According to the record of baptisms at the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam, Wyntie, daughter of Pieter Stoutenburg and Aefje van Tienhonven, was baptized at the General's Bouwerij (farm) in 1662. The General was Peter Stuyvesant who was the Director-General in New Amsterdam on behalf of the Dutch West India Company. Stuyvesant had a house at the very end of lower Manhattan. Because I assumed that he had a bouwerij (bowery) attached to his home, I couldn't reconcile that fact the Wyntie was baptized at the General's Bouwerij and not at the church in the fort. The church in the fort was within walking distance of Peter Stuyvesant's home.
Fortunately I came across a magazine on the Internet, Americana. As I read it, I realized that Stuyvesant's Bouwerij was outside of the city wall. I also knew that Pieter Stoutenburg had a house and lot outside the city wall. Families that lived outside the wall were subject to attacks by aborigines. New Amsterdam afforded protection to its inhabitants against these attacks but not for those who lived outside the wall.
There apparently was some pressure by Thomas Hall and Wolfert Webber to provide protection to those who lived outside the wall. On May 3, 1660, the New Amsterdam council allowed a village to be established near Augustyn Heermans’ bouwerij and that of the Director-General. The village was established to provide a place in which the sparsely spaced inhabitants could go for protection from attack.
The village was established in the triangle formed by present day 3rd Avenue, 4th Avenue and St. Mark’s Place. The village included a blacksmith shop, a tavern and a schoolhouse. Stuyvesant erected a chapel on his bouwerij in which he solicited Domine Selyns to preach to the inhabitants on Sunday afternoons.
In addition to preaching on Sunday afternoons, Domine Selyns performed marriages and baptisms at Stuyveant’s bouwerij. He returned to the Netherlands in 1664 after the British took control. Although he returned to New York City in 1682 to be minister of the Reformed Dutch congregation, when he departed in 1664 his records were transferred to the church at the fort and copied into its baptismal record book.
The magazine also indicated that Pieter was an elder at the Stuyvesant Bouwerij congregation and that he and others joined the church at the fort after Selyns returned to Europe.
Source:
The Hamlet at the Bouwerij Part I by Hopper Striker Mott. Americana Volume 10, July 1915. Pages 660-676
New York City:The National Americana Society
My sister added a post on her Facebook wall that mentioned microwave popcorn. She bought microwave popcorn before she had a microwave oven. Her post made me recall my own microwave popcorn initiation.
I was working in the BioMathematics Department at UCLA. One of the employees came with a bag of microwave popcorn that he/she had bought in a vending machine and popped in the microwave oven. The bag looked like a standard brown lunch bag.
We had a microwave oven in our apartment and I really like popcorn. So, I told my husband Charley about this microwaveable popcorn. If I had more common sense, I would have found out more about this microwave popcorn in a bag before I told him about it. We had a microwave adventure shortly after we married.
The instruction booklet that came with the Litton microwave oven included warnings about cooking with metal as well as not cooking eggs in the shells. The booklet implied that you could not tell when the egg was cooked.
My engineering husband didn't understand why this would be a problem. So he decided to conduct an experiment. He cooked the egg in the shell for a few seconds more, then cracked the shell to release some steam. He cooked the egg for a bit longer. The egg exploded and made a huge mess!
The door to the oven was only a metal plate with tiny holes. Egg penetrated every hole in the door. I had to use a toothpick to clean egg out of each hole.
I had no idea that my popcorn adventure would be anything like the egg explosion! Charley decided not to use a paper bag. I don't know if that was a good or bad decision. He instead decided to use one of my Corningware pots in which to pop the popcorn.
After a few minutes in the microwave oven, only a few kernels had popped. He added more time and still very few kernels had popped. Several more attempts yielded very little popped kernels. At this point, Charley decided to remove the lid to the Corningware pot to look at the kernels. Fortunately he used a potholder to remove the lid as it burst into flames when he touched the glass lid.
He let the lid cool before attempting to touch it again. When he lifted the lid, we saw stalactites of glass hanging from the underside of the lid. The lid had become so hot that the glass began to melt.
Popcorn kernels and ceramic pots contain very little liquid. Glass, on the other hand, has a liquid state. The glass lid absorbed the microwave energy becoming hot. Charley shortly thereafter learned that the paperbag contained oil, an essential ingredient to make the popcorn pop.
I volunteer as an arbitrator on the FamilySearch.org indexing project. Recently, I downloaded a batch of marriage records from Lake County, Indiana to arbitrate. Each batch of records is indexed by two individuals and the arbitrator, in the case of a descrepancy between the indexers, decides which of the two are correct.
