< o V.,aV* \0 -7*. • i ? * vO Vj *^-v e «. o '■' ^^*^ jr>; *u ^v • '-f^^^ •0^ : : "'bV' '^0 ^- • ^^-^K ^9. - o ,0 . ^ • • ' ^ "t^ L.v-->'»o^t^,.-K>T.d^rt^ (^ hh^ Cu.<.X>IL.c^^ ^ Some Jersey Dutch Genealogy An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, March 5, 1906. Bu WILLIAM NELSON Some Jersey Dutch Genealogy An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, March 5, 1906. By WILLIAM NELSON PATERSON HISTORY CLUB Paterson, N. J. 19 12 t/55 /^/^ One Hundred Copies Reprinted from Publications of The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, March, 1910, Vol. IV., pp. 125-140. Kv\C. CParion) l*>^ Some Jersey Dutch Genealogy. It was a little Jersey Dutch girl at I'atcrson whcj, when she went to schc>ol and was asketl by her teacher the nativ- ity of her parents, replied that they were Dutch. "Hig^h Dutch, or Low Dutch?" queried the teacher. The little girl, with a certain mistaken pride, answeretl, "High Dutch, of course." Your true Hollander would think it a waste of time to argue that the Nederlander — the I>(>w- lander — is as good as the High Dutchman — if not a little better, with his centuries of as glorious history as is written in the annals of Time. The original white settlers of the present Bergen and Passaic counties, in New Jersey, were, with scarcely an exception, from Holland, and their de- scendants to this day give a marked tone to the communi- ties in those counties, and have materially affected the public spirit in the adjacent counties of Morris and Essex, while Hudson county still feels the influence of its original Dutch ix)pulation, as in the days when it was generally known as Bergen. It may interest you to hear something of the experiences of those who investigate the genealogies of these old Jersey Dutch families. But first let me say a word- about the language. The older survivors of the descendants of the first settlers still adhere to a speaking knowledge of the tongue brought over by the seventeenth-century immi- grants from the Netherlands, but I have never met one who could read it. altho they often produce with pride and a certain puzzled air. the ancient, huge Dutch Bible, in vast foHo, bound in oak boards half an inch thick, covered with leather, and held together with enormous brass clasps and corner pieces. This language seems, from a comparison with the older Dutch dictionaries, to be substantiallv the SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY same as that spoken by the original settlers, with the ordi- nary variations of dialect according to the Province from which the immigrant came. Natives of New Jersey, acais- tomed to the Jersey Dutch language, have found it quite easy to make themselves understood in Holland today. Forty years ago the language was commonly spoken on the streets, in the market place and in the shops of Pater- son. Now, it is seldom heard. The earlier church records, of course, are all written in Dutch. To interpret them it is well to use a dictionary of date contemporary with the records, the l^etter to get the meaning, and to find the same spelling — for Holland, with all her conservatism, adopted a simplified spelling something like eighty years ago. CHURCH RECORDS. 1 know of no Church records in New Jersey or elsewhere to compare with those kept by the earliest clergymen of the Reformed Dutch churches of New York and New Jersey. ]n New York, as you are of course aware, the records of the Dutch church reach back to 1630, and are remarkably full and complete. The records of the Reformed Dutch church of Bergen (now Jersey City) extend back to 1661; Hackensack, to 1686, and Acquackanonk (now First Re- formed, Passaic), to 1726. The records in these New Jersey churches are all kept in substantially the same form. In the case of marriages, for example, they are arranged thus: 1697 Elyas Bartely, j. m. geb. Nieuw England April 17 Cornelia Cornelise, j. d. geb. an de Bouwerij April 24 David De Maree, j. m. geb. Nieuw Haarlem Sara Berthold, j. d. geb. Sluijs, Vlaanderen 1699 Siaque Vigoor, wedr. van Catryn Pisiaer April 8 Neeltje Buys, wed. van Jan Koerte SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY s Sept. 28 Heer Rynier Van Gyssc. wcdr. van Dircktii- Coriu-Iisso van Groenlaiid Hciulricktio lUiys, wed. van C"i>rnolis Vcrwt-y. You would not want mucli t'Mllcr genealogical data than those, would you '^ Tlie Ixiptismal reccrds are likewise a juy to the