Going to Dokkum ... and Hallum and Marrum and Ginnum

One of the things that pushed me toward finding out about the family’s history came from the memory everyone shared about playing “Going to Dokkum” with my Grandpa Terpstra -- and Aunt Laverne remembering that part of the rhyme that included going to Marrum and Hallum and Ginnum as well.  With the invaluable help of Google, I found that all three of those villages and the little city of Dokkum were situated within a few miles of each other in Friesland and I had the strong suspicion that the family was connected to that area of the Netherlands.  When I discovered the online resources of the Tresoar Research Museum, I soon found that the family had indeed originated in that area and going to Dokkum was no doubt a big event for those in the little villages nearby.  This weekend I went to Dokkum and Marrum and Hallum and Ginnum. 

Dokkum is a lovely city, the oldest in the Netherlands and I stayed at the hotel that is the oldest building in that city.  There weren’t many people staying at the hotel so I got a free upgrade to a cozy suite with the 14^th century beams and the 17^th century walls and the 20^th century plumbing. 

There was a lovely courtyard just outside my room where I had my morning coffee and made a few notes for the day.

The central square that had been prohibited to cars when we were last there has been turned into a parking lot but other than that rather unfortunate change, everything else looks pretty much the same.  Perhaps a bit shabbier without as many tourists as before the economic downturn. 

The old windmill and the many canals are still there and the sense of history is still strong.

As for Marrum and Hallum and Ginnum, they all looked pretty much alike.  Typical Frysk villages with a central church, a few old houses, a few new houses, an old windmill, surrounded by hundreds of acres of pasture land, a couple of corn fields, lots of cows and some sheep, some goats and a pasture with 3 or 4 beautiful horses.

As I was travelling between the villages, I kept thinking the area looked familiar.  I finally realized that I could be in the Midwest.  It could be Indiana or Illinois or Iowa, the areas where Dutch immigrants flocked in the late 19^th century.  It’s not hard to imagine that my Frisian great-grandparents would have felt right at home when they got to their new farms in Indiana.