Voskamp Familie Unite!!

There were about 100 Voskamps (et al.) at the Voskamp Family Reunion.  Marco Voskamp (grandson of Dad's great uncle) was the man who spearheaded the project.  He wanted to do something different for his 50th birthday party.  I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into...

The party was at De Spaansche Vloot, an old inn that actually existed when Hermann Voskamp first came from Germany in the 1730s, probably looking for better economic opportunities.  He also happened to find a wife.  And the rest, as they say, is history...

Check out this pedigree chart!  and it all started with one
man three hundred years ago.

 We met the grandson and great-grandson of Dad's grandfather's brother.  We met a Voskamp who actually lives in Canada.  And get this:  His sister (also there), her daughter-in-law is a van den Berg!  The daughter of Arie van den Berg, my grandfather's brother, whom we visited yesterday!!  So strange that the two families connected again one generation later!!

The food was delicious, the conversation was invigorating, and there were even some handsome boys around my age at one table.  They aren't my first or second cousins, I can be sure of that, soooo.. free game, right?*

something exciting is going on..

hanging onto every word.  and also trying to translate...

Marloes was taking lots of sneaky pictures, apparently.

searching for familiar faces

Hans and Marco, at the scanning station. 

It was such a fun time.  I got information about Dirk and Alexander Voskamp's (my great-grandfather's brothers) side of the family.  AND we unexpectedly found wedding pictures of Mijs and Lein, my grandmother's sister and husband, in someone else's photo album.  (They have the best love story EVER, btw, despite being first cousins.  Ask me if you want to hear it sometime!)

All in all, it was an evening well spent, a lovely reason to be in the Netherlands for two weeks.  :)

*just kidding!!      ...except that I'm not.