si-archer. They give the names of the father, the full maiden name of the mother, name of the child, date of baptism, and names of the godparents or witnesses. Often the date of the birth of the child is also given, and frequently other information. Here is a sample from the Hackensack church records : 1696 Roelof Maortoii Powelse Dec. 27 Margritie Westerveldt 1697 Jaquemintie David, zoon van Jan DeMaree Sept. .Antie Sloth 1699 David Jan. 15 Roelof Wc-stcrvcidt en moeder Gecsit- Wes- terveldt Jan Pieter.se Jan DeMaree de jonge Abeltie Pieter.se Sloth David DeMaree, zoon van David Samuel DeMaree Sara Bertholf Rachel Karson. zyn grootmoeder. Here you have the full names of the parents, and in several cases even of some of the grandparents. It is amusing to observe the difficulties of those old Dutch Dominies in their wrestling with the strange spelling of French, English and Scottish names, for the sounds of which there were no precise equivalents in the Dutch. "Siaque," for instance, was an attempt to give the sound of the French Jacques. But one of the worst efforts was the name "Tsjems Tsjansen," entered in the Hackensack lxn>- tismal register in 1726. You would have to put yourself in the place of the Dutch Dominie, and try to utter the SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY singular name, '*J^"i^s Johnson," with no letters to render the sound of "J-"' You have noticed that the full maiden name of the mother is given in the above baptismal records. The Dutch girl never lost her name, never merged it in that of her husband. All through life she was known by her maiden name, as Marritje Van R)'pen, wife of Dirck Van Houten. So it was in the church records; so it was in legal instru- ments; so it was on her bedding; and when she went on to join her ancestors, it was thus inscribed on her tombstone. Moreover, in the earlier days she usually added to her bap- tismal name her father's name, with the genitive affix, "se," so that you will often find the woman's name, all through life, Marritje Dirckse Van Houten, meaning that she was Mary, daughter of Dirck Van Houten. How immensely helpful this is to the genealogist. I think it means, too, that these Jersey Dutch mothers felt a full sense of their dignity and importance, and believed they had at least an equal share in all the responsibilities of the family. PERPETUATION OF CHRISTIAN NAMES. Another custom of the Jersey Dutch people is also of great assistance to the student of family history. It was the rule to name the first son after his paternal grandfather, the second after his father, the third after his maternal grand- father, and the fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on, after his uncles on both sides. Similarly, the girls were named, the first, after her maternal grandmother, the second after her mother, the third after the paternal grandmother, and the rest after her aunts. I say this was the rule, although like most rules, it was frequently deviated from. But with this practice in mind, and observing the names of the persons present at the baptism of a child, it is comparatively easy, in most cases, to identify the parentage of father and SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY 7 im>tlRT. for in each l)ai)tisni you have three gaicrations linked together. So persistent has this custom l>een. that wherever you find the Christian name Adrian, you may l)e sure you can trace the lyearer hack to Captain Adrian Post, who came to Staten Island in 1650; the name Ralph is invariably duo to Roelof Cornelissen. the ancestor of the Van Houtens; all the Rvniers get their name from Rynier Van Giesen. who came to New Xetherland in 1656; all the Gerrits owe their name to Gerrit Gerritsen. who came over in i66o: nearly all the Michaels arc indebted for their name to Michiel lanse, who settled at Renselaerswyck in 1636. and ten vears later removed to Bergen; all the Hartmans derive their name from his wife, Fytie Hartmans; wherever you find the name Waling, which is no longer often, you may be sure its owner descends from Wealing Jacobs, born in 1651; in the Wan Winkle family you will find the name Simon or Simeon, after the progenitor of the family, dating back to 1655 and earlier. Edo is a persistent family name among the Merselises; Uriah comes from the ancestor of the Van Ripers. who was known as Uriaen Thomasse. The student of the history of these old Dutch families acquires a sort of instinctive knowledge of the ancestry of a person, as soon as h€ hears the names of his parents. THE PATRONYMIC PUZZLE. 