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| The genealogy of the Keasberry family |
| » Introduction |
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What you are about to read is the final result of approximately nine years of research into the past and present of the Keasberry family.
Though the main part of the work has been done, if one becomes addicted to this hobby it is difficult to call a halt: hence the search for information will continue, albeit less intensively.
Honesty requires it to be said that the first impetus was given by Maud Lebert, daughter of Rosa Keasberry. She sent me copies of some of her correspondence with English institutions; some passages of the correspondence are included in the book and also certain appendices refer to it. Consequently, I decided to engage a Research Agent in London to help me further. I have written to diverse English Institutions to obtain confirmation of the supplementary information, but with little result. One of the reasons for this is that all documents of the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, which were held in Exeter, were destroyed in 1942 during an (German) air-raid, though relevant monumental inscription records are still available at Torquay where three Keasberry's are buried.
I was particularly interested in the period prior to 1836, since from then onwards particulars of persons were officially registered. For information dating before 1836, one has to rely on church registers, but they are difficult to locate or no longer exist.
In October 1996 I came into contact with Mrs. J. Pennington, Welwyn (UK), who obtained my address from Bath Council Authorities. She is the four-times granddaughter of Julia Maria Keasberry (1769-1849, see photo ), widow of Nathaniel Peach. She is working on the genealogical tree of her branch. I received from her important additions (copies and colour photos). Because of our mutual interest we worked on this together.
I have obtained quite extensive information about the period from 1814 up to and including 1922 from 'Persons micro-chips' from the Central Office of Genealogy in The Hague. These 'chips' were a valuable supplement, providing name, date and place of registration and the status (birth, marriage, death etc.). These details had to be incorporated in the family trees. This presented problems, especially with registrations of birth as the parents' names were not given. The state Archives, the Royal Library and various municipal archives also provided some additional details.
I received valuable copies of documents from the 'Arsip National Republic Indonesia' (Collected Netherlands Archives, anyway those which still existed in 1949); these referred to the time after the Raffles-occupation of Java (1811-1816). Reference was made therein to William Henry Keasberry, the great grandfather of all Keasberry's born in the Dutch East Indies. His father, John Palmer Keasberry (see Chapter A) was a Lieutenant-Colonel during the British occupation of Java. Unfortunately, I had to wait 7 months or longer for an answer from Arsip to each question and sometimes received irrelevant information which had not been asked for.
In order to find our family addresses in The Netherlands, all of the 20 telephone directories were consulted; the list may not be complete as restricted numbers are of course not listed. Also the married female members of the family cannot be traced in the telephone books as their surnames will have changed. Fortunately, most of the people I approached were willing to help with providing information. In some cases they even sent copies of official documents. However, there were also those who refused to give any information, as they could not see the point of doing so, or for personal reasons. Regrettable, because their descendants could have benefited from it, indeed I found younger members of the family reacting more enthusiastically than the older members.
This book comprises three chapters and their appendices. In the book the genealogical tree pages are at the end of the appendices. Because the family is so large, the genealogical tree had to be set out in sections.
The information in this book is presented in the following chapters:
Apart from the genealogical tree pages (not available on this website yet), the appendices of this book contain many copies of official documents and publications in which the family name is mentioned, death announcements etc. As some of the photocopies are unclear and difficult to read I thought it sensible to add a typed text.
At the same time 2 lists of names are included in the appendices. The first is a list of all male members of the branch, in alphabetical order. The second is a summary of the names which cannot be placed and therefore cannot be included in the whole. All details are not always known of those living abroad, whose addresses I do not have. It is also possible that I have not mentioned some names; that is because either they did not appear anywhere or members of the family did not tell me about them.
This means that, for one reason or another, with regard to some points, the genealogical tree is not entirely complete. If there are members who could make corrections or additions, I should be pleased to receive them. I would like to urgently request everyone who is also concerned for the future - to pass on any corrections or alterations. My special thanks to Mildred Gladys, for the additions and corrections she made in two branches of the tree, and also to Mr. A. van Marle, in Amsterdam, for his additions in the text.
For those who have no Indonesian background, it is perhaps worth noting that names of many places have changed in the course of time, for example:
During my research I came across the description (though not the meaning) of the family coat-of-arms. Following this description, a heraldry painter has made a splendid coloured coat-of-arms. A photo of which can be provided, on order. The coat-of-arms was filed in 1918 by the Heraldic Collection of Muschart (Central Office of Genealogy) in The Hague. Otherwise there was neither a description nor registration of a family coat-of-arms to be found anywhere in the English or Scottish works of reference.
I would like to thank everyone who has made a contribution to compile this family tree, which is of importance to all concerned, and I thank Helen Joan Keasberry (my daughter) and Robert Edward van der Horst (my son in law) for their help on the computer and in the correction work.
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