Picture taken on the Meuse River, near Tegelen

The Limburg Province of the Netherlands
Ancestral Villages on the Meuse River
Stephan Timmermans' Ancestry
Leonora Karis' Ancestry
Descendants of Stephan Timmermans and Leonora Karis

Stephanus Timmermans was born in Baarlo, Limburg Province, Netherlands in 1844, to Joannes Mathijs Timmermans and Johanna Driessen. He was the third of ten children, and the first one born in Baarlo. His two older brothers, and his parents, were born in Tegelen. Two of his younger sisters died young. His two older brothers married and had families. The sister born two years after Stephan also married and had a family. We don�t know what happened to his other five sisters.

Leonora Karis was born in Helden, Limburg Province, Netherlands in 1839, to Theodorus Karis and Johanna Verhaegh. She was the second of nine children � all born in Helden. In fact, Leonora�s ancestors had been in Helden for hundreds of years. One of her sisters died young. The other five sisters and two brothers all married and had families. One sister, Sibilla, immigrated to De Pere, Wisconsin at least a year before Leonora.

Stephan and Leonora married in Maasbree in 1864, and lived in Helden for a few years, where Wilhelmina (1864), Theodore (1866) and Johanna (1869) were born. They moved to Meijel, where Johanna Catharina (1874), Johanna Maria (1877) Dorothea (1880, Matheus (1883) and probably Rachel (1884) were born. In 1885, their oldest daughter, Wilhelmina, had an illegitimate son named Hendrik.

In 1886, Stephan, Leonora, their eight children, and Wilhelmina�s son boarded the S.S. Westernland in Antwerp, Belgium, bound for New York City. They arrived on April 4, 1886, and probably moved to Hay Springs, Sheridan County, Nebraska immediately.

In September, Wilhelmina married Andries Van Den Heuvel in Hay Springs. The Van Den Heuvels stayed in Hay Springs until at least 1902, but Stephan and Leonora moved to the De Pere area in Wisconsin by 1890. Wilhelmina died in Rusk County, Wisconsin in 1920.

Johanna married Jakob Schneiders in Brown County in 1889. They lived in De Pere for a decade, and then settled in Tony, Wisconsin. She died in Dewey, Rusk County, Wisconsin in 1928.

In 1890, Theodore married Jakob�s sister Johanna Antoinette Schneiders in De Pere. They stayed in De Pere for a few years, moved to Nebraska from about 1895 until about 1896, and then settled in Carson, Wisconsin. He died in 1954 while visiting relatives in Gary, Indiana.

On June 28, 1893, Leonora died in Brown County, after a long sickness with cancer. Seven of her children were still alive � either Johanna Catharina, Matheus or Rachel had died between 1886 and 1893 � no further records can be found for any of them.

Leonora�s sister Sibilla (now married with six children to Henry Janssen, in De Pere) died just a few years later, in 1897.

Stephan and Leonora�s daughter Johanna Maria (Mary) moved to Milwaukee, and ran a boarding house. She never married, and died in Milwaukee on February 8, 1944.

Their other daughter Dorothea also moved to Milwaukee, and married a Boucha, from Canada. They had one son, Marvin Boucha, and then divorced before 1910. Dorothea died in Milwaukee in 1957.

Sometime between 1896 and 1900, Stephan married Catharine van Hulst. She had been born in Zeelst, Netherlands in 1845. Catharine�s husband, Cornelius Gerrits, had died in 1896. They had had nine children, four of whom were less than sixteen years of age (the youngest was six). So Stephan, in addition to having seven living children of his own, now had eight stepchildren.

Catharine died on April 6, 1903 of heart failure. Stephan married Theodora Willems on May 10, 1904, in Brown County. Theodora already had one son who was married (John Vanderlinden). Theodora died less than two years later, on February 21, 1906. Stephan then married Mary Albers, on August 29, 1906. Mary�s husband John Keyzers had died in 1905, and Stephan now had four more stepchildren � the youngest, Frances, was nine years old when Stephan married her mother, and she was still living with them in De Pere in 1910.

Stephan and Mary were still living in De Pere in 1920.

Stephan had eight children with his first wife, eight stepchildren with his second wife, and four stepchildren with his last wife � a large extended family.

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