I had a bit of an internal struggle with this week’s theme. I do have recorded evidence of minor law-breakers (busted for “illegal barbering” and running a still) on one branch of my tree, but decided against posting those photos since they weren’t mugshots and might be considered a little bit insensitive to living family members. I personally think history is history and it’s no big deal, but best not to make waves, right? Instead, I turn back to my husband’s Dutch family for a great ID photo. Please pardon the quality – I shot these with my cellphone camera and didn’t get the chance to scan the actual document!
Here we have the passport for Doede “Douglas” Jaarsma and Hilje “Hilda” Dijkema for when they came to the USA in 1951 with their three children, Douwe “Dave,” Elizabeth, and Hendrik “Henry.” The blurred out section on the right contains the children’s birth dates, blurred intentionally to protect their privacy. While not quite sepia photos, they do fit nicely into the theme as ID photos! What’s so neat about the passport is that even though it’s Dutch, it includes French and English in the official, pre-printed sections, but the written-in data is only in Dutch. Just a couple things to help translate on the left photo, in the “Special Marks” section for Hilda is “litteken aan de hals,” which translates to “scar on the neck,” per google translate. Hilda’s hair color is listed as “gray blonde” even though the family says she was pretty much all grey even as early as her mid 20’s. Overall, I think the passport is really neat, and I’m so glad the family saved it for so long. It’s a great piece of history to have, documenting the move from the Netherlands to the USA, and is a fantastic primary source document for birth dates and places.
Hilda was a very pretty woman. If her hair was completely gray when the photo was taken, it must have turned gray at a fairly young age because she is still very young-looking in the picture.
I wonder what illegal barbering is – just operating without a license, I guess? I know barbers used to do much more than cut hair, including dentistry. So maybe that crime was serious.
I agree — neat passports and so different from today’s.
The newspaper article I read about him said he was operating without a license. It does sound funny though! And this was in relatively recent history (1950s), so it’s a safe bet he was just cutting hair. It was a $50 fine and when he was unable to pay the fine, he was sent to jail for 30 days.
Now that I think about it, there’s a murderer back on the family tree too who was acquitted as it was self defense (kindof), but I have no photos of the man who later earned the nickname “Red Andy” for his deed.
Photos of Criminals, Passport photos and Photos on Driving Licences – all have the same serious look. Actually, now I come to think of it, the photo on my Driving Licence is far from flattering !
A very nice record to have, I agree. I wish I had my parents’ old passports. ‘Gray blonde’ might just have been a kind way of saying gray, or grey, as we spell it here in Aus. Probably what my hair colour is now 🙂
Indeed! I wish all sorts of other documents had been saved from the family history – Italian immigrants, British immigrants, Polish immigrants. So many in the last 150 years in my tree, and it would be SO useful to have that stuff now. I think you’re right about it being the kind way of saying gray – from all accounts from the family, she was nearly 100% gray in her 20s, and prior to that (from existing photos), her hair was brown!
I’ve never seen a passport for a couple before. Somehow the cellphone shot makes it more real -as though we are the ones holding the document. A nice piece of memorabila.
Good point! I guess I didn’t think about it much since the whole family was emigrating to the USA, but I wonder when that policy changed or when individuals needed to have their own passports instead of one for the whole family.
How fortunate that this passport document was not destroyed once it was no longer needed. Hilda has beautiful features and a strong look about her.
What a treasure. I have a few grey friends who call themselves blonde because they just can’t bring themselves
to admit that they’re growing old.