Sort:  

It was built single-handedly by a local for himself and his family in 1840.
If you want a carpenting challenge, try recreating the cogwheels and mechanisms of a wind or water mill!

I can't reply to your most recent reply, because I guess the string is getting too long.
That's incredible that you do genealogy, because my mother and aunts do, too. They have traced our family back several centuries. That's how I know we have German and Dutch roots. My aunts actually take trips to Europe to visit our ancestors' home towns, burial sites, and so on. Heimstra, or maybe Heemstra is our Dutch family name. I think Vogel is the German family name. I would have to verify that with mom. Ridpath is another name in our ancestry. I should have listened to mom all these years when she was telling me all of this information. She has it all accurately recorded, though.

Carpenters were far more skilled back then. Every homesteader had to know architecture, engineering, and many other things.

I think there are drawings for building a lös hoes; these Saxon farm houses all have the same basic structure of oak beams, the rest was improvised.

We have some old barns here in Iowa (United States) built by European immigrants over a century ago, and they are still standing strong. I have German and Dutch ancestry. Maybe that's why I like to build!

On a side note: I am also a genealogical researcher, if your Dutch family hails from the region filled with blue blobs here I could most probably tell you something about your ancestors.

Heimstra, Hiemstra, Heemstra all sound Frisian to me. Do your ancestors come from one of the Dutch provinces of Friesland, Groningen or (the North of) Holland?

Yes, Friesland, and Hiemstra is the proper spelling. I asked Mom last evening. She mentioned some specific towns, as well, but I do not recall their names at present, except one called Blessum.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.21
TRX 0.20
JST 0.035
BTC 91107.18
ETH 3170.38
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.99