Gro(o)ters family from Winterswijk

General bits and pieces of information

On the names

The names GROOTERS and GROTERS are failrly common in the Netherlands, Belgium and the North of France. However, it does not necessarily mean a relationship.

In the Netherlands alone, there are several families named GROOTERS that do not have an immediate family connection. It is know that around 1600 the name occurs in Utrecht, and the name is found in the Eastern part in several locations: Around Den Ham, Haaksbergen and Winterswijk.
The name is also found in Belgium, without any conection to any Dutch GROOTERS family, in the area's where the Dutch-related Flemish language is spoken. This area once stretchews well int Northern France - up to what is now known as Normandie. It is also in that region that the name is found.

During time, people moved. That makes the name travels with their holders, and therefore the name GROOTERS is found in different parts of the world.

The name GROTERS can be a name by itself - but as has been found, a different way of writing the name GROOTERS - and vice versa. Depending on the civil servant writing down the names. Sometimes, GROOTERS and GROTERS are interchangeble, some evidence is found in the reserach of this name. The same might be with the names GROTES and GROOTES, but no proof has been found sofar for this error.

On naming

In the Eastern (Saxon) areas of the Netherlands it has been a habit since ages - into the midst of the 20th century anyway - to name people basiaclly after the farm they lived on, especially when for a longer period and when the person was considered less important. That is why Harmen Slotboom, the main tenant of the Grooters farm in Henxel, was primairily know by his real name, but his servant Rutger Tushuizen could be known as "Rutger Grooters"

This changed, at least officially, in Napolean times. Napoleon introduced the Civil Register in all countries where he ruled. It wasn't entirely new, the Western privinces had already a kind of register, but in these parts registration has always been a matter of clergery: you'll find most of the data in church records - and in legal documents. Any search before the time of civil registration is hazy - and the more you get back in time, the more obscure the finds will be.

That's why ancerstry seems to become more and more deduction and guesswork, when you get deeper in the time. For this research, lines could be traces as back as far as about 1650, and there it stops, aince data to race back even further is hard to locate - if it exsits

But even in more recent times, you can run into strange problems. What to think of naming a child "GROTERS" where the father's name is written "GROOTERS" - or otherwise. It happened... And for one occasion, the name of the farm was used for the children of a GROOTERS living on a farm named GOSSINK. That is wgere GOSSINK really is a GROOTERS decsendant!

Hopefully future genealogical reserch will be less duifficult due the the modern electronic handling

On sources and language

Since the base of this name is Dutch (Saxon dialect), it will be no surprise that the Dutch investigations and results thereof are mainly in Dutch. The information I reveived from cousins in the US is obviously in English. I am well aware that This may be confusing, and I should try to do some translations. However, time is scarce and there is so much to do apart from that, so I will do a translation from Dutch into English only when reqested.