“Communication leads to community, that is,
to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing”
― Rollo May ―
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling ―
From Experiment to Personal Story
A quiet moment to myself — Oyster Bay on the Indian Ocean, South Africa.
I initially started designing and writing my website because I wanted to learn HTML. It became a kind of playground where I could experiment with different coding techniques. As I added more content, however, it gradually evolved into something much more personal — almost a form of self-expression. It became a way of showing the world something of who I am. And, if I am honest, another reason for creating this website was simply to see whether I could do it.
So the first 1-2 years I fooled around a bit, with different designs and layouts. But down the line I realized that I was missing something essential. I wanted to make a real personal Web site, so it had to contain personal content.
Some of you may be thinking “Well, that’s obvious?” but others of you are wondering “What is personal content, what does that mean?” By personal content I mean that the page must exhibit content that tells your readers about your thoughts, ideas, interests, hobbies, family, friends, feelings, or something you feel strongly about. I think that just about covers it.
Sam Keen believes and I quote -“that our lives are shaped and occasionally misshaped by the stories we tell about ourselves. It’s only by becoming intimately acquainted with these narratives as they have been handed down from our families, our cultural backgrounds and our religious beliefs that we can begin to live consciously. Unless we understand our lives as a kind of autobiography in the making, we’re likely to take refuge in other people’s stories, in ready-made ideologies, and in unexamined systems of belief.”-unquote.
And, as the Sufi poet Rumi said, “unfold your own myth“, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi I fully agree with him on that point, so the site really took of when I decided to do just that and to make the main subject of my web site the genealogy of my family, the “Kloosterman Family”.
And from telling my own story, it was only a small step towards asking about the stories of those who came before me. Humans have always been interested in where they came from and in their family history. Genealogy is, after all, one of the oldest ways of connecting ourselves with previous generations.
The Bible is replete with genealogies of biblical personalities. Many cultures passed their genealogies orally through the ages. The nobility of Europe kept detailed genealogies. The current Queen of Denmark claims to be able to trace her linage back to King Gorm who lived around 800 CE. The Chinese out do all other cultures in genealogy. Chinese genealogy records, Jia Pu in Chinese, have been kept since at least 1500 BCE. Lots of people do it. For me, the search has a great deal of significance and importance in addition to being tons of fun. It is something that strengthens the connections of family down through the generations.
I knew that the name Kloosterman originated in Zeeland and as time flies by and I (who doesn’t) grew older, reaching 50, I became more and more interested in the family history. My father was born in Vlissingen in the province of Zeeland, in the south west part of Holland, and his father, my grandfather was born in Heinkenszand, Zeeland.
My father Adriaan Kloosterman, born in 1917, found an old photograph of the 50e wedding anniversary of my great grandparents Jan Kloosterman, born in Heinkenszand in 1859, and his wife Jannetje Slabbekoorn. On the back were the dates of their marriage and their births. That photograph became the starting point of my genealogical journey. Together with my father, I visited the archives in Middelburg and began tracing the Kloosterman family back through the generations. Besides the fascination of discovering how our ancestors lived, there is something else: finding and identifying people who are part of our extended family helps us understand who we are ourselves.
It’s great getting Email of people from around the world who have visited the page. I’ve met some interesting people via my page. People now living overseas, who turned out to be distant relatives and wanting to make contact with the family etc. One of the unexpected pleasures of putting my family history online was receiving messages from people all over the world. Some turned out to be distant relatives, and many people bearing the Kloosterman name contacted me — particularly from the United States. Those contacts added another dimension to my research and strengthened my interest in the branches of the family that had emigrated from Zeeland to America. And I wanted a space on the web to share my interest, my hobbies and to post family photos — to inspire and invoke others into appreciating the written word, the world they live in and the people around them. Well, here I am, a few years later and people tell me I made a great site and I am proud of that because I am completely self-taught.
It was a long road, but I do enjoy the search, and it’s a great excuse to make a bunch of web page. Today I find myself wanting to constantly keep the site’s content fresh — to continuously provide my web site visitors with a nice setting. And the reward is great, all the emails from around the world and of course the reactions of family and friends. So, they have all been interested in seeing it, contributing to it and encouraging me about it. And everything has been so positive so far!
― Marcel Marceau―Cees
