The American branch of the family

last update May 10, 2016

In the middle of 2004 I started with the search to the descendants of Pieter van der Heij in the United States of America. Thanks to serge engine Google I found an extract of the 1910 United States Federal Census with the names of Peter Vander Hey (estimated birth year 1856) and Peter Vander Hey (1879) living in Passaic. In view of these birth dates they must be Pieter van der Hey and one of his sons. However their family name is written on the American way. 

Passaic is a county of the state New Jersey. Google delivered me two phone numbers in NJ and I called the owners. Wendy Vander Hey was the first to help me to find other family members. 

Roughly 1870 Dutch immigrants with also the name Vanderhey lives in Depere, Brown County, Wisconsin. They came from the south-west part of Holland. Their descendants still live in WI. There is no relation between the two van der Heij families in Holland.

Pieter Jr van der Heij, son of Pieter Pieters van der Heij and Trijntje Jelles Bouma, employee in his dads factory, marriages (with a marriage settlement) in 1878 with IJmkje Sybrens Dijkstra, daughter of Sybren Holkes Dijkstra and Tjitske Baukes Thijmstra.  IJmkje is the only child from the second marriage of her mother. She has 4 half sisters and 2 half brothers with the family name Wiersma.

IJmkje bears in Holland seven children. Two of these died very young. In a newspaper Pieter placed the following notifications:

                                                                                                      Van der Heij family photo (about 1910) taken in New Jersey, of Pieter van der Heij and IJmke Dijkstra  and their children. 

                                                                         Tjitske (Sadie) is the young woman on the left. The youngest child in the center front is Alice (Eelkjen). Trijntje (Trina) is on the right.

                  The young man on the right is Edward. He and Alice were the only ones born in US. He was a milker all his life. The family always sat in the back of church, under the balcony, so he could sleep!

A family tree written by Pieter Vander Hey

At the end of 1879 Pieter and his sister Eelkjen inherit each the large amount of fl. 63.000,-. 

Pieter, IJmkje and their five children emigrate to the USA and arrived April 7, 1893 in New York. There the family is enlarged with three boys and one girls. According to a deed of 1911 Pieter should live in Hadley. He works as a senior farmer. Peter Van Der Hey dies on May 19, 1915 in Clifton, Passaic, New Jersey.

His oldest son with the same name, Peter Van Der Hey, born May 21, 1880, is a cattle driver and lives also in Clifton: Sisco Pl. Some information of him is on the World War I draft Registration Card

Daughter Tjitske (Sadie) Van der Hey, born April 16, 1881 in Sneek, changed her first name in Sadie and marries (1910) Johannes Bos / Joseph Bush, born April 9. 1888 in Middelstum, province Groningen. The picture is taken in Passaic, New Jersey, about 1924 Sadie Bush and her family. Her children were from oldest to youngest: John, Peter, Emma, Nick, Sid, Agnes, Trina. In the picture, they are from left to right: Nick, Agnes (in front, with Sid's hand on her shoulder), Peter, Sadie Bush, Emma (with hair in ringlets), Trina (the baby in the chair), John, Joseph Bush and Sid. Joseph and Sadie are burry in Laurel Grove Memorial Park, Totowa, Passaic County, NJ.

Son Seibe Van der Hey, born May 24, 1892 in Sneek, is a dairy farmer. His wife Elizabeth Tanis was also born in the Netherlands: October 10, 1895 in Ouddorp, province Zuid Holland. Their son Peter John died in 2002 in Hawthorne, NJ.

Son Edwin Van der Hey, born in 1897, marries Hubrechta Sophia Newhouse (1904) in 1932 in Passaic, New Jersey. Bertha her parents are born in the province Zeeland in the Netherlands. She is named with her first name to her grandfather Hubregt Nieuwenhuize and with her second name to her grandmother Sophia Cornelia Meijaar (mothers side).  

The married couple gets four sons: