Name change in 1500s from French to Netherlands.

Question

Need help discovering how to track my ancestors from France to Netherlands when their named obviously changed to mean "from hunen" but there is no record. Any tips would be appreciated. Thank you. Albert Terhune b. 1528 Paris, France. His son, William Terhune b. 1558 Paris, France The name Terhune (with many MANY various spellings) was the name given AFTER they arrived in the Netherlands. Alberts Albertse Albertus Aubert Adalbert All of these I believe may possibly be a surname for my Albert and William out of France. But I am in no way certain.

Comments

Your oldest Albert had a father, William Stephenson, 1500-1591.  His wife was named Gertje (yes, another Gertje).  I have found nothing beyond that as to what the original family name was.  I do know that the Huegenots from France hung out in Holland in Huinen; hence "Der Huinen" became "Derhune/Terhune".

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Such families are very, very hard to trace. I would be curious to know about documents mentioning Albert Terhune and his son? How were they traced if there are no records? (note that the Paris archives were almost entirely destroyed in 1870). I am very curious about this - I found several confusing profiles and families while cleaning up messy merges this week, some said to be Huguenot, unfortunately not sourced most of the time. I would really like to know more how the lines were established, based on what kind of sources.

Answer 1

There are quite a few hits if one searches the internet ''Ter Hunen Genealogy" one source (The Secret Genealogy) claims that the surname (specifically mentioning Jan Albertsen Ter Hunen) [...] Hune is a Jewish first name [...] but more importantly, there appears to be a neighbourhood in Paris's left bank called ''La Hune'' [....] Wealthy Sephardic Jews built communities on the Left Bank of the Seine River. The name for the old Jewish quarter, located on the Left Bank, means the swamp. If you have ''French" Ancestry with surnames that sound similar to this, as in Des Marets, Maretz, etc. you should consider that they might have been Jews [...] and it goes on and on ...

Another document (page 6) dating from the 1450's as far as I can gather, has this interesting old text: ACTUM IN DIE TRANSLATIONIS MARTINI (JULI 4). FOL.71 VOOR RICOLT VAN DIREN EN ALBERT HERMSZ BEKENDEN WOLFF ARNTSZ EN JAN WOUTERSZ DAT ZIJ VERKOCHT HEBBEN REYNER HERBERTSZ HUN AANDEEL AAN DAT GOED TE HOUWYCK, GELEGEN TE HUNEN DAT BERNT DE WOELEN ERVE PLACHT TE WEZEN, ONDER VERBAND VOOR DE WARING VAN ZIJN (and there are 3 other historic references from the early 1500's to this place as well. 

My guess that it would be perhaps French speaking natives (of either the Jewish or Huguenot persuasion) that emigrated during the latter half of the turbulent 16th century to the Northern provinces and adapted their own surnames to become more blended in the general confusion ... eventually to have totally what I call "Dutchified" surnames ... But it is speculative and also deep historic research ....