Ebook: The Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven

Excerpt from book: Chapter II The Ancestral van Beethoven Family in Belgium—Removal of the Grandfather to Bonn—His Activities as Singer and Chapelmaster — Birth and Education of Johann van Beethoven—The Parents of the Composer. AT the beginning of the seventeenth century a family named van Beethoven lived in a village of Belgium near Louvain. A member of it removed to and settled in Antwerp about 1650. A son of this Beethoven, named William, a wine dealer, married, September 11, 1680, Catherine Grandjean and had issue, eight children. One of them, baptized September 8, 1683, in the parish of Notre Dame, now received the name Henry Adelard, his sponsors being Henry van Beethoven, acting for Adelard de Re- dincq, Baron de Rocquigny, and Jacqueline Grandjean. This Henry Adelard Beethoven, having arrived at man's estate, took to wife Maria Catherine de Herdt, who bore him twelve children—the third named Louis, the twelfth named Louis Joseph. The latter, baptized December 9, 1728, married, November 3, 1773, Maria Theresa Schuerweghs, and died November 11, 1808, at Ooster- wyck. The second daughter, named like her mother Maria Theresa, married, September 6, 1808, Joseph Michael Jacobs and became the mother of Jacob Jacobs, in the middle of the nineteenth century a professor of painting in Antwerp, who supplied in part the materials for these notices of the Antwerp Beethovens, although the principal credit is due to M. Leon de Burbure of that city.1 The certificate of baptism of Louis van Beethoven, third son of Henry Adelard, is to this effect: Antwerp, December 23, 1712—Baptizatus, Ludovicus. Parents: Henricus van Beethoven and Maria Catherine de Hert. 'In F6tis' "Biographic universelle" (new ed.) several of these namea are misprinted. They are corrected here from Mr. Jacobs' letter to A. ...