Kings County (now also called the Borough of Brooklyn) is an ancestral home to a very large number of Americans, many of whom trace lines back to the county's colonial period. The first European settlers arrived in 1636, when the area was part of New Netherland; it came under English control in 1664. The population grew rapidly, and with almost everyone trying to make a living through agriculture, this small county could not support so many people. Thus in the late 17th and early 18th centuries many families left for New Jersey, other parts of Long Island, the Hudson Valley, Manhattan, Staten Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and other colonies. After that the remaining population grew very slowly, until the 19th century saw the rise of the City of Brooklyn.
Dutch families dominated the county for some two hundred years after the first settlement. Most other ethnic groups that came to the county in the early years either intermarried with the Dutch or adopted their language and customs. Thus anyone researching colonial Kings County must understand the Dutch naming system and other unique aspects of Dutch-American genealogy (see Henry Hoff, Researching Dutch Families: A Checklist Approach).
Church records are perhaps the single most important source for colonial Kings County genealogy. For most of the colonial period each town had one church. All of these churches were Dutch Reformed, and because they were so near each other, often sharing a minister, it is important to search the records for all of them and not just those for the town where a family lived.
Church records are described below for each of the county's six towns: Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend and New Utrecht. For post-colonial records see Brooklyn / Kings County Church Records Since 1783. Many of the titles listed below can also be found on Family History Library (FHL) microfilms or in electronic media.
Brooklyn
Jos van der Linde, New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Old First Dutch Reformed Church of Brooklyn, New York (Baltimore: GPC, 1983): baptisms 1660-1710, 1719; marriages 1660-1696; members 1663-64, 1677-1702; miscellaneous records 1660-1752.
Other transcriptions, such as that in the 1897 Year Book of the Holland Society of New York, can be inaccurate and should not be used. The original church records are on loan to the Gardner Sage Library, New Brunswick (N.J.) Theological Seminary. Remaining colonial records of the Brooklyn church were taken to England during the Revolution by a Loyalist, and have never been recovered. Complete records exist from 1785 on.
The NYG&B Collection includes a pew list of this church, an original document in Dutch from 1769 and 1778, translation published in Record 141:129-32.
Brooklyn's second church was St. Ann's Anglican/Episcopal, established at the end of the colonial period. Records begin in 1780 (see Brooklyn / Kings County Church Records Since 1783).
Bushwick
The earliest surviving records of this church date from 1792. However, Bushwick baptisms and marriages of the colonial period may be found in other Kings County churches, and church records of New York City or Queens County.
Flatbush (Midwout)
In1998 The Holland Society of New York published Records of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Flatbush, Kings County, Volume 1 1677-1720, translated and edited by Dr. David William Voorhees. This volume contains previously unpublished consistory minutes 1678-86, as well as baptisms 1677-90, 1695-99, and 1709-10; marriages 1677-94 and 1706-20; and membership 1679-85; being all the surviving records in these categories through 1720. Since the Kings County churches shared a minister in this period, these records cover all the towns and not just Flatbush (there is some duplication with the Brooklyn records of the period).
Volume 2 of the same series, subtitled Midwood Deacons’ Accounts 1654–1709, was published in 2009. The deacons’ accounts include marriage and burial fees, and care for the poor. Genealogists should use these two volumes instead of previously compiled versions of the same records, which are considered to be less accurate. The version of these records in the 1898 Year Book of the Holland Society of New York is particularly unreliable.
For post-1720 Flatbush records (and some earlier ones not in the new volumes) refer to Frank L. Van Cleef, transcriber/translator, "Records of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Flatbush," typed by Josephine C. Frost, 5 volumes (1915), including baptisms 1722, 1725, 1750-54; marriages 1742-57; and marriage and burial fees collected by the deacons, churchmasters, ministers and trustees 1663-1741 (and scattered entries 1763-86). NYPL Milstein Division call nos. NYGB AZ Loc 09-94 v. 1-2 (Baptisms); NYGB AZ Loc 09-93 v. 1-2 (Marriages); NYGB AZ Loc 09-95 (Deacons’ records, etc.).
The Flatbush church retains its original books, but photocopies of them, and of the full Van Cleef transcript/translation, are available at The Holland Society.
A scholarly study of the Flatbush church and its role in the community is Wm. Frederic (Eric) Nooter, "Between Heaven and Earth: Church and Society in Pre-Revolutionary Flatbush, Long Island," doctoral thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 1994, NYPL Milstein Division call no. NYGB AZ Loc 09-73.
Flatlands (Nieuw Amersfoort)
Harriet and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, "Records of the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church of Flatlands, 1747-1914," typescript, 3 vols. (1954), NYPL Milstein Division call no. NYGB N.Y. L B792.62 D8 F552: baptisms begin 1747 but marriages and other records start after the colonial period. The Holland Society has a transcript of the same records 1747-1802 by Dingman Versteeg, also available on FHL film, indexed at www.olivetreegenealogy.com.
There are some 17th-18th century deacons' accounts of this church which have not been transcribed or translated but are available on microfilm at the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Gravesend
This was the only Kings County town founded by English settlers, dissenters from the Church of England. No records of their church survive, but a few residents who became Quakers are mentioned in records of the New York/Flushing Monthly Meeting, see Quaker section of Records of Other Protestant Denominations of New York City (Manhattan). The town's civil records contain some early births and marriages 1664-1702 (Record 4: 39,199).
Early in the 18th century any distinct English community essentially disappeared, its members either moving out or intermarrying with Dutch families who took their place. Everyone attended the Dutch Reformed church, for which see William Henry Stillwell, History of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Gravesend, 1892: baptisms 1714-1890, deaths 1714-1891, communicants 1763-1890, officers 1766-1806 (no marriages for the colonial period).
Harriet Mott Stryker-Rodda, "Gravesend 1762-63 Baptisms," Record 119:5, is a correction to Stillwell.
New Utrecht
Frances Bergen Cropsey and Harriet Mott Stryker-Rodda, "Records of the Reformed Church of New Utrecht, Long Island," Record volumes 112-115 (1981-84): baptisms 1718-41, 1776-1802. See other Kings County churches for pre-1718 and 1741-76 New Utrecht events. The version of the 1718-41 baptisms in Record vol. 73 should not be used, as it omits the all-important names of witnesses.
Cemeteries
Each of the Dutch Reformed churches had an adjacent cemetery, with some markers from the colonial period or for persons born in that time. Brooklyn inscriptions were published in Long Island Historical Society Quarterly 1:82-86, and Flatlands, Gravesend, New Utrecht and Bushwick in Kings County Genealogical Club Collections, volume 1, nos. 1-4. Flatbush and Gravesend are found in Josephine C. Frost, "Long Island Cemetery Inscriptions," volume 11, NYPL Milstein Division call no. NYGB AZ Loc 09-564, and Flatlands in volume 12 of the same series, call no. NYGB AZ Loc 09-565.
For additional cemetery compilations and other Kings County resources, see Herbert F. Seversmith and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Long Island Genealogical Source Material [A Bibliography], National Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 24 (1962). This publication is also available for purchase from NGS.