Church Help
The gifts of those baptizing, marriage and funeral days were received by the church-warden (in a so called gift-bos in the church) like Jelle Jans was for 5 years, and registered as income in the church cashbook and donated to the poorest church-people in the Armenhuis, the House of the Poor, owned by the church, like the old cashbooks in the church showed me. The church-warden bought extra peat, clothes, food and more for them, those people of the Armenhuis. Without any social security aid in those days by the government, the church cared for the poor and eldest people, who received financial help, a room and more from the church, to which they belonged. This was one of the main jobs of the church-warden, besides recording the church money that came in and went out, to estimate that church gifts to the poorest church-members.
Obtaining Surnames
Back in the early days of the Netherlands, the children where named with their father's name as a middle or ending name. So, as an example, if John was the father of Joseph, then "Joseph Johns" would have been the full name for the son. This indicated that he was "John's son". This held true for the females as well. If Katherine was the daughter of John, then "Katherine Johns" would be the full name.
Because of these naming rules, we are able to determine that Jan Cornellis' father would have been Cornelis (something). Since we don't know who his father was, we cannot add the second name for this Cornelis. Therefore, our lineage begins with Cornelis.
About 1813, Napoleon ordered the inhabitants of Holland to register Surnames so that he would know "how many soldiers he could get for his European and Russian wars". Many people chose their surnames by their profession, thus, a miller (mulder) would become "Mulder". Our "Pelmulder" (peel miller) surname came into existance after the death of Jelle Jans in 1810.
Widow of Jelle Jans, Anje Pieters, must have given their children the surname Pelmulder to distinquish them from her earlier son Pieter Roelfs Mulder. Pieter was already about 20 years old and known as the "mulder's son". The other children were much younger school children, therefore the use of the other surname, Pelmulder, was no problem. This also served to make a distinction between her children and all the other "mulders" where the "Mulder" surname is quite common.
It is also possible, because of the death of his father and that he had become the new head of the family, Jan Jelles, chose the name Pelmulder because his profession was groats peeling miller. Regardless, it was Jan Jelles that signed the surname certificate claiming the surname of "Pelmulder"!
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