Post here to join us in the New Netherland Settlers Project

Question

WikiTree's New Netherland Settlers Project is our collaborative effort to develop and maintain high-quality genealogy information for the people of New Netherland and their descendants.

New Netherland was the 17th-century Dutch colony in eastern North America (mostly in the modern states of New York and New Jersey) controlled by the Dutch West India Company.  Many New Netherland settlers were Dutch, but quite a few of them came from other European places such as Germany, Scandinavia, France, England, Scotland, and the Mediterranean region; some were enslaved Africans; and indigenous Native Americans were part of their community. The scope of the New Netherland Settlers Project currently includes New Netherland descendants born as late as 1776, if they were part of a community where the Dutch culture of New Netherland was prevalent.

If you are interested in participating with this project, please answer this post to join us. In your answer, please tell us about why you are interested in New Netherland (include names of any specific ancestors or New Netherland surnames you are interested in) and tell us how you expect to contribute to the project.

Project members will receive the New Netherland Settlers Project badge on their profiles.

This project is only for WikiTree members. If you are not yet a member of WikiTree, please join the WikiTree community before requesting membership here. See Help:How to Use WikiTree to get started.

Also, we ask project members to:

1. Add new_netherland to your followed tags.
2. After you have been accepted into the project, request to join our Google Group, and include your name and Wikitree ID in your request.
3. Add the category [[Category:New_Netherland_Settlers_Project]] including the brackets, to your biography.

If you have questions about New Netherland or the project, you may find answers on the FAQ page or the New Netherland Settlers Project page. See our advice on reliable sources on the New Netherland Settlers Reliable Sources page and see additional project resources and sourcing advice on our New Netherland Genealogy Resources category. You may even find your ancestors on our Progenitors and Immigrants of the New Netherlands Settlers (though it is quite incomplete!)

PS - Please ANSWER in this G2G thread.

Comments

I am interested in joining the New Netherlands project. I am Landsman-55. My Grandmother was Edna Jane Van Benschoten. I found a lot of my Dutch ancestors back to the Vignes due to the efforts of many of you who traced the Van Benschoten (Bunschoten) line and the first boy born in New Netherlands. I would love to learn more and be part of this project. — L Landsman (Landsman-55)

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Hello! I would like to join. My New Netherland family that I am researching currently are: Burghardt, Van Hoesen, Van Wie, Van Valkenburg, Klauw, Slingerland, Santvoord, Middaugh, Bergen, and Rapalje. I would like to contribute in helping research not only my families but others as well. I love tying things together and digging into things to solve mysteries and make connections. I am a mom, so I research in bits here and there, but I do love focusing on chunks at a time and am working hard to go back through my chart and document and re-verify everything that I have found or have been given by the previous generation of researchers in my family. I also recently found a New Netherlands connection in my husband's family. ~Sharman Rice (Lutz-3115)

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Hello!  I am so excited to see this group and would love to join.  I have only recently found out that our family history reaches back this far, and I have become obsessed learning as much as I can about our roots.  My name is Julena Johnson Doudt, and my ancestors include the Crankheyte, Syboutzen, Ryder, deLint, Pieters, etc.  I have even found out that one of them was included in the 60 or so people who managed to escape the Massacre at Naarden.  (I am humbled by knowing that I would not exist if he hadn't escaped!)

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Me please if you don't mind ,

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Hello! I’m Laurie Cable Olsson, Cable-115. I was fascinated to discover my Dutch ancestors while researching several years ago. Some of them include Romeyn, Van Dyke, Wyckoff, Haegen, Dirckse, Janse.

I would love to collaborate with others on improving our ancestors profiles.

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I am working on processing the backlog of requests that were posted as comments. [Folks: Please post your request by using the Answer this post button.]

A hearty welcome to the New Netherland Settlers project to John Diefenbach, Nathaniel Eaton, Kristin Robinson, Mitchell Wilcox.

You all have the badge now.

