Ancestral Clues and Lessons: Noentje Lena (Grass) Ufkes

Noentje Lena (Grass) Ufkes was born in 1848 in Backemoor, Ostfriesland, Germany, and died in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1902. She married Johann Ufkes in Hancock County in 1874.  Here’s a few things I learned from researching  Noentje:

  • Handwritten places of birth from family bibles can be woefully incorrect. One purportedly listed her birthplace as “Raikernohs.”
  • You may not have all the pictures of someone even if the family has been extensively researched. There have been three genealogies published of Noentje’s descendants and this picture (discovered in 2016) is not in any of them.
  •  Sometimes people have siblings that they never meet. Noentje’s father married his last wife in Germany after Noentje emigrated to the United States. The mother and children immigrated after Noentje’s father died but did not settle near where Noentje did.

My ancestor table can be viewed on my site. Noentje Lena is my great-great-grandmother.

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4 thoughts on “Ancestral Clues and Lessons: Noentje Lena (Grass) Ufkes

  1. Your third point is one I have in my own tree. My grandmother was born from her father’s second marriage. He was nearly 50 at the time. They were originally from MI which is where he had a first marriage and his first daughter was born 20 years prior to my g-mother, and coincidentally, died the same year my gram was born, and the boys died young as well, so my gram and her two full-brothers, never met their half-siblings. I do have one or two photos of the eldest daughter though in one she is with a young boy whose identity doesn’t match with the discovered dates of births and names – since my gram had never met them, and identified the picture later, she may have been incorrect in a name. And that may add another point, even names on photos may have been added years or decades later and be incorrect.

  2. h j collins says:

    I have family members, women in the Poughkeepsie, NY area, who were of Dutch ancestry. The tje on the end of their first names is common. Just what does this mean?

    • mjnrootdig says:

      If there is any significance other than being an ending usually indicating a female name, I am unaware of it. Many of my female ancestors have first names ending with “ntje”—Trientje, Noentje, Antje, etc.

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