1 have six)ken thus briefly of some of the remarkable helps to the genealogist in the customs of these j^eople. Tlie amateur will find much difficulty, on the other hand, in trying to trace the descendants of some of the first settlers. You are familiar here in Pennsylvania, with the .Swedish and Welsh fashion of using patronymics, instead of surnames. This usage was prevalent among the first settlers of New Amsterdam, as surnames were still com- paratively unknown in Europe in their day. SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY Thus, one of the patentees of Acquackanonk, in 1685 (the territory now occupied in part by the cities of Paterson and Passaic, and by the township of Acquackanonk), was Hendrick Joris, meaning simply Henry, son of George. He and his descendants took the name BHnkerhoff, now- written Brinkerhoff. Gerrit Gerritse, already mentioned. Avas simply Gerrit, son of Gerrit. Many of his descendants to this day are still known as Garrison, while others took the name van Wagen- ingen, after the village in Holland from which he came, their name being usually now written Van Wagoner. An explanation of this change, evidently manufactured to account for the fact, is this: Peter Gerritse had a son Gerrit. known by his neighbors as "Pietem's Gat," to dis- tinguish him from the countless other Gerrits, or "Gats." Moreover, "Pietem's Gat" was also known as "Spyker-kop Gat." or "Nail-Headed Gat," meaning that his head was as hard as nails, and his disposition likewise. He had a dis- pute with his brothers and sisters about the division of some land, and straightway vowed that he would no longer use their family name, but would thenceforth be known only as Gerrit Van Wageningen. And so his descendants are called to this day. Jacob Waling's three children, baptized from 1650 to 1655, were known as Jacobse, although the third, Symon Jacobse, wrote his name Symon Van Winkel, in making his will in 1722, presumably because his father came from the village of Winkel in Holland. I have already spoken of the children of Michiel Jansen, who were known as Michielsen. or son of Michiel. Elias Michielsen was a member of the East Jersey Assembly for several years, and by the Scotch clerk his name w^as recorded in the proceedings as Elias M'Kilson, from which you would inevitably jump to the conclusion that he was a SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY good Scotchman. In the third generation the family took the name V'rcelaiul, probably from a Holland villaj^fe of that name, from whicii. perhaps. Michiel Jansen may have come. Michiel had a nnmlier of sons, and their progeny was also numerous, so that to distinguish the several stocks it was customary, until within half a century, to add to a son's name the name, initial, or abbreviation of his father's name: thus. John J. Vreeland meant John son of John Vreeland; John Ja. Vreeland, or Elias Ja. Vreeland indi- cated to the initiated that a son of Jaojb Vreeland was meant; to make it still clearer we sometimes find John Ja. El. Vreeland, meaning John son of Jacob son of Elias Vreeland. And 1 assure you, that if you had occasion to search the title to some of the Vreeland lands, and they cover many broad acres in the present cities of Paterson and Passaic, you could not be too grateful for these helps to identify the descent of the owners. Hessel Pieterse's descendants had less disposition to change, and from generation to generation simply rung the variations — Pieter Hesselse, Hessel Pieterse, Pieter Hesselse, Hessel Pieterse. Reyer Reyerse had sons Adriaen, Marten, etc. Some of Adrian's children have always retained the name Adrianse, or Adriance; some of Marten's children took the name Mar- tense, while the other descendants of Reyer Reyerse are known as Ryerson, and a widespread family they are. in the United States and Canada. Uriaen Thomasse was another of the Acquackanonk patentees: he was from Rypen, in North Jutland, and hence most of his descendants took the name Van Rypen. now usually written Van Riper. But the patronymic practice persisted for several generations in this family. On one occasion I was puzzled for a long time in tracing the title to a tract of land which 1 knew had come down from the 10 SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY