Family matters: about the name Van Thyn

    Leo Van Thyn, a native Dutchman who lives in Canada, is our family historian -- genealogy is one of his interests -- and it is through him that we found much of the Van Thyn origin.
    When he first contacted us in the mid-1990s, as I recall through my parents and my sister Elsa, we found another cousin. 
     Not quite sure of the connection, but it is only a few generations back. For sure, Leo and I have much in common, such as:
     -- Born in Amsterdam, to parents who had survived the Holocaust.
     -- His father's name was Abraham; my mother's father's name was Abraham.
     -- Came to North America with our parents and one younger sister in the mid-1950s, he to the Toronto area, us to Shreveport; he was almost 11; I was 8 1/2.
     -- Within a half year of each other in 1976-77, we each married a woman with a child from a previous marriage (their Lisa, our Jason were born in 1974). Then we happily added to our families.
     -- Remarkably, we each have a daughter originally named Rachel Van Thyn. Ours is two years older.
     -- We had long careers in jobs we loved -- Leo in teaching, me in a less-important endeavor (sportswriting).
     -- We are sports fans. Leo roots mostly for Toronto teams (Blue Jays, the long-suffering Maple Leafs, and the  Argonauts of the Canadian Football League). He first was a New York Yankees fan, in the days of Mantle (his favorite all-time player), Maris, Yogi, Whitey, Richardson, Kubek "and the boys," and then 20 years later when the Blue Jays began playing, "I changed allegiance."
     That was a mistake, of course, although he is forgiven a bit when he writes, "I still have a soft spot for the Yankees, which, by the way, is not a popular stance around here." 
     -- We like writing, and are prolific at it. 
     Eventually I am going to turn this blog piece over to Leo, to write about his family's story and about our last name.
     When I asked him for a brief summary of his life for this blog, he answered with a l-o-n-g, eight-paragraph "summary." Like I said prolific.
     He started with this: "I seriously doubt most of your readers care about some guy with the same name as you who lives in that vast country north of the U.S. [and] who cheers for foreign teams."

     Hey, we care. Now, here is where we are a bit different:

Carol and Leo Van Thyn

     -- He is much older (eight months-plus older) and that's easy to see. He might have less hair, but more above his upper lip. 
     -- He and Carol have three children, to our two. They have three grandchildren, to our four (theirs are the same age range as our oldest three). Our family likely won't grow; theirs might.       
     -- Their grandchildren live within 15 minutes, so they see a lot of them. One set of ours is an hour-and-a-half away; the other set is two good days' driving away.
     -- They are much more religious than we are.
     Leo is "actively involved in the ritual aspects of our synagogue" (a half-mile from their house), "one of two coordinators of all things High Holy Days, which takes 5-6 months." 
     Carol has worked at the synagogue as administrative secretary since the early 1990s, so their responsibilities often overlap. Their Rachel, now married, is a rabbi in Brooklyn.
---
     Leo was a school teacher for 30 years in west Toronto (they live in Mississauga, a sizable suburb). He taught all grades, from kindergarten to grade 9, specifically mathematics, English, and history in the older grades. In 1998, he retired as a teacher and then worked at a GM dealership until 2009. 
     He enjoys going with his children to see Toronto's sports teams play occasionally, says that rooting for the Maple Leafs (no Stanley Cup champions since 1967, rarely a contender) qualifies "for psychological evaluation."
     His life these days: "I go to the gym three times a week, do synagogue stuff, a little genealogy, and spend as much time as possible with my grandchildren. The highlight of my week is when they visit for Shabbat on Friday afternoon. The religious holidays often become an excuse to be with them."

