Colins in May

I have indicated before that I am related to the Colins, a family of minor gentry, at least in the branch I descend from. As most of my information on them comes from a couple of specific, and not necessarily fully reliable sources (see the post : De Ro), I have made a special file for this family, which means they are not included in the overviews I use to feed my blog.

Let me just give the events for the month of May (I "modernised" some of the family names) :

---- on May 3 1567 Anna van Gavere, lady of Lieferinge, died in Thielen. She was the spouse of Philip van Leefdaal, knight, lord of Waalwijk, Thielen, Etten, Meeuwen etc, who lived from ca 1490 to 1568. (I just erased part of my information on him in my file - I shall have to reconstruct it).

Five generations later we find Jacqueline van Leefdaal, lady of Lieferinge. She converted to catholicism (the family was protestant) and married the "very catholic" Pierre Colins, lord of Heetvelde and Thy (Brussels 1661 - Oetingen 1723). Jacqueline died in 1721. If my data are correct Pierre was about 42 when they married. According to my quite "shaky" data, Jacqueline was a lot younger.

They had seven children, including the notorious Philippe Pierre Jacques Colins, who died in 1777 and is buried in the church in Lieferinge (see the post "August 11 1777"). He was the grandfather of Anna Maria (de) Colins (Lieferinge 1780 - 1839), the maternal grandmother of my great-grandfather Josephus Timmermans (Meerbeke 1858 - 1929).

---- Jean Colins, born in 1530, died on May 7 1605. He was lord of ter Meeren, and a loyal captain of the city guard of Enghien (loyal to Philip II of Spain that is). He married Jeanne Huysmans and they had five children at least. Jean is buried in the beguinage of Enghien, and the text of his epitaph has been conserved.

I descend from two of their children :

** Charles Colins, lord of ter Meeren and Leembossche (?) who died in 1637 : the forementioned Philippe Pierre Jacques is the fifth generation after Jean,

** Josse Colins, lord of Bouchaute ; the forementioned Philippe Pierre Jacques is the fourth generation after Jean.

For the Colins : also see the posts : "December 31 1723", "July 11 1839" ...