It is claimed in the Geni record concerning Maria Elison, wife of Jacob van der Schulp and mother of Sara van der Schulp who was the wife of Dirk Coetzee (progenitor of the Coetzee / Coetsee family in South Africa), that she was a daughter of the Rev. Johannes (also John) Elison, husband of Maria Bockenolle, the two of which portraits were painted by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1634 and were eventually bought and are still owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts (see http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/reverend-johannes-elison-33563 ).
The Jan Bakker Home Page ( http://home.kpn.nl/j-bakker/Coetzee/Elison.htm accessed on 2016-04-13) contains the “… family tree made by Philip Coetzee (from Roberts info)” – “Robert” being Robert Carmichael. That tree is as follows (save for some typographic changes):
Johannes [Joannis, John] ELISON (1581-1639) Pastor, Norwich married Maijken / Maria BOCKENOLLE.
Their children were:
1. Johannes [John] ELISON (1606-1677) alias "The Youngest" Merchant in Amsterdam married Josina BACKER – no children
2. Theophilus ELISON (1609-1676) Pastor, Norwich (father's church), married Euria VICTORIJN
...Children:
...2.1 Josijntge ELISON
...2.2 Mary ELISON married Peter PRIME
...2.3 Sarah VICTORIJN (step-daughter)
3. Jacob ELISON - Amsterdam, married Grietje VICTORINUS
4. Francois ELISON – Amsterdam, married Hillegart VICTORINUS (sister of Grietje)
5. Josina ELISON
6. Anna ELISON (b. 2.6.1611?) married Daniel DOVER ( ---- d. 1702)
...Children
...6.1 Mary DOVER m Samuel COLBY (----d.1702), Ludlum [she inherited the Rembrandt paintings]
7. Maria ELISON
In this tree two Maria / Mary Elisons are identified (apart from the wife Maijken / Maria of Rev. Johannes Elison):
i. A daughter of Theophilus, namely Mary Elison x Peter Prime
ii. The 7th child and sister of Johannes (Jnr.) and Theophilus
Philip Coetzee declares / suggests that Theophilus had a daughter Mary Elison who married a Peter Prime from England and a sister to Theophilus and his other siblings named Maria Elison. I believe that the first statement is valid but that the suggestion of a seventh child for Johannes (Snr.) is not to be taken seriously.
I also believe that the Jan Bakker Homepage is the source for Maria Elison being shown on Geni as a child of Rev. Johannes (Snr.) and Maria Bockenolle.
In 2012 I contacted Robert Carmichael, an art collecter/researcher, who gracefully supplied me with substantial relevant information - I do wish to publicly express my appreciation to him for this.
I contest the claim concerning Maria Elison being a daughter of Rev. Johannes Elison and Maria Bockenolle. In what follows I substantiate and confirm much of what is given in the Jan Bakker Homepage family record of the Elisons just given, based mainly on the sources supplied to me by Robert Carmichael, particularly because such substantiation is not given by the Jan Bakker Homepage. I dispute this particular claim.
A copy of the first page of a document dated 1956-07-03 which was prepared as a note for a meeting of a committee which was to decide on acquisition of those particular Rembrandt portraits by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at that time, mentions that these portraits were likely commissioned by the eldest son Johannes of the Rev. Johannes and his wife, this son also having been a merchant in Amsterdam. It also states that “Upon the death of the younger Elison who was childless, the portraits were inherited by a son-in-law of the elder Elison who also resided in England”, this implying that it was inherited by the husband of a daughter of Rev. Johannes, thus of a sister of Johannes (Jnr.).
