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Here you can see the old house at is was in (approximately) 1908 and compare it directly below with a picture of the same house taken in February 2007. This picture was obtained thanks to a distant relative who went looking for the house in Oenkerk (Oentsjerk) after seeing the old photo.

When was the first picture taken? Well, we can see 4 children in the picture, and we know that the children in this family were

• Hinke born 1894
• Aaltje born 1896
• Epeus born 1898 but died in 1902 aged 4 years
• Wiebe born 1902
• Epeus born 1905
• Aafke born 1909

The best guess is that this picture shows Hinke, Aaltje, Wiebe and the second Epeus in about 1908 ( i.e. when the second Epeus was 3 or 4 years old, but before Aafke was born - or we might have expected to see her in the picture)

But it is definitely the same house. It has been updated slightly - the two central chimneys have been replaced by a single stack at the side of the living room, and the kitchen window has been enlarged. Upstairs the front window has been shortened slightly but the loss in light has been compensated by replacing the old small skylight with a new dormer with three windows on the side of the house. Then an extension with a garage has been added behind the main house. One other small deatail can be seen in the peak of the roof at the front of the house, where a decorative arch of bricks can be seen over the new shorter window. In the original house this was apparently covered by a downward extension of the post at the roof peak and an associated covering overhang.

A marvellous example of a classic Frisian house, and specifically of a type known as a "dienstwooning" (government-supplied and job-related housing for a civil servant) and designed and built under the supervision of the "Rijksbouwmeester" (State Buildings Overseer). It was learned from the current resident that the house was inhabited still within living memory by the local policeman (a certain Feenstra by name) which is further evidence that this is indeed the house where my grandparents lived and where my father was born.