One of the indexers for this batch determined that the marriages took place in Lake County while the other left this field blank. The rules for indexing state that you are to enter what you see for each field.
Looking at the image of the register page, I saw no place in which the location of the marriage was recorded. I agreed with the indexer who left this field blank. However, I could see why the second indexer decided that the marriages took place in Lake County.
The marriage license was issued by the clerk at the county courthouse in Crown Point, Indiana. One the same day Justice of the Peace, Howard H. Kemp performed most of these marriages. This indexer assumed that since the license was issued at a courthouse and the marriage was performed by a justice of the peace on the same day, then the marriage took place at the courthouse from which the license was issued.
This was probably true.
Arbitrating this same batch, I came across an entry in which both indexers entered the same name but I disagreed. The name that each indexer entered was Stalmaker. I looked at the name again and again and felt that it was Stalnaker. I did a little research and found this bride. The interesting thing is I found this couple in Nebraska in the records I encountered. Other than this marriage entry, there is no indication that they were in Indiana.
By now I was intrigued by this couple and also wondered if Howard Kemp was a justice of the peace at the courthouse in Crown Point. I came across a book on Rudolph Valentino entitled Dark Lover: Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino by Emily W. Leider. On page 255, I found an account of his marriage to Natacha, AKA Winifred de Wolfe, in 1923.
The marriage was performed by Justice of the Peace Howard H. Kemp at 6:05 pm in Crown Point, Indiana. The couple had wanted to marry in Chicago but there seemed to be a waiting period between the issuance of the marriage license and when the marriage actually could take place. Rudolph and Natacha drove to Crown Point to be married.
As I stated earlier, the marriages in the batch that I arbitrated took place on the same day that the license was issued. So it would seem that Indiana did not have a waiting period. I don't know if in the 1920s Wisconsin or Iowa had waiting periods.
Lake County is a county in the northwest corner of the Indiana sharing a border with Illinois and Lake Michigan. So for Valentino, the Crown Point courthouse was closer to Chicago than a courthouse in either of these states. In the case of Albert and Irene from Nebraska, I can only speculate that all the neighboring states including Nebraska had waiting periods.
On the otherhand, the couple may have been in Chicago visiting and on the spur of the moment decided to get married.
Who was George N. MacKenzie?
He was the editor of a series of books that was published in the early twentieth century on colonial families of the United States. These volumes contained genealogies of early families. Unfortunately, I found much of the information in these volumes to be full of errors. Most recently, I found a tree that referenced Everardus Bogardus and Anneke Jans.
Everardus Bogardus is called the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam in Colonial Families of the United States of America, Volume I (George Norbury MacKenzie, Editor). This is not correct. In fact, the entire paragraph on Page 224 is full of errors. The paragraph reads:
"Dominie Everardus Bogardus, d. 1647; m. 21st June, 1642, Anneka Jans Roeloff; he was a native of Holland and the first minister of the Dutch Church at New Amsterdam; he obtained a grant of six acres on Manhattan Island, which afterwards became Trinity Church property; his wife Anneka Jans, was a granddaughter of Prince William of Orange, who afteward became King of Holland."
At the time that his book was compiled (1912), in the United States, the Netherlands was often called Holland, This is not really accurate as Holland could refer to one of two provinces, Noord Holland and Zuid Holland. Domine Bogardus was native of Utrecht Province.
Everardus was the second Reformed Dutch minister at New Amsterdam, not the first.
Bogardus did not marry Anneke Jans in 1642. The line in the book following the passage cited above states that Bogardus' son William married August 26, 1659. (See note below.) If Everardus and Anneke married in 1642, Willem would be about 16 or younger when he married.
Looking at the baptismal and marriage records in New Amsterdam in the 1600s, I find it highly unlikely that Willem Bogardus was married at such a young age. Males typically married in their early 20s.The baptismal records begin with the baptism of Jacob Wolpherttz's daughter, Neeltje on September 23, 1639. I found a record of the baptism of Cornelis Bogardus on October 9, 1640, of Jonas Bogardus on January 4, 1643, and of Pieter Bogardus on April 2, 1645.
Anneke Jans and Everardus Bogardus were clearly married before October 9, 1640. Willem Bogardus was their eldest child and was likely born before September, 1639, the date of the first entry in the Doop Book.The records of the city include an entry in which Anneke Jans, wife of Everardus Bogardus sold a hog on October 19, 1638.
