Hello everyone,

I am researching the Beeken family with a distant cousin from Canada. I believe the family originally came to England from the Netherlands and were involved in the Draining of the Fens. I am looking for anyone who has Beeken in their family tree or knows a living Beeken and is interested in rejoining our familes and helping make the connection to England, Canada and America.

Kind Regards,
Gordon

Dear Gordon, 

Beeken is not a unique surname and may be connected to many, not related, families, all over the Ntherlands. In case you have a clear Dutch link (name, location, year) please let us know. That might help to connect to possible living Beekens in the Netherlands. If not, perhaps you can mention details of the the earliest Beeken in the UK that you know of.

Hi Gordon,

Do you refer with the Fens the landscape in the East of England near the North Sea?

According this link the Dutchman Cornelis Vermuyden was responsible for that project. He came from de province of Zeeland and I know that many people came from there to England also. Maybe if you have an other name who is related too your family and also has a Dutch background or ancesters/connection. That can be a second starting point. In the early times of this project the people married not often outside the Dutch communitie.

A couple of years a go there was a documentery on the Dutch televison about that part of England. It was meanly about the influence the Dutch had on language, landscape and building. Look if you can find it on the internet.

For the connecting part I agree with A.Blom that you must try to find the earliest Beeken as possible.

Did you try the local heritage society for the Fens? 

kind regards

Angeline

Hi Angeline,

Yes, we are referring to that area and are aware of Cornelis Vermuyden and the project. It is good to know of the area the Beekens may have come from.

We have access to all the records available from the Local Historical Society but we believe that there are a lot of missing Marriage records which I believe are available at the City library on microfilm so I plan to go there to look at them. We have a a few death records of Beekens that may have come from the Netherland in the 1600’s but the only information is where they are buried and a date. We have baptism records in the 1700’s but no detail on  the parents except for first names such as Wm, Eliz, Edmund and Bridget. So things are very difficult.

I will also look for the documentary. 
 

Thank you.

Hi A. Brom,

Please see my reply to Angeline. I will list the information we have soon. 
 

You say that Beeken is not a unique surname. Does that mean there a lot of Beekens or there may be other variations such as Beek, Van Der Beek or Van Der Beeken ? 

The reason we are looking for a living Beeken is to find out if they have any information on the Beekens in the past. A family tree, family stories e.t.c and also to use DNA to find a link. 

I will try to create a Family tree on the Dutch side to see if we can see any potential links from that side.

Thank you for your help,

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

Re: "Does that mean there a lot of Beekens or there may be other variations [...]] => Both.

- There are a lot of them in the 1600's, and they are also geographically spread all over the Netherlands. Mostly likely not related.
- There are numerous variations of that last name, including but not limited to your suggestions, and including also spelling variations, for instance  with 'ck'.

So several needles in dozens of haystacks. Without knowing which haystack to start with. And that is the optimistic view.

You say: "We have a few death records of Beekens that may have come from the Netherland in the 1600’s but the only information is where they are buried and a date." That sounds like the earliest data that you have available now. I am stretching it, but a small list of those death records (full name, date, place, age?) may give a remote possibility to narrow thngs down. Place will not be a direct indication, but could suggest people living in the same area, hence could suggest possible family relations.

Some more specific background: https://www.bhic.nl/onderzoeken/forum/beeken-family