An article by HF Wijnman on these portraits titled “Een Drietal Portretten van Rembrandt (Johannes Elison, Maria Bockenolle en Catrina Hoogsaet)” and that was published in the “Een en Dertigste Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum”, vol. 31, 1934, provides some particulars from the 4 June 1634 testament of Johannes Elison (Jnr.). In this testament, while Johannes Elison (Snr.) was away from his congregation in Norwich, where he was ordained as minister of religion at the (Dutch) Reformed church in that church ca. 1604, having completed his theological studies at the University of Leyden, and apparently ill, possibly due to the plague that revisited some English cities at times in the period prior to 1600 and for quite some thereafter, he listed the following as his children:
1. John (Johannes)
2. Theophilus
3. Jacob(us)
4. Francis (Francois)
5. Ann (Anna)
6. Joane / Josina
Most of these children married. In the following I provide the names of their spouses while also giving guesstimates of the dates of birth of each child:
1. John (Johannes) * ca. 1606-1677 x 1628-04-25 Josijna Dirck Backers * ca. 1606
2. Theophilus * ca. 1608 x Euria Victorijn
3. Jacob(us): * ca. 1610 x Amsterdam 21 Feb 1645 Hillgontjen / Hillegant Fictorinus / Victorinus
4. Francis (Francois) * ca. 1612 x Grietje Victorinus
5. Ann (Anna) * ca. 1614 x Daniel Dover
6. Joane / Josina (Johanna?) * ca. 1616
The date of birth of John must have been very close to 1606, since on the date of his marriage to Josijna Backers in Amsterdam he was 22 years old. No other children of Johannes (John) (snr.) are mentioned and it is unlikely that he and his wife at their age and in his frail condition would have had any other children after compilation of this testament. (He was born in England, apparently in 1581 and thus already in his fifties.) The date of birth of Theophilus is given elsewhere as 1609.
Johannes Elison (Jnr.) compiled four testaments. In an article by a Wijnman published in Amstelodamum vol. 31, 1934, mention is made of the following in his 1646 testament: his mother, his two sisters Anneke and Josina, as well as the daughter Josijntge of his brother Theophilus. But mention is also made of a Mariken Elison, the particular sentence, according to an English translation reading “… to Josijntge Elison, daughter of Do. Theophilus Elison (the successor of the old Johannes Elison as preacher in Norwich) 1000 Flemish pounds each and to Mariken Elison 150 carolus guilders”, while the original Dutch is as follows: “… aan Josijntge Elison dochter van Do. Theophilus Elison (de opvolger van den ouden Joannes Elison als predikant te Norwich) 1000 ponden vlaems eens en aan Mariken Elison 150 car. gulden.” (The “each” in the English version should have been “once”.) It is not clear from this sentence whether Mariken Elison was also a daughter of Theophilus or merely some unidentified member of the Elison family.
Nowhere in this 1646 testament of Johannes Elison (Jnr.) nor in that of his father is any other person mentioned who could have been known as Mary or Maria, save for Maria Bockenolle, his mother. He also specified that after the death of his wife “the two portraits of his father and mother” are to “be handed over to his brothers and sisters”.
According to this same Wijnman article, Francois/Francis, the youngest brother amongst the Elison siblings, moved to England with his wife Grietje Victorinus and her brother Pieter Victorinus. Furthermore, on the death of Johannes (Jnr.) the paintings came into possession of one Daniel Dover, husband of his sister Anne/Anna. They had a daughter named Mary who married a certain Colby:
5. Ann (Anna) * ca. 1614 x Daniel Dover
a. Mary Dover x NN Colby
The paintings stayed in the Colby family for some generations. In 1860 Samuel Colby sold the two Rembrandt portraits, these eventually landing in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
In the 17 March 1635 testament of Johannes Elison (Jnr.) it is specified as what is to happen to his assets on the occasion of his death, mentioning conditions under which particular sums of money should be given to his parents, to his brothers and sisters (or, if they be deceased, to their children), to his wife, and to “the Dutch poor in Norwich.” Two more testaments were made on 18 October 1652 and 3 January 1653 but they embody relatively minor adaptations to the 1646 testament, given present purposes here.