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More welcomes to new project members Jan Wink, Jared Crayk, Julena Doudt, and Laurie (Cable) Olsson. We look forward to your contributions.

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Thank you very much, Ellen! Looking forward to participating in this project!

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Hello, my name is Dawn Stansell (Harrold)  I'm very curious about this group as I have relatives who were in New York area in the time of this period.  My 9th removed Great grandmother was Elizabeth De Graff, born in 1697, who married my Great grandfather Nicholas Stansell ,born in 1669, in 1710 in New York. Her parents were Claas De Graff and Elisabeth Brouwer.If eligible I would love to join.

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Welcome to Dawn.

Answer 1

Hello, my name is Anita Sohus. I am a descendant of Isaac Seloivre (1616-1681) and his son and grandson who emigrated to North America about 1683 (Delaware and New York).  My g-g-grandfather was Abraham Selover, born about 1809 and died 23 Feb 1862 in Cape May County, NJ in his 53rd year..  He married Mary Cresse in 1833, but no records have been found of his birth family.  Thank you.

Comments

Glad to have you in the project, Anita. Isaac Seloivre 1616 is in WikiTree as https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Seloivre-2 . You are too new here to have pre-1700 editing privileges, but I hope you will build up your credits here by working on profiles for your more recent family. Births around 1809 can be tough to find, but never say never!

Answer 2

Hello - I grew up in Upstate NY, and have many Dutch ancestors through my maternal grandfather. Recently, we have made many breakthroughs with this secondary source, which is very well documented and has proven invaluable:

Stockman, D. Wade (Donald Wade), Grunwell, Robert L., and Grunwell, Betsy S. The van den Berghs in America. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/190860-the-van-den-berghs-in-america?offset=

My mother is a librarian, and who I inherited my genealogy bug and love for research through.

I spend quite a bit of time in Albany NY, and love heading over to the State Library to research. I am happy to contribute however I can!

Comments

Thanks for volunteering to join this project, Dan! I look forward to collaborating with you on shared ancestors -- and to your help as a "local" in Albany.

Answer 3

Greetings! I am working on my maternal lineage including, but not limited to, Schaghen (1465-1590), Seylemaecker (1585-1642), Velius (I have a plethora of information on Dirck rebranding Maerten's line to Velius [Viele], Viele (1640-1906 [the end of my part in this line]). I would love to join your collaboration. I am very interested in researching this as I am filling in "gaps" in previous documentation. I am not overly fond of miscellany information (ie. before, circa, about) hence, I promise to be thorough in my investigations. Thank you for your consideration. [Boyer-6474]

Comments

Welcome to this project, Mary. Happy to have you as a new collaborator!

Answer 4

Hello!  My name is Donna Clark-Mauel.  Many branches of my family including Henry Pearsall-10, Ann Pankhurst-69, John Seaman-10, and many more were New Netherland Settlers.  I would like to learn more about them through the project.

Comments

Glad to have you in this project, Donna.

The ancestors you name are largely people who lived in New Netherland, but as part of a largely separate English community. I have hopes of spinning off a new project to do greater justice to your English ancestors in early New York.

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Interesting!  See, I am all ready learning!

Answer 5

I would like to join this project. I have DNA proven Conklin ancestors dating back Conklin-242. I'm looking forward to joining this project and learning more about this remarkable time in the history of our country.

Comments

Glad to have you in the project, Michael. I see that you've added your Conklin Y-DNA data here. I imagine that there are some interesting stories to be discovered in your Conklin paternal line.

Answer 6

My name is Ryan Albanese. Brand new to genealogy research. I am the grandson of Gloria Brown. After coming into possession of the Brown Family Tree, I have been curious to see how much further back our family's history can be traced. I currently live in The Netherlands and have the ability to do further research at local archives, but I need some more data!

Brown Family 1650-1900s

Comments

Hi, Ryan. Glad to know of your interests, but as you are still a Guest Member of WikiTree you are not eligible to join this project. Feel free to read our content for now -- and after you have become a full WikiGenealogist Member (still free) you can ask to join the project.

