jansen ("one s"), born May 1837 in Oosterhout, married Marie Margaretha St. Louis. She was the daughter of Ephraim St. Louis and Marie DesAnges Manseau. Ephraim St. Louis is another one of those larger than life characters who is related to us only through his daughter's marriage. His family originally settled in Quebec in the late 1600s. He worked as a shoemaker in Quebec, then as a trader with the Indians. He came to Green Bay, WI in 1836, then moved his family up the Fox River by canoe in a harrowing four-day journey, eventually settling in what became Kaukauna, where he became a farmer. He is often referred to as the "first settler" of that city. His daughter married our great-great-great-uncle John, and they had about 15 children. Some of the cousins from this branch of the family bear the surnames Goodwill, Kortz, Wheelan, and Laing. Two of the sons, Isadore Jansen and Moses Jansen (I just love to say that name), moved up north to Oneida and Langlade Counties, living in Rhinelander, and Pelican Lake, WI, then both ending up in Antigo, WI.
Henry Jansen was born in Oosterhout 3 Oct 1840. Henry worked on the family farm until he turned 18, then worked for wages until about the age of 27. He then bought a plot of wooded land in Buchanan Township, Outagamie County, WI, which he converted into cultivated farmland. His first wife Petronella (Nellie) Willems died 18 months after marriage. They had one child who died soon after she did. With his second wife, Mary Ruvenrink, he had three children: Maria Wilhelmina, Jacob, and Henry. Jacob Jansen died in childhood. Maria Wilhelmina Jansen, aka Mary, married George Kamps and had 11 children. Through the Kamps we are related to the families Vanden Boom, Hietpas, De Valk, and Zeegers. Henry J. Jansen married Harriet Vanden Heuvel and had 11 children. Through this branch we are related to some members of the families Vanden Boom, Wydeven, Geurden, Knaack, and Behling.
George Jansen, born Nov 1842 in Oosterhout, married Sophia Schmidt. He was also a farmer in Buchanan Township, Outagamie County. George and Sophia had 10 children. Daughter Christina M. Jansen married Dr. Joseph H. Doyle. John G. Jansen married Esther Garvey. Anna Jansen married Christian Vander Velden. Edward Albert Jansen married Elsie Anna Luebke. I know little about the other children in this family.
Mary Jansen, aka Maria, born 9 Feb 1847 in Oosterhout, married John Weyenberg, also a native of the Netherlands. John worked as a chef in one of the leading hotels in Menominee, MI for several years, before purchasing a farm near Little Chute, WI. Through John and Mary we are related to a whole lot of Weyenbergs, mostly in Outagamie County. They had five children. Daughter Christina (Steena) Weyenberg married Nicholas Hietpas. Through this branch we are related to many of the Hietpases in the area. We are not related to Father Hietpas who used to be the pastor at St. Mary's Church in De Pere, WI, but we are related to some of his cousins.
Albert Jansen was born 8 Nov 1848 in Oosterhout. He was also a farmer in Buchanan Township. He married Henrica (Harriet) VandeHey. They had 13 children. One daughter, Minna Jansen, was listed on the 1920 census record as "feeble-minded". Through some of Albert and Harriet's other children, we are related to the families Hermsen, Sanders, and Van Dyke.
The youngest son of Jacob Janssen and Anna Christina Maassen was Gerrit Janssen, born 4 Dec 1850 in Oosterhout. At last, a "two s" Janssen! As I mentioned earlier, he took over the family farm after the death of his parents. He married Annie (or Hannah) Hermsen. They had 12 children, through whom we have many "two s" Janssen cousins. Through this branch of the family we are also related to more Hietpas cousins, plus the families Verkuilen, Van Hoof, Ebben, and DeGroot.
There is one more child of Jacob Janssen and Anna Christina Maassen that I skipped over. My great-great-grandfather William Janssen was born 8 Oct 1844 in Oosterhout. He was the eighth of the eleven children. William also chose the "two s" spelling of the name. William Janssen married Wilhelmina Geenen. Let's step away from the Janssens for a moment and take a look at the Geenen clan.
