Can you help me find a location called Diemermeer in Holland?

Question

Hello, in Herman Henrich Wallenhorst's youngest daughter's death record, it is mentioned that her father died in Diemermeer in Holland on 13 April 1766. When I google for Diemermeer, I found https://www.pinterest.com/pin/420734790159027229/ 

which is a plan of the Watergraafsmeer or Diemermeer, Amsterdam. 

Three  questions:

1. Is Diemermeer a district (?) of Amsterdam?

2. Where would I potentially look for the actual death record for Herman Henrich Wallenhorst (he was protestant; from Bramsche near Osnabrück in Germany). 

3. What categories would I assign to Hermann Henrich Wallenhorst's profile?

Thank you in advance for your help,

Sven

Answer 1

Hi Sven,

Seems you are right about the location:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diemermeerpolder

Polder in the Netherlands
Location on the polder map of W.H. Hoekwater from 1901
Location
Province	North Holland
Founded	1624
Portal     Netherlands

The Diemermeerpolder is a polder southeast of the center of Amsterdam. Until the beginning of the 17th century, this was the location of the Diemermeer or Watergraafsmeer, probably created around 1200 by a breach of the Diemerzeedijk. Originally, two lakes were formed, which were separated by a road. In the middle of the 14th century, this road disappeared and the lake was created. The lake was connected to the Zuiderzee via the Diem and flowed into the Amstel on the west side.

In the period 1627-1629 the lake was diked and drained. Because the polder was located deep (5.50 m NAP), the area was flooded several times. The last time was in 1672, when Amsterdam deliberately flooded the polder to ward off the threat of French troops.

Since the 19th century, the polder (former municipality and city district) has been known as Watergraafsmeer.

Comments

Wonder what Hermann Heinrich was doing in Die Netherlandse to have died at Diemermeer?

I would think if there is anything about his death, it would be in Netherlands records, but could be in his hometown church records, or maybe a newspaper.  Don't know which of those would be available online...

I think for youngest daughter Anna Maria, you meant to have 2 different spellings of her name, currently they are the same...

Note related questions, there is actually a town named Wallenhorst

Good hunting.

---

There are several hits on 'Wallenhorst' in the Amsterdam Archives (Stadsarchief Amsterdam): family name as well as place of birth - none of them related to HH.

I think he was here for business or study, relatively near to Amsterdam, and housed by friends? Diemermeer/Watergraafsmeer was/is a place with a lot of gardens - better to live in than the dirty city.

---

Also, browsing Watergraafsmeer and Diemen films on FamilySearch gives no results, unfortunately.

---

Thank you all for your help! Really appreciate the support!

Answer 2

You will find Diemermeer on the historic map of Watergraafsmeer (now part of Amsterdam), North Holland, the Netherlands.

Answer 3

As a (partial) answer to your second question:

Diemermeer was also (and mostly mainly) known as Watergraafsmeer. In the 18th century, it was a separate municipality. It's archive can be found at the City Archive of Amsterdam.

1766 is far before the civil registration. That means his death would have (normally) been recorded in the burial registers of the church. He might only have been in Diemermeer for business (is anything known about his profession?), so I am not sure if he was recorded in their archives. Even so, you might want to look at which churches there were in Diemermeer (and the surrounding places maybe) of Hermann's religion. Also, if they didn't know his religion, he might have been buried at a different religion's church. Much of these archives, however, are not indexed and it might take a lot of work.

You might actually have more luck in the archive of the place he was living at at the time in Germany. The city might have gotten a notice of his death. His church might have gotten some form of notice that they recorded somewhere. He'll disappear from the tax registers. If he had a will, his property might have been divided.

If the only thing you have is his name and the date and place from his daughter's death record, you might want to look for more records of or about him in the place you know he was living before diving into a large pile of 'maybe' records in the Netherlands. That might point the way a bit more (or might prove the death record wrong - where did the information come from?)

I hope this helps a bit.