Welcome to the blog about the Plekker family

Being a great grand daughter of Wilhelmina Sibbelina Plekker (1875 – 1949) and Teunis Spits (1868 – 1943) Zaandam and occasionally recognized by my brown “Plekker eyes” I felt a strong need to browse first Skype and secondly the Internet for Plekkers.

I found a website with a very informative family tree of Greet Plekker-van Sante.
I sent her an e-mail and received one in return that very same day, full of enthusiasm about meeting a descendant of a Plekker. More e-mails followed and only 4 days later, March 3 2007, my mother Wilhelmina Hartog, daughter of Klazina Spits (daughter of Wilhelmina Sibbelina Plekker) and Dirk Hartog, and I met Greet and Luuk. They travelled to Friesland with a bag full of documents.

We had a great day with lots and lots of stories, pictures and data. Greet gave me the copy of the family tree dating back to 1550. We just couldn’t stop talking and Greet was noting all the missing details we could provide via our own small archive.
No doubt Greet knows what to do during her leisure time in the near future!

Greet and Luuk showed us a beautiful picture album of their trip to South Africa where they met many (though not all) other Plekkers. To one, Janos, I talked on Skype and it would be wonderful to talk to others at well.
The Plekkers married into other families like Spits, Offenberg, Beudeker, Hermanides, De Jong, Orlebeke, Radius, De Jong and Rosier. And probably a few more. Many moved to South Africa and the United States. But there are also Plekkers living in Australia. To those we have and haven’t located, feel free to contact Greet or me and please tell your story in this blog.

The Plekkers were millers for many generations. Their “Paltrok” Mill was called “De Pet” , built in 1725 and which stood at the “Westzijderveld” Zaandam behind the NS railway station. It is taken down in the 20th Century (please fill in the date) after it wasn’t in use anymore for 7 years.
The Plekkers bought the mill in 1868 and the last owner was Willem Plekker.
A picture of the magnificent “De Pet” is the first one on this blog. For other pictures of our ancestors, uncles, aunts, cousins, please visit the Album.

The album is going to be extended with many more pictures in the very near future. Feel free to download them and please donate your own Plekker pictures.
Bare in mind that the people in this album either passed away a long time ago gave their permission to publish the pictures. Respect them and don’t use the pictures for commercial purposes.