On 7 March 1873, an unusual double family connection was created in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. The Aalten brothers Hendrikus and Derk Jan Leemkuil each married a daughter of Jan Hendrik Wiekamp that day. The two brides were half-sisters.
Two brothers from Aalten
Hendrikus Leemkuil was born in Aalten on 22 July 1844. His younger brother Derk Jan Leemkuil followed on 22 September 1849. Both were sons of Derk Leemkuil and Christina Petronella ten Hietbrink.
Derk Jan left Aalten for the United States in 1869. Hendrikus also ended up in Wisconsin. In Sheboygan County the brothers became part of a large Dutch and Achterhoek immigrant community.
Two half-sisters
Hendrikus married Hanna Geertruid Weekamp, also recorded in American sources as Johanna Wiekamp. She was born in Winterswijk on 16 August 1849, the daughter of Jan Hendrik Weekamp and Johanna Willemina Mengers. The Weekamp family emigrated to Wisconsin in 1854.
After Johanna Willemina Mengers died, Jan Hendrik Wiekamp remarried in Wisconsin, to Elizabeth Hiebink. Their daughter Willemina Wiekamp was born in 1856. She was therefore Hanna Geertruid’s half-sister.
7 March 1873
The Sheboygan County marriage index shows the double wedding particularly clearly. On 7 March 1873, Derk Jan Leemkuil married “W. Wiekamp”; the registration was numbered 1203. Immediately afterwards comes Hendrikus Leemkuil with Johanna Wiekamp, registration number 1204.
These are therefore not duplicate entries, but two separate marriages on the same day: two brothers marrying two half-sisters.
From Wisconsin to Iowa
Both Leemkuil families later moved farther west to Iowa. Hendrikus and Hanna Geertruid settled in O’Brien County, as did Derk Jan and Willemina. A new family branch was thereby created that directly connected Aalten, Winterswijk, Sheboygan County and north-western Iowa.
The double wedding shows that emigration was not simply a series of individual departures. Family and regional networks were rebuilt within Dutch communities in Wisconsin, after which related families moved together, or soon after one another, to new areas of settlement.