The Beijen/Beyen
Family Site

by Laurens Beijen		 The Breyell family

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Breyell, southeast of Venlo

The map on the right shows the Dutch city of Venlo and its surroundings around 1650. The orientation of the map is not what we are accustomed to: the west is at the top and the north at the right. The red line shows the rough course of the present state boundary between the Netherlands and Germany.

In the left bottom corner, about 10 kilometers south east of Venlo, the town of "Breyl" is shown. It was usually called Breyell or Breijell. In the past Breyell belonged to the duchy of Jülich. Several other towns in the surrounding area belonged at first to the duchy of Guelders and later to Prussia. Nowadays Breyell is, together with Hinsbeck, Kaldenkirchen, Leuth and Lobberich, a part of the German municipality of Nettetal.

Lambertus Beij

On the left is a picture of the St. Lambertus Church in Breyell from about 1868; on the right a recent picture of the remaining tower.

According to the register of marriages of this church a certain Lambertus Beij married Aldegond Boezkes in 1751. Aldegond died in 1754. In 1755 Lambertus married Gertrud Straten. He died in 1768.
In later years the surname Beij was usually written as Beijen or Beyen.
Lambertus was not the first person with the surname Beij or Beijen who was listed in the Breyell registers, but he was the first one who was certainly an ancestor of the present members of the Breyell family. Therefore he has the number 1.1 at the overview of the members of the Breyell family.

Johannes Mathias Beijen

The other children of Lambertus are not listed on the overview of the members of the Breyell family. It is limited to the Dutch members of the family and their ancestors from Germany.
One of the children of Lambertus from his second marriage, Johannes Mathias (2.1), was born in Breyell in 1765.
Johannes Mathias moved to Hinsbeck, north of Breyell, where he was a farm-hand and a carpenter. He was married to Maria Catharina Mollenix and at a later age, after the passing of Maria Catharina, to Maria Helena Bolten. He died in Hinsbeck in 1834.

Mathias Beijen

A son from the first marriage of Johannes Mathias was called Mathias (3.1). He was born in Hinsbeck in 1806. In that time the German Rhineland was annexed by France; in the French birth certificate that is shown Mathias is called Mathieu.
Mathias lived in Breyell, just as his grandfather did. He was also a farm-hand and was married successively to Anna Christina Lehnen, Maria Adelheid Backes and Anna Matthia Bruijnen. He died in 1884.

A son from the second marriage of Mathias, Johann Heinrich (4.1), was born in 1842 in Breyell. He is discussed on the next page.

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