Geenens Galore
Wilhelmina (Minnie) Geenen, was the daughter of Henry Geenen and Johanna Loef. The Geenens can be traced back to my great (x 5) grandfather Reiner Geenen, who married Willemina Busch. Like the Janssens, the Geenens also came from the Netherlands, and also from the province of Gelderland. I do not know the origin of the name Geenen. In Holland it was sometimes spelled van Geenen. Reiner and Willemina Geenen had a son, John Geenen, my great (x 4) grandfather, born 31 Mar 1786 in Zevenaar, Gelderland. John Geenen married Joanna Sanders, who was born in Oosterhout. John and Joanna died in the Netherlands. They had at least six children: Henrietta, Evert (Edward), Henry, John, Reinrus, and Mary.
I know nothing about Reinrus or Mary Geenen, but the other four Geenen children all made it to America, immigrating about 1856. While the Janssens homesteaded in Little Chute, the Geenens settled in Freedom, WI, also in Outagamie County. For every Jansen in the Little Chute phonebook, there must be an equal and opposite Geenen in the Freedom directory, and they're all related to us.
Evert, or Edward, Geenen, married Johanna Berendson. They had four children. Both their daughters married a pair of Murphy brothers. They Murphys are a large family in Freedom that includes many cousins of ours.
Henrietta Geenen married Evert Cornelius Sanders. Evert was a farmer and a politician who held a number of offices in local government, including land assessor, town clerk, clerk of the school board, county commissioner, and justice of the peace. Henrietta was incapable of having children, so we have no Sanders cousins from this line.
Though Henrietta was not a mother, she took an active interest in the upbringing of her brother John's children. John Geenen married Cornelia Theodora Willemson. Following their marriage, the two moved to a farm in Buchanan Township, Outagamie County. They had six children: Henrietta, Jeanetta, William, Everdina, Minnie, and Anna. Jeanetta (Nettie) Geenen died young, but the other five grew up to become prominent citizens of Outagamie County. Henrietta Geenen married farmer William Brill, and they had eight children, from whom we must have some Brill cousins. The Brill family eventually moved to Appleton, WI. William Geenen was an extremely successful business man and farmer. He was secretary of the Farmers' Home Mutual Insurance Company for more than 25 years, and vice-president and stockholder of the Little Chute State Bank. He also worked as a florist, and founded the Seamless Steel Tubing Company. He married Susannah Schumacher, and they had 10 children.
The remaining three daughters of John Geenen and Cornelia Theodora Willemson are definitely worth mentioning. Minnie, Anna, and Dina Geenen (short for Everdina) were the founders of D., M., and A. Geenen Dry Goods Company. A 1911 source described the business as "one of the most successful businesses operated and owned by women in the United States." The company was established in 1896 by the sisters and two gentleman buiness partners, whom they soon bought out. The three sisters were determined to start a business in which they could all work together. Opening a department store seemed to them the best way they could accomplish that goal. Dina, the oldest sister (about 30 when they started the business), had experience in bookkeeping. Minnie (28) was a dressmaker. Anna, the youngest (26), had worked as a clerk in the Arnold Peerenboom Department Store. They opened their store in a one-room shop on College Ave. in Appleton. At first they sold "a little bit of everything". Fabrics were a big seller because ready-made clothes hadn't caught on yet. The store was so successful that it soon expanded into the surrounding buildings. Geenen's was a fixture in Appleton for decades. Eventually the sisters retired or passed away, and their nephew, Paul Geenen, became president and manager of the company. Minnie was the last sister to survive, retiring about 1942 and living until 1960. The company went out of business in 1966.
My great-great-great grandfather Henry Geenen, and his wife Johanna Loef, had at least 13 children: Catherine, Johanna, John, Henriette, Delia, Berdina, Theodore, Henry, Helen, Dora, Edward, Christina, and my great-great-grandmother Wilhelmina Geenen. Through Wilhelmina's siblings we are related to a "Who's Who" of Freedom, WI, including the families Van Dyke, Garvey, McCormick, Dejong, Valentine, and Zimmerman.
Here are a few Geenen cousins worth noting. David G. Geenen (my third cousin, twice removed), served as the City Attorney of Appleton, WI from 1966 to 1988. Ida Geenen (my second cousin, thrice removed) entered the Dominican Order and became Sister Mary De Siena. She taught at grade schools in Madison, Merill, Green Bay, Kaukauna, and Little Chute. Joseph E. Geenen (my second cousin, twice removed) is one of the world's foremost gastroenterologists, and a clinical professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
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1800 - 1871 (70 years)
[1] 
Immigration