Answer 7

I am Rose Weidenheimer. My second great grandfather was Elijah Clark, his mother was Aeltje Westfall, the daughter of Daniel Westfall and Maria Westbrook. I would like to add my Dutch ancestors to WikiTree, does this qualify me to be a member of the New Netherland Settlers group?

Comments

Welcome to this project, Rose. You have already seen that some of your New Netherland ancestors (such as Daniel and Maria) already have WikiTree profiles, but many of those profiles are in serious need of improvement. There's also plenty of opportunity to extend family lines (like Maria Westbrook's line) and add more relatives. I look forward to your contributions.

PS - Please bone up on the project's information and guidance (especially on Naming) at the New Netherland Settlers Project page and other pages linked there.

Answer 8

Hello. My name is Duane Kristopher DeWitt and I am a descendent from Tjerck Claessen DeWitt. I am also descended from Pieter Janszen (Wit) de Witte. I love learning about the history of my family lines and look forward to learning more.

Comments

Hi, Duane. Welcome to this project. You certainly have a lot of DeWitt heritage!

As with Rose's ancestry, plenty of your DeWitts are in WikiTree, but many of their profiles are in serious need of improvement (for example, sources), and there's also opportunity to extend family lines and add more relatives  -- if we can work out the puzzles resulting from people and families with the same names.

PS - Please bone up on the project's information and guidance (especially on Naming) at the New Netherland Settlers Project page and other pages linked there.

Answer 9

I am interested in this thread/group because my Schouten ancestors emigrated from Holland to New Netherland. If my research is correct, they traveled across the Atlantic on De'Otter, arriving in New Amsterdam on 17 February 1659. 

Johannes and his family arrived aboard the ship “Der Otter” in New Amsterdam on 17 Feb 1659.

     Chrster, Chris. “The Brouwer Genealogy Database.” http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brouwergenealogydata/index.htm Accessed 23 May 2016.

Comments

Thank you for joining us in this project, Fred. Fasten your seatbelt, as you have an interesting journey ahead of you, delving into New Netherland.

From your edit history, I guessed that Willem Schouten (1729) is your identified ancestor. I found his parents in WikiTree and connected him to their profiles. From that, I see that Willem is in the branch of Symen Schouten. Although some genealogies have treated Symen as a child of Johannes Lucaszen Schouten (1635-1690), research published in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record in the 1980s shows that these are two separate family lines. The Brouwer Genealogy Database at https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brouwergenealogydata/genealogy/p577.htm#i142941 is a free source that describes some of this work (use this URL, as the one you posted no longer takes us to the content).

Answer 10

I am interested in joining the Project.  I am Bartley-1530 and I grew up in the Hudson Valley. While I unfortunately no longer live there, I do maintain ties to that area.  I am a long-time genealogist just starting to become more familiar with WikiTree.  Some of my NN ancestral names include Buys, de Trieux, Duytser, Freer, Overbagh, Schermerhorn, Van Hoesen, Vigne, and numerous others.  My family stayed put for a very long time!  --Dawn

Comments

Hi, Dawn. You and I met earlier in a discussion of a profile merge. Thanks for joining this Project.

We have plenty of work to do to improve profile quality, add more New Netherlanders to WikiTree, improve our background content on New Netherland, incorporate new research, and deal with ongoing maintenance of profiles.

Answer 11

I am interested in joining.  My ID is Harris-52911.  One of my ancestors is Arent Isaacszen van Hoeck (Isacksen-12).  I have several DNA matches to others who also claim him. 

Comments

Thanks for joining us, Cherie. Please take some time to review the project page to learn a bit about the project, New Netherland, and our policies and protocols. New Netherland and its genealogy have been a learning experience for pretty much all of us. I hope you enjoy learning about your ancestors -- and helping to improve profiles for them and other New Netherlanders.