Van Ripers, but to my surprise I found that in 1771 it was devised by one Cornelis Aeltse, and I could not find how or when CorneUs Aeltse had acquired it, either by purchase or by descent. At last it occurred to me that Cornelis Aeltse was the son of Aelt Van Riper, who had devised this prop- erty to his son Cornelis Van Riper. SOME LOST LINKS. This name Uriaen reminds me of the curious transforma- tions these odd Dutch names often undergo. Uriaen is evidently the equivalent of the Scriptural Uriah; but in Dutch it is pronounced Yurrie, and by an easy gradation this is frequently turned into Yerry, Jerry, and Jeremiah. Again, Y'errey's son would be called Yerreanse, and pres- ently you have Yereance, a numerous family in Northern New Jersey. These misinterpretations of names often lead to too hasty generalizations or inferences. In Sussex county, New Jersey, and in Orange county. New York, you will find the name Forgerson. "Evidently the Scotch Ferguson," you say. Not so, but from the Dutch Volkert, whence Volkert- sen, and by an easy transition, through the permutation of consonants, Volkerson, Folgerson. Forgerson. In the classic days of Holland it was quite common for scholarly men to translate their Dutch names into Latin or Greek, Erasmus being a famous example. So we have the names Marinus and Goetschius among the Dutch dominies of the eighteenth century, and the name Oblenus in the present. But you will generally find the latter painted or written after the Irish fashion, with a big O. an apostrophe, and a big B, as if it were Celtic, and not good old Latin- Dutch. It reminds me of a talented Polish music teacher we had a few years ago in Paterson, named Oborski. On one occasion a musical programme was printed, on which his name appeared as director. The local printer having been SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY I I accustomed to the name O'Blenus thought Oborski was of the same origin, and carefully set it up in tyi)e, "O'Borski." Whereat the wrath of the noble Pole was not soothed until he had thundered forth on the piano sundry selections from Wagner — something. 1 believe, like the (jotterdammerung, but minus a few syllables. I was once hunting up a Van Houten family, and at last found a very intelligent old lady of that particular ilk. When other data had been duly exacted I aune Ixick to my difficulty: "Your grandfather had a daughter Vrowetje." said I; "I have the record of her baptism, but nothing more." She smiled; "Vrowetje was my mother," she re- marked. "But I thought you said your mother was Fanny Van Houten." "And so she was," and again she smiled at my bewilderment. "You see, it was this way; when my mother went to school the teacher was an Englishman, and he could not twist his tongue around that big mouthful, and so he told my mother he would enter her name on the roll as Fanny, which, he said, was the Knglish for Vrowetje." As a matter of fact, Vrowetje means "little woman," and is a Dutch term of endearment, often given to children in baptism. I think it is sometimes mistaken in the records for "Vrontje." the "short" for Sophronia. Another puzzle came about in this wise : Dirck Van Houten, who died in 1812, had a number of children, among them Adriaen; he grew up and was married, as I found by the church record, but after that he disappeared. Some years later there was a deed from the children of Dirck Van Houten, and among them there was no Adriaen. but there was an Aaron, and it transpired beyond a doubt that Adriaen had changed his name to Aaron, evidently to avoid the confusion arising from the existence of a score or so of Van Houtens of the same baptismal name. Running through the northern part of Paterson is a 12 SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY pretty stream tumbling down over the mountains, and at last flowing- through one of our parks ere it merges into the Passaic river. Ihis stream was known by the Dutch as the Krakeel Val, or "quarreHng brook," perhaps the "brawling brook." But in our day it is only known as "the Molly Ann Brook" and thereby hangs a tale, which shall be made brief. This park was formerly part of the Van Houten domain. Here lived the widow Van Houten, Alolly, and she had a son, Adriaen, who was called Yawn for short; and because of his mother's strength of character, and to distinguish him from other Yawns, he was usually called "Molly's Yawn." When