Introduction

Are you experiencing the same?

At the time you still were living with your parents they frequently would tell you stories about the(ir) past. Stories about their youth, about the past years of their marriage and often also about your first years. You would have heard these stories many, many times and therefore you would have paid little attention if they were told again and again. But when your two roots (mum and dad) have been "cut trough" you realize after some time that these stories after all are very important in your live and although they have been told many times, you find it hard te recollect them. You start tinking more and more about the past and automatically you come to the question who are youre ancestors and what is your family history and where did they live and come from.

You start with a simple diagram of your direct relatives, but you want to go further backwards and also dig in your family history to get all the names and data. Finally you are busy with research of your complete family tree and than you realize how convenient it would have been if your parents would be still alive, so they could answer your questions on this topic. Fortunately our mother has written down a lot of memories and data when she still was alive and they give a fairly good impression of her live, her experiences and vision of the many years and events in her live. I surely can advise you as a parent to do the same, so that your stories and data will be preserved for posterity.

This website is dedicated to my mother, Maaike de Bruin and father, Lubbertus Frans Rijpstra.

The contents

On this world there are 12 (big) families Rijpstra and on this site you will find the data of the 11th branch of which I'm a part. Until now I have traced down the data of this family until the year 1712. It appears from the archives that we come from Dronrijp, a village west of Leeuwarden (the capital of Friesland), where the Rijpstra's lived (nearby) in this year. Until further findings we can say that we are form origin real Frisians.

Besides an explanation of the surname I also dedicated a chapter to all the forenames that can be found in the family line. Because of the naming of children after their (grand)parents it appears that some of the current forenames go back a long time and have a far history. In the chapter "persons" are all the data of the people we have found till 1712. If someone notices dat certain data is not correct than I would like to receive an e-mail with the correct data.