Welcome to Our Tanis Family web pages!

The focus of Our Tanis Family web pages is the genealogy and history of Dirk and Cornelia Tanis of the Netherlands, their children, and their children's children.

At the head of our clan is Dirk Cornelis Tanis, born in 1802 in Ouddorp, on the island of Flakkee in the province of Zuid-Holland. Dirk married Cornelia Nieman in 1825 and they had 13 children, not all born in Zuid-Holland though.

In the spring of 1836, Dirk and Cornelia and their children moved from Oudorp to the new Eijerland polder on the Island of Texel in Noord Holland. Dirk and Cornelia were one of a number of original familes in the new polder. Dirk brought with him the root stocks of madder which he introduced as an important cash crop to the new Eijerland polder. Madder was used then to create a reddish-orange dye.

Three of Dirk and Cornelia Tanis' 13 children were Aart born in 1832, Krintje born 1839, and Jacob born 1849. Aart Tanis married Dirkje Aletta Black in 1855 and one of their children, Martha Tanis emigrated to Chicago in 1882 where she married my g-grandfather Adrianus Vanderkloot.

Krintje married Albert Dros and one of their children was Bertha Dros who married Peter Vanderkloot in 1887 in Texel. Peter had already emigrated to Chicago and he returned to marry her and then bring her to Chicago.

Jacob Tanis married Cornelia Witte and they emigrated to the United States about 1880 and later to Michigan.

The photograph above shows the town of Middelharnis on the Island of Goeree-Overflakkee. Dirk and Cornelis Tanis and their son Aart Tanis were born in a town nearby called Ouddorp on the Island of Flakke.

Through exploring Our Tanis Family web pages you'll understand the origins of our Tanis family. We'll do this through family charts, letters, maps, photos, records and family recollections. And then all these pieces are brought together in The Tanis Story.

Aart and Dirkje Tanis' children and grandchildren married into a number of other families such as the Dros and Vanderkoot familes and Our Tanis Family web pages provides some information about these families also.

Your primary author and webmaster for Our Tanis Family web pages is Dave Jordan, a ggg-grandson of Dirk and Cornelia Tanis and a gg-grandson of Aart and Dirkje Tanis of Ouldorp and Texel. Dave's been researching his Tanis line since 1975.