Hello Dennis,
 

   I hope this finds you well. I did some more research into the Heerema - Ritsema branch and added some more information. It is set in the context of Shelley's original story but some of the detail is interesting. It's not in a PDF form, so I hope you can open it. If I find more information I will forward it to you, there may be stuff recorded somewhere which is not yet available. It is interesting how you can build a story out of just names and dates. Thank you again for your interest, without it we could not make this information available for others who may be interested.

   It is my believe that both the families Heerema and Ritsema came from Friesland and settled very close to each other at Zuidhorn. These families intermarried and, at a given point, the family Heerema did not have male heirs left to carry on the name. It was taken over by the closest surviving male heir of the Ritsema family, which would have been Jacobus Jacobs after his brother Jan Jacobs died. This is speculative, but why would Jacobus Jacobs take on another surname rather than use his own. Yet we could still be right back to the traditional view that it was an inheritance from a rich uncle in Holland.

Thanks again Dennis,

Jack

Download the story here: Jantien Ritsema Revisited