Dutch roots

I noticed several people in this group have Dutch roots.

If your ancestors immigrated via Ellis Island, you can easily add a few Dutch generations to your family tree, or find some (living) Dutch cousins. If you descend from Dutch secessionists, it will be slightly harder, but still quite feasible. In both cases, my website (http://www.van-kampen.org/roots/) will have lots of useful tips.

It's a different story when you trace your Dutch ancestors through the New Netherland colony. Indeed, if you succeed, you will be farther then most Dutch genealogists, who often get stuck around 1700.

Have any of you successfully traced your Dutch ancestors into The Netherlands? If so, how did you do that? What did you find? Could you connect to (living) Dutch cousins?

Yes, I have some lines back to the Netherlands. A couple of the New Netherlands families (Brinkerhoff, Vreeland, etc.) have very detailed trees!

This was sooooo far back, Henk, that my European "relatives" would be at least 12th cousins.

Hi Seajack,

Thanks for your reply, and sorry for the delay on my side.

Of course any Dutch cousins would be very distant relatives. Vreeland is a rare name in The Netherlands (I found only three in the Dutch phone book, and there were 23 Vreeland's in the 1947 national census, most of them in Amsterdam). Van Vreeland also exists, but is just as rare (12 people in the 1947 census). Brinkerhoff (and Brinkerhof) are more common. Do you know if there are common roots?

You probably traced your ancestors to The Netherlands via New Netherland records (or publications based on them). Have you tried to locate your ancestors in Dutch records? With any success?

Hi Henk,

Just wondering, are you on the Rootsweb New Netherland or Dutch-Colonies lists?

To be honest, Henk, I am not that interested in European research. If I can trace back to an actual emigrant, that's enough for me.

Fair enough, Seajack. And if your emigrant ancestors are early Dutch settlers, you are already further back in time then most, anyway.

Hi myshelves,

No, I'm not on those lists. You think I should be? I subscribe to netherlands-l, and I read "Dutch in New York" on Ancestry (but that list is very quiet), and a large number of Dutch boards and lists.

Hi Henk,

I haven't been reading those lists for awhile, but I think that there was someone named Henk who was helping people with translations of old documents. I thought maybe it was you.

I'm with Seajack; I don't try to trace mine back past arrival in NN either. In some cases other descendants have done some work, and I read the results with interest.

Hi,

My ancestor ended up further south than New York - in the Demerara colony (now Georgetown, Guyana) in about 1775. Information about this area is rather hard to come by - very little in the way of civil records remain there. A colleague has been transcribing newspapers from the early 1800's for the area. These transcripts are at http://www.vc.id.au/edg . Another colleague scours all sorts of records for British Guiana associations. Her database is at http://www.vc.id.au/tb .

Through a contact I made on Usenet, and more recently from someone in the Netherlands who found my web site, I have been able to connect my ancestor Hendrik Van Cooten with his family from Doorn, near Utrecht in the Netherlands. The secret lay in Utrecht Notarial records found at http://www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl/notaris.asp - a real goldmine if you have relatives from Utrecht during 1560-1811.

The nett result was that my dead-end at about 1750 has now stretched back to the early 1600s, and I now have some, very distant, Netherlands cousins!

Now that's an interesting success story!

I know next to nothing about Demerara, but I can imagine it is hard to do genealogy research there. The archives of the WIC (West Indies Company) at the Dutch National Archives in The Hague probably have more information than the archives of Guyana. A quick search in their online index turns up several maps of Demerara by "landmeter" (surveyor) H. van Cooten. Have you been to The Hague to look at these maps? (I see you have some reproductions on your website.)

I know Doorn - I live in the Utrecht region myself. Doorn is mostly famous as residence of the last German emperor, who lived there in exile. Apparently, there is still a Van Cooten family in Doorn (five hits in the phone book) - probably all distant relatives?

