Geschiedenis en genealogie van het geslacht Van Son, eertijds geheeten Van Broechoven (“History and Genealogy of the Van Son Family, formerly called Van Broechoven”) was a Dutch family genealogy compiled by H. J. A. van Son — Deel III: De Oudere Linie (Vervolg tot heden) (Volume III: The Older Line, Continuation to the Present) — printed at Dordrecht by the Schefferdrukkerij in 1951. The genealogy traces the older line of the Van Son family from the Tilburg Van Broechovens of the fourteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century, and it is the principal documentary source for the Atjeh-related careers of Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son (veteran of the first and second Atjeh expeditions) and of his son-in-law Otto Louis Brewer (K.N.I.L. artillery officer, Atjeh posting 1904).
Publication
The genealogy was printed at Dordrecht by the Schefferdrukkerij in 1951. The volume is Deel III (Volume III) of the family history, covering the Oudere Linie (Older Line) from its continuity into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The compiler, H. J. A. van Son, was a member of the family whose genealogy he edited. The volume is preserved in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek under the shelfmark BIT TH 0338 0919.
Scope and structure
The genealogy traces the older line of the Van Son family from Rutger Jans van Son — who left Tilburg around the end of the sixteenth century — through sixteen generations to the mid-twentieth century. The family’s successive seats are recorded as Besoyen, ‘s-Grevelduin-Kapelle, Willemstad, Klundt, Dordrecht, Haarlem, Negapatnam, Rotterdam, and Gellicum. The nineteenth-century family divides into four branches — Tak A, Tak B, Tak C, and Tak D — of which Tak B (the “Breda–Amsterdam” branch) contains the Atjeh-related entries.
The Atjeh-related content
The genealogy’s Atjeh-related content is concentrated in Tak B, generation XIa — the entry for Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son (born Amsterdam, 3 February 1845; died [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]], 20 December 1917) and the entries for his children and grandchildren. The principal Atjeh-related documentary facts preserved in the genealogy are:
- L. D. M. van Son’s participation in the first and second Atjeh expeditions of 1873 and 1874 with the 9th Battalion Infantry and the expeditionnaire Bataillon Barisan van Madura, and his receipt of the Eereteeken voor belangrijke krijgsbedrijven with clasp and the Atjeh-medaille — explicitly identified as “vervaardigd uit het in Atjeh veroverde geschut” (“manufactured from the artillery captured in Atjeh”).
- The marriage of his daughter Leonie van Son to Otto Louis Brewer at Salatiga on 26 June 1899.
- The death of Leonie van Son at Koeta Radja (Atjeh, Sumatra) on 17 November 1904 — the genealogy’s explicit topographic gloss “Koeta Radja (Atjeh, Sumatra)” is the documentary fix of the family’s Atjeh residence.
- The birth of Yvonne Caroline Brewer — daughter of Otto Louis Brewer and Leonie van Son — at Indrapoera (groot Atjeh) on 1 Augustus 1904.
- The second marriage of Otto Louis Brewer to his sister-in-law Adeline van Son at [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]] on 27 October 1908.
- Otto Louis Brewer’s documented rank — gepens. generaal majoor tit. der Artillerie, Kon. Ned. Indisch Leger — and his decoration as ridder 4e klasse Militaire Willemsorde.
Significance
The Geschiedenis en genealogie van het geslacht Van Son is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history on three counts. First, it is the principal documentary source for the biography of Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son — and therefore for the documented company of the first and second Atjeh expeditions. Second, it is the rare primary source that explicitly identifies the Atjeh-medaille as struck from captured Atjehnese cannon — a documentary fact of the practice of striking campaign medals from captured enemy metal. Third, it is the documentary source for the multi-generational Atjeh connection of the Van Son–Brewer family — the campaigns of the 1870s and the family residence of 1904 — which exemplifies the way the Atjeh war-zone, opened by the military, became in the next generation a site of colonial family life. The genealogy is thus both a family document and a documentary source for the colonial penetration of Atjeh.
See Also
- Adeline van Son
- Atjeh-medaille
- First Aceh Expedition (1873)
- Groot-Atjeh
- Indrapoera
- Koeta Radja
- Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger
- Leonie van Son
- Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son
- Maximilaan Diederik Brewer
- Militaire Willemsorde
- Otto Louis Brewer
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874)
- Van Son genealogy
- Yvonne Caroline Brewer
- 1873
- 1874
- 1899
- 1904
- 1908
- 1917
- 1951
Source
Geschiedenis en genealogie van het geslacht Van Son, eertijds geheeten Van Broechoven, by H. J. A. van Son, Deel III: De Oudere Linie (Vervolg tot heden) (Dordrecht: Schefferdrukkerij, 1951).