Researching New York Dutch Families: A Checklist Approach | New York Genealogical & Biographical Society

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As anyone who has worked on colonial New York or New Jersey families can tell you, researching families whose baptisms, marriages and burials occur in Dutch Reformed Church records can be quite rewarding.

The surviving registers of these churches are frequently available in print and the available overall indexes to these registers include the International Genealogical Index (IGI); Wilson Ledley, comp. Index to Baptismal Surnames [in 16 Reformed Churches], Holland Society of New York, 1990 [N.Y. G 12.15]; and Marriage Index: Selected Areas of New York, 1639-1916, from Kinship, CD-ROM (Family Tree Maker's Family Archives, 1996).

The genealogical information given in the registers is often sufficient in itself to assemble a skeleton pedigree, because of the following helpful Dutch customs:

A couple was betrothed in the Dutch Reformed Church and then married after three banns had been read. The betrothal and/or marriage record ordinarily gives marital status and place of origin (which is usually place of birth). After 1664 a marriage license could be obtained in lieu of banns.
A woman normally continued to use her maiden name after marriage.
The first two children of each sex were often (but not always) named for the four grandparents.
Children were baptized shortly after birth and usually had relatives as godparents.
Even into the 19th century, patronymics and patronymic initials were still being used.

For an overall view of Dutch naming patterns and the use of patronymics vs. surnames, see Rosalie Fellows Bailey, Dutch Systems in Family Naming: New York-New Jersey (National Genealogical Society Special Publications, No. 12, 1954) [CS42 N4 Spec.Publ.], and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, "New Netherland Naming Systems and Customs," Record 126:35-45.

Because New Netherland was such a melting pot, a family in Dutch Reformed Church records might actually have no Dutch ancestry and yet be culturally, linguistically and politically Dutch and be referred to as Dutch.

Besides being traceable in New Netherland and New York, clues to the European origins of these families are abundant.

Place of origin was sometimes added to a person's name and so even just one occurrence of a name in New Netherland records may provide the clue. Marriage records are the most common source for this information, as they usually include place of origin.

Other sources which may provide the desired clue include church membership records and notarial papers. Gwenn F. Epperson's New Netherland Roots (Baltimore, 1994) [N.Y. G 55.41] provides a useful basic guide to developing these clues. The Record continues to publish articles each year on the origins of New Netherland settlers from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium and England. [No articles have used Scandinavian records yet.]

As with many areas of genealogical research, the first step in researching a New York Dutch family should usually be to determine what has already been compiled on the family and what you can glean from readily-available published primary sources.

The principal aids for finding what has been compiled are library catalogs and the three key indexes of national scope that have been mentioned numerous times in this Newsletter (e.g. 6:29): Periodical Source Index [PERSI], Genealogical Periodical Annual Index, and Jacobus' Index to Genealogical Periodicals.

See also Meredith B. Colket, Jr., Founders of Early American Families, revised edition, 1985 [CS42.15 C64]. By the end of 1996 another important finding aid for researching New York Dutch families should be published, namely, an every-name and subject index to this Newsletter for 1990-1995.

The following genealogical periodicals are particularly important for this research, both for compiled genealogies and for primary source material, and most have been (or will be) analyzed in this Newsletter for New York content and indexes, as noted below:

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (note 6:25)
The NYG&B Newsletter (now the New York Researcher)
Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey (see 6:28)
De Halve Maen (see 2:28)
The American Genealogist (see 5:11)
National Genealogical Society Quarterly (see 6:12)
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (see 6:6)
The Dutch Settlers Society of Albany Yearbook [N.Y. L AL 13.92]
New Netherland Connections (see Record 127:117)

The every-name and subject index to this Newsletter will be a useful shortcut to using these periodicals for researching New York Dutch families, although the careful researcher will also want to review the periodicals' own indexes.

