As a child I knew very little about my Grandfather, Lou, and even less about my Great Grandfather, Jacobus. All I knew was that somewhere there was some Dutch in the family. It was only recently, having talked to Olive and read Harold's memorandum that I realised that his name was Jacobus. Having now also talked to Edward, and looked at Jenny's researches, I now have a much better understanding of how it all began.

Although Harold says no information about Jacobus' family in Holland is known other than a brother worked at the court, I do believe we know more. One of the witnesses on the marriage certificate of 16 May 1869 was one 'F H Simons', probably a brother Franciscus and Jacobus' father is declared as 'Laurence Simons'. Moreover, although Harold says that Margaret Gunkel found no trace of the family in Amsterdam, Edward says that they did find some old relative of somebody --more later

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Jacobus was 39 or 40 when he married Margaret Clements. She was already pregnant as can be seen from the birth certificate of the child. It seems possible therefore that there were other progeny in Holland - but there certainly seems to be no record of them.

Jacobus appears to have been a difficult man to live with and in his later years became so impossible that none of his children, particularly the wives, could stand him in the house. He ended his days in a home of some sort, having been picked off the street by his son Bernard who by chance came across a dishevelled, slippered, tramp in the street who turned out to be his father.