his mother died the brook aforesaid flowing through his lands was called "Molly's Yawn's Brook." It is an am.using illustration of the sim- plicity oif the olden days, and is an instance also of how easy it is to lose the sense of a name. Here is another problem : Hans Speer and Tunis Speer are common names. They settled among the Peers, who also have Hans and Tunis as ordinary Christian names. How was the Dominie or the Church clerk to make the nice distinction between Hans Speer and Hans Peer, or between Tunis Speer and Tunis Peer? Can you? I have no doubt they were often confounded in the records. Then, we have in our neighborhood the name Berry, and the name Bradbury, with intermarriages between them. One might easily jump to the conclusion that the name is the same; but not so. Further, there are two families named Berry among us : one descended from Captain John Berry, who came from Barbadoes, in the West Indies, and the other, which appears to be of Dutch origin, coming from Flushing, in Holland. I have spoken of the Dutch use of patronymics. Who would suppose that the Andersons, of Trenton and vicinity, were of Dutch descent? Yet they arc undoubtedlv de- SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY i ] sceiuled from Viulrics Iinhciii. an early sctllcr of New Amsterdam. And there is a Johnson family, of New Jersey, whom yon wonld certainly take to be of New Eng; land stock; bnt they trace their ancestry to Rut Jansen. m Rtio-er son of John, who located in Somerset county early i;i the eigiiteenth century. In the records of Somerset county and of New Bruns- wick you will rtnd two Cornclis Lows mentioned al»ut 1750. You will naturally infer that the references are to the same man. On closer iiuiniry you find that one of the men was a surveyor, and the other a lawyer. Tracing the matter still further you will learn that one of these men is descended from a Long Island family, and the other from an L'lster county family, their respective progenitors not I>eing in the sliglitest degree akin, and not having the name Low at all. One of these families pronounces the name l^ow. as in the adjective so spelled, and the other is called Low. sounded as in the second syllable of allow. Captain .\driaen Post, of whom I have spoken, had three cliildren whose names we have not learned. There hap- pened to \yp. two or three other men named Post in Xew Amsterdam, alxait his time, who might have l)een his chil- dren, and some genealogists, with that tender regard we all have for orphans, have kindly fathered these misplaced Posts upon the Captain, witliout the slightest evideiice of his responsibility for them. They have even gone so far as to assign to him the parentage of one Jan Jansen. simply because at one time he carried the mail, and hence was called Jan Jansen Postmael, from which circumstance his descendants assumed the name Post, according to family tradition. But Captain Adriaen Post was one of tiie few immigrants to the Xew .Xethcrlands, as early as 1650. who already had a surname, and ilid not acquire it by any fortuitous circumstance in the new world. 14 SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY A member of the Degray family — prominent and numer- ous just north of Paterson for several generations — once assured me that his ancestors came from Scotland, and previously from France, whence the prefix "De," and he was greatly surprised when I showed him the will of his great- grandfather, Johannes de Graauw, unmistakably Dutch, and signifying "the gray." The name "De Groot" is also Dutch, simply meaning "the large," or "great." "Devoe," pro- nounced "Devoo," is undoubtedly French, the earlier spelling having been "Deveaux," with various modifications. The Demarest family are exceedingly numerous in Bergen County. In the older writings the name is frequently s^^elled "Demaray," which represents the pronunciation of the original name, "de Marais" or "de Maretz," as the primitive French ancestor was called. Then we have the name of one of the original settlers of New Brunswick, Cornelius Long- field, apparently an Englishman, but when we trace the name back to the earliest spelling, it appears as "Cornelis Lange- veldt," manifestly Dutch. Laroe is the Dutch spelling for La Rue, another Frenchman, THEIR PIETY. T have given you some idea of the pleasures, the conve- niences, and the puzzles experienced in tracing Jersey Dutch ancestry. You