In the Newsletter at 4:11 is a composite index to the New York families covered in 19 multifamily works (mostly all-my-ancestors), and at 4:21 is an index to all the families covered in Herbert F. Seversmith, Colonial Families of Long Island, New York and Connecticut, 5 vols. 1939-58. Many of these are Dutch families. There are numerous other all-my-ancestors works with accounts of New York Dutch families; these accounts may be discovered via:

library catalogs
citation in genealogical articles
"My Own Index" in Jacobus' Index to Genealogical Periodicals
Colket's Founders of Early American Families
book reviews in the Record and elsewhere
a future issue of the Newsletter

Make sure to look for compiled accounts of allied families as well as ancestral families.

Another source for compiled accounts of New York Dutch families are geographic multifamily works for historically Dutch areas of New York State. Given below is a list of those I have found particularly useful, though frequently not authoritative:

Anjou, Gustave, Ulster County, N.Y. Probate Records . . . , 2 vols., 1906, reprints [N.Y.CO UL7.62] [includes commentary on families]
Bailey, Rosalie Fellows, Pre-Revolutionary Dutch Houses and Families in Northern New Jersey and Southern New York, 1936, reprint 1968 [N.J. G 64]
Bergen, Teunis G., Register . . . of the Early Settlers of Kings County, Long Island, N.Y. . . . , 1881, reprint 1973 [N.Y. CO K611.1 ]
Dern, John P., Genealogical Contributions Reprinted from The Albany Protocol . . . , 1981 [N.Y. G 11.511] [covers present-day Greene Co.]
Durie, Howard I., The Kakiat Patent in Bergen County, New Jersey, with Genealogical Accounts of Some of Its Early Settlers, 1970 [NJ L B453.71] [the patent was in Bergen Co., N.J. and present-day Rockland Co., N.Y.]
Evjen, John O., Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630-1674, 1916, reprint 1972 [N.Y. G 17.5]
Getty, Innes, "Innes Getty Collection," 18 typescript vols. at NYG&B [see Newsletter 3:12 for list of surnames]
Hoffman, William J., "Settlers From The Netherlands In America Before 1700," typescript at NYG&B [N.Y. G 55.4 oversize] [see Newsletter 5:19 for description]
Mackenzie, Grenville C., "The Families of the Colonial Town of Philipsburgh, Westchester County, N.Y.," 4 typescript vols. at NYG&B [NYG&B Library MS. T.1] [see Newsletter 5:20 for list of surnames]
Pearson, Jonathan, Contributions for the Genealogies of the First Settlers of the Ancient County of Albany From 1630 to 1800, 1872, reprint 1976 [N.Y. CO AL13.01]
Pearson, Jonathan, Contributions for the Genealogies of the Descendants of the First Settlers of the Patent and City of Schenectady, From 1662 to 1800, 1873, reprint 1976 [N.Y. CO SCH27.41]
Pearson, Jonathan, A History of the Schenectady Patent . . . , 1883 [N.Y. G 62.4]
Provost, Andrew J., "Early Settlers of Bushwick, Long Island, New York, and Their Descendants," 4 typescript vols. at NYG&B [MS. Coll., Multi-Family Shelf: Provost]
Purple, Edwin R., Contributions to the History of Ancient Families of New Amsterdam and New York, 1881 [N.Y.C. G 33]
Riker, James, Jr., The Annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New-York, 1852, reprint 1982 [N.Y. L N488.21] [also useful for Kings Co.]
Riker, James, Jr., Revised History of Harlem (City of New York) . . . . , 1904, reprint 1996 [N.Y. L M314.68 H371]
Stoutenburgh, Henry A., A Documentary History of [the] Dutch Congregation of Oyster Bay . . . Long Island, 1902-07 [N.Y. L OY8.1] [useful for Queens and Kings Cos.]
Talcott, Sebastian Visscher, Genealogical Notes of New England and New York Families, 1883, reprint 1994 [N.Y. G 12.75] [mostly Albany Co.]
Toler, Henry Pennington, New Harlem Register: A Genealogy of the Descendants of the Twenty-Three Original Patentees [of Harlem] . . . , 1903 [N.Y.C. G 33.5 oversize] [potentially useful for anyone with even remote Harlem ancestry]
Genealogies of Long Island Families From The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 2 vols., 1987 [L.I. G 5.1]
Genealogies of New Jersey Families from the Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey, 2 vols., 1996 [N.J. G 32.2] [many New York origins]

