New Year’s Eve, 1880. My second great-grandfather Cornelis Flooren visited the house of his elderly parents. Some neighbors were there too. They were drinking away the old year and things started to get rowdy. One of the neighbors started calling girls names, and then insulted Cornelis’ mother.
Big mistake.
Cornelis got angry. Sitting next to the fireplace, he grabbed a poker and hit the neighbor over the head with it. Perhaps Cornelis hit a bit too hard, or perhaps the neighbor was a little bit too drunk. Either way, the next day, the neighbor noticed a big bump on his head, but could not remember what happened. Somebody else must have reported the incident, because Cornelis was brought before a judge.
Judges sent men to prison for minor offenses. Cornelis must have been worried what would happen to him.
Cornelis got lucky. The judge felt there were extenuating circumstances, and let him off with a fine of five guilders plus the cost of the trial.
Pleading before the court. Credits: Jan Luyken, collection Rijksmuseum (public domain)
This story is a great example of the amount of detail we can find in court records. It tells us how people celebrated New Year’s Eve, and how they (mis)treated each other.
Several archives are working on creating indexes, which allow us to find out if our ancestors were involved in any criminal trials. Of course, our ancestors may also appear as victims or witnesses in other people’s case files, but these are usually not included in the index. Witness statements especially paint such a rich picture of our ancestors’ past. Have you found any court records about your ancestors?
About Yvette Hoitink
My GGGG Grandfather was murdered by his nephew in January 1819 in rural Chester County, Pennsylvania. The murderer and his brothers were playing cards while drinking whiskey with their uncle at the uncle’s house. The murderer lost, leading to actions that resulted in the murderer hitting the uncle in the head with a rock. The uncle died a couple days later and was buried. Then was exhumed for an autopsy of sorts. I have to get to the state archives to see if there are any more records than what the county has. It was in many papers in the US because it was 1 of 2 murder trials in Chester County, PA within the week of February 1, 1819. Chester County was very rural at that time. According to the newspapers, the murderer got 10 years hard labour in a Philadelphia prison, but he appears within at 10 years in neighbouring Lancaster County with children born during the time he should have been in jail. Have to see if there are more records….