My roots are in Spakenburg, where all Koelewijn family members have their roots. There is a book called something like: ‘from who do you come’ which my older brother holds and it explains that the father of the Koelewijn tree most likely stems from Germany.
However, what I can say with confidence is that my grandfather was born in Spakenburg. He was the son of a fisherman and the daughter of the owner of the ship-yard. My great grandfather died at sea as like most Koelewijns he was making a living from fishing on the Southern Sea and the North Sea which was before the closing of the ‘Afsluitdijk‘ in 1932 which dramatically changed the lives of all fisherman around the Southern Sea and changed it name from Southern Sea to Lake Ijssel.