---

     Leo, on his family's history:
     "My parents, may they rest in peace, were Abraham van Thijn and Clara Vos. They were married in September 1941 and were almost immediately deported to concentration camps, ending up in Auschwitz. They spent 3 1/2 years in captivity. 
     "After being freed in 1945, they had to begin again. Ninety percent of our family had been murdered. I know all of their names. [His parents] were afraid, as were many others, that the Soviets would gobble up all of Europe and that the same nightmare would begin again. 
     "In the early 1950s they applied to emigrate to the U.S. However, to go to the U.S., you had to be sponsored by someone. My mom's first cousin, living in the Cleveland area, working as an appliance salesman, was deemed to have insufficient income to sponsor two adults and two children.
     "They had friends in Toronto, Canada. Personal sponsorship was not required. The Jewish Immigration and Aid Services supported us and we arrived in Toronto on September 25, 1957. At the time I was almost 11 and my sister Frances (Frouke) was 6. In 1958 my sister Kay was born."
---
     A little more than a week ago, Leo sent this note -- about our name -- to members of the Van Thyn family:
     "On September 25 sister Frances and I marked 60 years living in the Toronto area.  It made me think of lots of things but especially our last name.  As most of you have experienced and are experiencing, the name causes much confusion. 
     "Even in this day of computerized everything there will be times when at an office or store, someone can’t find me in their system.  We might be under V but it may be entered as VAN THYN or VANTHYN.  Sometimes I am under T because they think VAN is another first name of mine rather than part of my last name.  It is amazing how often I receive things addressed to Mr. THYN.
     "My passport is VAN THYN. My driver's license is VANTHN. My health card used to be VAN-THYN and it took a while to get through the bureaucracy to change it. There are other examples.
     "My parents realized this more than 50 years ago and simply changed their last name to Vanthyn. As such sister Kay [and her family] don't have to deal with this. I wanted the name to remain as close to the original as possible and didn't go along with the change. 
     "If we were living in The Netherlands our name would be "van Thijn" rather than what we use in North America. In Dutch VAN is neither a first name nor a last name. In the Dutch white pages, we would be listed under T: eg. Thijn, Leo van. VAN is simply a connector like VON in German, DE in French, DI in Italian, FON in Yiddish, etc. The letter Y is written as "ij" in Dutch.
     "In 1811 our name was created because Napoleon declared that all citizens in the empire should have civic last names. Jewish folk simply had no last names. There were a lot of Abraham Josephs, Jacob Isaacs, Solomon Nathans, etc., walking around and he simply couldn’t keep track of the taxes he demanded."  
       The name can be traced to what is now the Czech Republic. There's more, but we'll leave it here.
       Leo wrapped up that letter with: "Aren't you glad you asked? [On Oct. 4] I turned 71. It's my excuse for a lot of things.
       "Peace and love."
       OK, well, Leo, we didn't ask. But thank you. And, yes, we are familiar with seeing the name in different forms.
---  
       We first met Leo and Carol at a Thanksgiving family gathering in Knoxville in the late 1990s. The connection then included Ron and Sonja Dubois of Knoxville. Sonja is part of the family (her birth name was Clara Van Thyn).
       She was a "hidden Dutch child" -- subject of a blog piece more than five years ago.
       Leo reminded me of our parents' connection.
       "I should point out that my parents knew of your parents," he wrote. "They met your father a number of times when he was a streetcar conductor [in Amsterdam].
      "The name "van Thijn" was not all that uncommon as we come from a very large family, so they didn't assume that our fathers were related. To you and me the name seems quite uncommon.
       "In the early 1970s I started genealogical research and with my mother's help I wrote a letter to your parents about our possible connection. It took quite a while to get answered and your parents wrote that they didn't believe we were related. 
      "It wasn't until the late 1990s that my studies uncovered that all van Thijns were related, as were van Tijns, and van Teijns, and many Fontijns, Fonteijns, and Fonteins.
      "You might remember that when Carol and I visited Sonja and Ron ... we suddenly showed up at your house, and your parents and children were there. I already had been corresponding with Elsa, but she didn't know what I looked like and she told me later that when we arrived at your house her initial thoughts were, 'How dare Sonja invite strangers?' "
      But we are connected, and that's a good thing.
      "So often, when you write about your parents," Leo wrote, "I find myself thinking how alike your parents and mine were.
      "I really enjoyed corresponding with your mother for some years. It was like talking to my mother. Our parents had much in common and said so much of the same things." 
--- 
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-hidden-dutch-child.html