will pardon me if I say something of their characteristics. They were a God-fearing people, constant in their church- going. "All the great ages have been ages of belief," says Emerson. These men and women had the strongest kind of faith in the doctrines of the church. When those who assumed to be more orthodox than the rest led the great Seceder movement in 1827. the lines between the old and the new schools were so strictly drawn that fathers and children would not speak to each other, so intensely did they believe. A more kindly exhibition was their scrupu- SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY '5 Ions care to keep the Poor-Giest of the diurch well supplied. The pious formula of their wills was u<>t peculiar to tlieui. but I think it correctly stone at Belleville : Sacred to the imiiuiry of Jacol) Perrinc Who died April I3tli in the year 1730 He died from a blast in the Copper Mine. And what a tragedy in that other inscription in the same churchyard, chronicling the drowning oi a lad of eight years : In vain were all attempts to save From sinking in a watery grave, But now his spirit swims above In rivers of delight and love, Secure from every wave of woe Where deadly streams can never flow. One cannot help thinking — what a pity he did not learn to swim while here ! ANTI-RACE .SUICIDE. These old Jersey Dutch people had none of the fears of MaJthus and their practice certainly shows that they were opposed to race suicide. Symon Jacobse Van Winkel, kiptized in 1655. and who died in 1732, left twelve chil- dren him surviving. One of his sons, Simeon, had twenty children, of whom thirteen survived their father. It is related that he carved their initials and dates of birth on his doorposts, and when they ran out he carved the rest on a broad smooth stone in the front of the house. .\nd what a roll-call that must have l)een when he summoned his brood at dusk, to see that none were lost, strayed or stolen — Abraham, Johannes. Simeon. Jacob. Antie. Feytie. Saertje, Trijntje, Rachel. Jenneke, Leena, Marregrietje, Geertje, and others who died young. 1 8 SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY A simple calculation shows that in the tenth generation back a man's ancestors will number 1.024, provided there have been no intermarriages. I think most of the Jersey Dutch people of Passaic and Bergen counties today can trace their ancestry to at least six or eight of the fourteen Patentees of 1685, and I am sure that in a large percentage of cases their ancestors in the tenth generation would not number one hundred persons. This reduces the appalling immensity of the task which we have estimated confronts the genealogist. PERSISTENCY OF THE TYPE. There are many descendants of the original settlers who still live on the ancestral acres, greatly shorn, it is true, but they cling to them with the love of the farmer for the land. All thro' Bergen and Passaic counties may be seen the old type of low stone house, often with eaves pro- jecting far out, so as to form a roof for a broad veranda. Usually the old houses were one story in height, with spacious, open attic. The people usually stay with the old church, and they keep up many of the old customs. They are a sturdy stock, and none is more valued in Northern New Jersey. The original settlers, v/ith scarcely an exception, were of the plain common people — peasant farmers or artisans. I have never found any evidences among them that they were entitled to bear arms in the mother country — I mean in the heraldic sense. No one who has read a page of the history of that splendid nation doubts that its people proved their right and their willingness to bear militant arms in its defence. But very seldom indeed have I found any indication that the Jersey Dutch people were at all dis- posed to patronize the coat-of-arms manufacturer. They are content to know that their ancestors were of good, clean, decent stock, and they are proud of their origin. SOME JERSEY DUTCH GENEALOGY 19 Macaulay has said tluit a i)(.'i)[)le which takes no pride in the noble acluevements of remote ancestors will never achieve anythini^;- worthy to he remcml)ercd with pride hy rcnjote descendants. From my own exi)erience, 1 am snre that the (ieneidog-ist will tind no pleasanter tield for research, and no worthier subject, than the original Jersey Dutch and their descendants. 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