Recently I have started using a feature on FamilySearch called "AI Research Assistant." It makes suggestions about potential branches that can be added to my family tree using records that it has found on the internet. On Sunday evening, AI suggested that a second cousin of my Dutch great-grandmother had a wife that had not been attached to his page on FamilySearch. This second cousin was born in South Africa and was named Jan Abraham Jacobus van Welie. I had never heard of him before but here's how we're related:
I didn't realize my Dutch relatives might live in South Africa but I know a lot of Dutch people emigrated there, particularly in the 19th century. My brother served a mission in South Africa in the 1980's and learned Afrikaans, a derivative language of Dutch. This second cousin was born in 1900 and already had one wife whom he married in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1929, so this was an earlier marriage which referenced a marriage record from 1922:
Jan Abraham married Jobje Elizabeth Barendregt on June 10, 1922. I attached the record and added this wife to Jan Abraham's page.
The next AI suggestion was a death record for a 5 1/2 year-old child whose parents were Jan Abraham and Jobje Elizabeth van Welie. Her name was Clasina Elizabeth van Welie. Jan Abraham had a sister named Clasina and his mother's middle name was Clasina so it must have been a family name. This child was born in 1922 and died in 1928:
I like to look at the cause of death but this cause of death was somewhat disturbing. It said "Bullet wound of head and brain." Why would a child this age die of a bullet wound?!! I kept looking and noticed the note at the top of the page: "Medical death is due to bullet wound of head inflicted by mother, Jobje Elizabeth van Welie. (deceased)" Obviously this mother was in a very dark place when she killed her daughter before she took her own life.
Then I looked at the cemetery record:
The note at the far right says in part, "Shot her 2 children and then killed herself." So it got worse! I discovered they also had a little boy named Nico J. van Welie, aged 4 1/2. I found his death record too. It looked just like his sister's with the same cause of death and the note at the top.
This must have been a devastating event in my cousin's life. Events like this sometimes show up in the news but I never thought I might be related to someone who had this happen to them. I wasn't sure what to think about it, but later, I came to 3 conclusions:
1. The children need the sealing ordinance done for them. I remembered Elder Nelson's story about the two little girls who had died during surgery and how they came to him, wanting to be sealed to their families.
2. Only God can judge or understand this woman's situation. I should give her the opportunity to have temple ordinances done.
3. The only person who can heal this family is Jesus Christ, through the temple ordinances that invoke his Atonement, on the altar reminding us of what he did.
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