Hi Henk,

Yes - H. van Cooten is my ancestor - Hendrik, born in 1750, son of Johannes Van Cothen and Maria Bosch. I have been to the National Archives in the Hague. Unfortunately at the time (1998) they were undergoing renovations so I was only able to look at maps on microfilm. Fortunately, the microfilms are available for purchase through MMF publications entitled 'Images of East and West' - more information is at http://www.vc.id.au/ew/ew.html .

Even in the 1700s there seemed to be quite a few Van Cooten families around the Utrecht/Doorn/Nederlangbroek/Willige Langerak area - it would be fascinating to discover the pedigree of current Van Cooten families in Doorn

My maternal grandmother's family was called Stukins/Stuckings/Stewkins etc and until the 1870s or so came from Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. It's a very, very, unusual name in England and I traced them back to 1600 (although there is a weak link which is not proven when an ancestor moved to a neighbouring parish). More than one correspondent has suggested that they would be Dutch who came over to help with the drainage of the Fens. I'm not sure whether it just sounds Dutch to some or whether it really is. Not sure about the drainage bit either as I've come across the name (not related to me) in London before Vermuyden's time. Perhaps someone here could comment on the name being Dutch (or not as the case may be).

Stukins/Stuckings/Stewkins is not Dutch, but it could be a corruption of Stokking, which is a Dutch name.

Henk: Thanks for that — I'll bear it in mind.

Rodney,

There is a colour photograph of one of Hendrik van Cooten's maps on the "Geheugen van Nederland" website: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/ (from the Amsterdam University collections). Search the website for "Cooten" to find it.

Henk,

Thanks for finding that - I haven't seen that one before. The description is quite informative as well. Does the 'exhaustive data' indicate that it is contained within 'Henry Bolingbroke, A voyage to the Demerary'?

I don't think so, but it is not entirely clear. Bolingbroke seems to be either the source for the information in the introduction, or a suggestion for further reading.

The map, btw, is part of the "Suriname in kaart gebracht" (Surinam mapped out) collection, that is introduced on http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/gvnnl/all/2BCE3C88-8706-428C-9AF4-41C048F099E.... It contains several other maps of Demerary.

Anyone know anything about Curaçao?

I have a NN ancestor, Pieter Winne, whose marriage record says he was born "in Curassauw." Unless I have the wrong man, he was baptized in Esopus in Nov 1661. I don't know at what age, or why he wasn't baptized in Curaçao.

No one seems to have tracked this down, and I'm not sure where he (and his father) fit into the Winne family. Are there records from Curaçao for the period before Nov 1661?

The oldest document in the Curaçao archives dates from 1687 (source: Archivo Nashonal, http://www.nationalarchives.an/ ).

If there are any records at all, they will be at the Dutch National Archives in The Hague. I very much doubt you will find BMD or baptism records, though.

Dutch National Archive

Website:
http://www.en.nationaalarchief.nl/

Address for correspondence:
P.O. Box 90520
2509 LM The Hague
The Netherlands

Telephone (switchboard): +31 70 331 5400
Telephone (information): +31 70 331 5444
Fax: +31 70 331 5540
E-mail: info@nationaalarchief.nl

Thanks, Henk.

I was thinking more of government or military or mercantile or shipping records, for some mention of his father (also Pieter.) I'm not likely to get to the Archives to look at them, but I wondered if they even exist.

I had some French Huguenot ancestors who immigrated (fled) to the Netherlands for a generation or two. Long enough for their name to be changed from du Coursin to Corzine, before they immigrated to England and ultimately to America. We are a bit fuzzy as to whether there was any intermarriage while in the Netherlands. If anyone can point me to any histories of the Huguenots being given shelter in the Netherlands or any other info it would be greatly appreciated.

I understand that a number of the Huguenots went to the Netherlands. My DuBois ancestor was in Leyden (Leiden) for some years before coming to New York in 1674/75.

Edited to add: There are a lot of web sites with info on the Huguenots, including that of the the US-based National Huguenot Society.