In the 29 May 1676 testament of Theophilus Elison, who followed in his father's footsteps ca. 1639 in Norwich, Norfolk, having obtained his BA at the University of Cambridge (as mentioned in “Alumni Cantabrigienses” by John Venn) and completed his theological studies at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands, mentions his wife, Euria, to whom he bequeaths his “house and ground” as well as money and her (not his) daughter Sarah Victorijn, Euria having been a widow Victorijn when he married her. However, he also mentions Mary Prime as his daughter and that she was the wife of Peter Prime. This relation is actually confirmed in another Amstelodamum article, namely “Rembrandts portretten van Joannes Elison en zijn vrouw Maria Bockenolle naar Amerika verkocht” (Amstelodamum 44e Jaargang Mei 1957, p.71), published very soon after the acquisition of the portraits by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In this article Peter Prime is identified as Pieter Priem, a merchant from Norwich, England and she as Maria Elison, widow of Pieter Priem. Furthermore, there is little reason to assume that this Mary Prime / Maria Elison is not the Mariken Elison mentioned in the 1646 testament of Johannes Elison (Jnr.), thereby confirming with high probability that this Mariken was in fact a daughter of Theophilus Elison. The names of some others who were not family are also mentioned in this testament, such as that of Daniel Shank, who apparently was in occupation of the house being bequeathed to Euria, as well as that of Francis Darkett to whose children he bequeathed a sum of money. His daughter Josijntge is however not mentioned – perhaps she had died.
The Theophilus Elison family would thus appear to have been constituted as follows:
2. Theophilus * ca. 1608 x Euria Victorijn
a. Sarah Victorijn (Euria’s daughter))
b. Josijntge / Josina
c. Mary / Maria / Mariken x Peter Prime / Pieter Priem
A possibility that comes to mind is that Maria Elison (x Jacob van der Schulp) could have married twice and that she thereby became the wife of Peter Prime. Given her probable age she could indeed have been married to Jacob van der Schulp as her first husband and having been widowed, married Peter Prime. Another possibility is that Maria Elison and Jacob van der Schulp could have become divorced while she then subsequently married Peter Prime. However, no substantial evidence has as yet been uncovered to substantiate these possibilities.
I have not been able to find any evidence of any other Maria Elison in the Netherlands, especially not in Amsterdam, who could have been born into that family at the right time, namely ca. 1630 plus or minus, say, eight to ten years. However, there was one exception: a search by me on FamilyLink for "Maria Elison" and "between 1620 and 1640" resulted in some thirty hits, but all of them only for Maria Elison who was the wife of Jacob van der Schulp, with apparently guesstimated dates of birth of either 1624 or 1638.
I wish to suggest to caretakers of Geni records, particularly of those about Maria / Mary Elison, that Maria / Mary Elison as a child of Rev. Johannes Elison and Maria Bockenolle be removed from Geni, and that Maria / Mary / Mariken Elison x Peter Prime as daughter of Rev. Johannes Theophilus Elison and granddaughter of Rev. Johannes Elison be kept on Geni.
Perhaps it may presently be somewhat too early to link or identify Maria Elison x Peter Prime with Maria Elison x Jacob van der Schulp. I intend to search the marriage records of churches and civil authorities in Amsterdam to confirm the Elison x Prime marriage, hoping to find such together with a note that Maria / Mary / Mariken Elison (x Peter Prime) was widowed by or was a divorcee of Jacob van der Schulp. (It is likely that they could have married in Norwich, but unfortunately the records of the early Dutch Reformed Church in Norwich have disappeared.)
On the other hand, given that there are many records on Geni – and on other genealogical websites – that are clouded with certain uncertainties, simply because Geni, as is the case with others, seemingly does not insist on the most excellent substantiation of information in new records, the link between Maria Elison x Prime and Maria Elison x van der Schulp can well be made and be publicly shown – also so that others may start questioning it and join in the quest for affirming or denying it.
To this I merely wish to add to the above that Sara van der Schulp could possibly have received her first name from her mother’s side, based on the consideration that she might have been named after Sarah Victorijn as half-sister of her mother Maria Elison.
In conclusion, so it appears, Maria Elison x Jacob van der Schulp was possibly a granddaughter rather than a daughter of Rev. Johannes Elison x Maria Bockenole. The probability of its validity is reasonably high.
Apart from the width and depth of my search for such a link and without any alternative possibilities having been found, I want to suggest that the information presented here provides sufficient motivation to provisionally make this link. I undertake to inform Geni if any different conclusion turns up in my research and to also inform Geni if any further confirmation concerning this link comes to the fore.