As for published primary sources, there are several that I find essential for researching New York Dutch families on a statewide basis; these are listed below:

New York Historical Manuscripts [Dutch] (series started in 1974 by the New Netherland Project), vols. 1-3 Register of the Provincial Secretary 1638-1649; vols. 4-6 Council Minutes 1638-1656; Land Papers [N.Y. G 55.1]
New York Historical Manuscripts [English] (series similar to preceding), Books of General Entries 1664-1688 (2 vols.); Records of the Court of Assizes for the Colony of New York 1665-1682; Administrative Papers of Govs. Richard Nicolls and Francis Lovelace 1664-1673; The Andros Papers 1674-1680 (3 vols.) [N.Y. G 55.2]
O'Callaghan, Edmund B., Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, 2 vols. 1865-66, reprint 1968 [N.Y. G 55] [many of the calendared documents are given in full in the preceding two series]
O'Callaghan, Edmund B. and Berthold Fernow, eds. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols., 1856-87 [N.Y. G 21]
O'Callaghan, Edmund B., The Documentary History of the State of New-York, 4 vols., 1849-51 [N.Y. G 22] [many lists published in 1979 as Lists of Inhabitants of Colonial New York (N.Y. G 22.1)] [See Henry B. Hoff, "Pre-1750 New York Lists: Censuses, Assessment Rolls, Oaths of Allegiance, and Other Lists," Newsletter 3:20-22.]
Scott, Kenneth and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Denizations, Naturalizations, and Oaths of Allegiance in Colonial New York, 1975, reprint 1994 [N.Y. G 12.3] [particularly useful for oaths]
Boyer, Carl, 3rd, Ship Passenger Lists, New York and New Jersey (1600-1825), 1978 [CS68 S53] · Scott, Kenneth, "Early New Yorkers and Their Ages," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 57:274; 61:181, et seq. [CS42 N4] [composite lists of statements of age from many sources]
Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogate's Office, City of New York, 17 vols., 1892-1908 [N.Y. G 10] [See Harry Macy Jr., "New York Probate Records Before 1787," Newsletter 2:11-15.]
Fernow, Berthold, Calendar of Wills . . . 1626-1836, 1896, reprint 1967 [N.Y. G 12.25]

For an up-to-date expanded list (including New York City primary sources), see the syllabus for Harry Macy's talk F-4 at the NEHGS-NYG&B Soc. Joint Conference at Tarrytown, 17-18 November 1995 [CS2 N43 T37].

Careful reading of articles in the Record, the Newsletter and elsewhere is often the best way to make progress on a New York Dutch problem, because articles often contain:

accounts of allied families not mentioned in the title of the article or in subject indexes.
information on newly-available or newly-discovered sources, such as 17th century poor relief records for Albany (Record 124:229) and the papers of Teunis G. Bergen, whose work on Kings Co. is cited above (126:246).
commentary not found elsewhere on essential subjects like using particular primary sources, assessment of published sources, dates of primary sources, and finding aids for primary sources.
analysis of typical genealogical problems found in New York Dutch research, e.g. do records of a Gerrit Hendricks from Amsterdam all refer to the same man (Record 125:4), identifying a unknown wife by analyzing naming patterns and the husband's contacts as a witness (125:170), analysis of place of birth and residence given in marriage records to show relationship (111:68-69), analysis of baptismal sponsors and naming pattern to put together a family (116:154, 202).

Make sure to look for additions and corrections to articles. For the Record, these are in the October issue each year. And if you make an exciting discovery, don't keep it to yourself. Let others who are interested know, and even consider contacting one of the Editors regarding publication in the Record or the Newsletter!

by Henry B. Hoff, CG, FASG., FGBS

Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Summer 1996