The main reason for writing this story about the family, is that I strongly believe that we all are the product of the genes of our combined ancestors. Complete with all their good and bad habits…
So therefore we should try to find out as much as we can about who we are and where we came from. And……most important of all, leave this information to our descendants, hoping all the time that they will continue to keep the information up-to-date and the story alive.

It was 1947 and with in the army I was stationed in Venlo where I met Michél Schrijver, who told me he was a distant cousin of mine and in search of his ancestors, his reason was the early deaths of both his father and grand-father who died in their forties and late thirties. He supplied me with the info he got so far and that is where I got stung by the “genealogy-bug” which stayed with me all my life.

It took me “off- and on” fifty years to assemble all the information and data to complete the History of the Schrijver family. And the last three years trying to make a story out of it.!
And the strange part is that the story is not even finished and never really will….. (at least I hope so.!) Because life keeps going on and new generations will continue where we leave off.

Researching one’s family tree is basically starting with the eldest forefather one can find and the branches develop when you list his various sons and their sons till you come to your own father, interesting enough but very limited in scope…! After all it took two people to “father” us and these two people have each two parents and continuing along this line in a matte of a mere 10 generations we may (with a bit of luck) find 512 great-great-great grand-parents and only ONE of them will be named “Schrijver” and it is those 511 other men and women who are all equally close related to us as this one Mr. Johannes, Henricus Schreve who was born ca. 1686.

Researching ones ancestors this way is called your “Pedigree” rather than “Family tree”. And that is what I have tried to accomplish in this story.

Footnoot ¹
In the attached graphics you will find both family trees and pedigree charts and also as much other information about these families as was possible to acquire. That is also why it is so important that we find “genealogists” in every branch of the family to complete the story. Basically there are two main branches: the Venlo- and the Rotterdam branch.
Michel Schrijver or one of his ancestors will have to write their side of the story and so will some of the members of the various Rotterdam branches as Anthonius Schrijver’s children or grand children and those of Hermanus, his younger brother’s, for which I have done some of the work but now depend on the children of Frans, Marie (van Steenderen), George, Herman Jr., and Théo, and of course one of my own 3 children to complete the job.

For that reason I suggest we keep this a “loose-leave-booklet” so that we can add the parts where and when they are needed for each respective family and thus keep the story most interesting and very much alive for everyone.

Edmonton, March 28th (superschift, 1999 H.H.J. (Hans) Schrijver