It was In 1642 that Anneke Jans' daughter from her first marriage married Hans Kierstede. It was at the celebration of this marriage that Everardus Bogardus was able to garner enough pledges to be able to erect a permanent structure for his church.
The property mentioned in the paragraph did become the property of the Trinity Church in New York City and was the subject of legal battles beginning in the mid-eighteenth century and culminating in the early twentieth century. The descendants never prevailed in their several suits. The reasons are well documented.
Anneka is not the way that Anneke Jans' name was recorded. This is not the way this given name was spelled during this period. Anneke, Annetie, Annetje and Annetjen is the way this name was recorded. She was never Anneka Jans Roeloffs. That would have meant that she was the daughter of Roeloff. And that brings me to the last point.
Anneke Jans was the daughter of Jan. She was not "the granddaughter of Prince William of Orange, who afterward became King of Holland." Willem of Orange, also called Willem the Silent, died in 1584. He was instrumental in uniting the provinces, but he never was a king. Willem I, the first king of the Netherlands, was crowned in 1815.
It is important to keep the Williams straight. Willem the Silent's grandson, Willem, became William III, King of England in 1689. William III ruled jointly with his wife Mary Stuart.
Anneke Jans was the daughter of Tryn Jonas and Jan (patronym not known). She was born in Norway, not in the Netherlands. This story of her parentage appears to have been concocted sometime in the late nineteenth century.
Note: Willem Bogardus was married after October 29, 1659. This is the date on which the marriage banns were posted. "29 Aug. 1659. Willem Bogardus, Van N. Amsterdam, en Wyntje Sybrandts,Van O. Amsterdam."
I came across a family tree on Ancestry.com that included General Lewis Cass. I was very much interested in this tree as Lewis Cass' daughter, Matilda was married to a very distant cousin of mine, Henry Ledyard. When I say very distant, he is my 6th cousin 4 times removed.
General Cass was the governor of the Michigan Territory, which at that time included the current states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and parts of North and South Dakota. While researching my family, I found family in Cass County, in most of these states. My grandparents are buried in Cass County, Minnesota. I hadn't connected why so many of these states had a Cass County until I learned about Lewis Cass.
I generally don't spend much time on the ancestors of people who marry into my family. Typically, I try to find out birth, death and marriage dates for the parents of a person who married a relative. When I searched for Lewis Cass, I was surprised how much was written about him. I was also surprised at some of the things written about him or his family that were not correct.
Then I came across another tree that sent a red flag up the pole when I saw it. Lewis Cass had another daughter, Isabella. This tree claimed that she married Baron Theodorus Marinus Roest Von Linburg who was the Dutch Foreign Minister to the United States. The words baron and von were the triggers.
The word Von is German, not Dutch. It translate to the English word of just as the Dutch word van would translate. However, the German word "Von" signifies a person of the nobility of that place whereas the Dutch word "van" simply means of or from. Baron is a title used in the regions that today comprise Germany. It is not a Dutch title.
I came across an inventory of letters and documents relating to the family Roest van Limburg from 1604 to 1978 at the Archives of the Netherlands. Theodorus Marinus Roest van Limburg is addressed in letters as Mr. not as Baron. So where did the author of the tree get this idea that Theodorus was a baron?
So I decided to search further. I found a book that was printed in 1922, "The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922 Volume II." There it was, big as life! But that same search found another book. Only this book is recent (1996). It is entitled "Lewis Cass and Politics of Moderation" by Willard Carl Klunder at Kent State University. To me it looks like Mr. Klunder lifted the text from the 1922 book.
Since it was published by Kent State University, I can hardly blame someone researching Lewis Cass and his descendants for incorporating this junk into their tree.
I wrote about the spinning wheel that Aunt Eleanor mentioned in her journal. I also mentioned that my mother told me that the spinning wheel was given to a museum and not to one of the greeat-great granddaughters.
My cousin Terry read my post and wrote to tell me that her grandmother had not donated the spinning wheel to a museum. If that were the case, I then imagined that it was given to Aunt Eleanor's eldest granddaughter, Terry's sister, or to her beloved Patti. But Terry said that my mother's sister told Aunt Eleanor to give the spinning wheel to her (Terry). I have to say that I was quite surprised.
It was my mother's belief that her sister was hoping that the spinning wheel would go to my cousin Joy, my aunt's only daughter. I saw my aunt frequently. She rarely mentioned Terry or her siblings so I have not a clue as to why Joyce would name Terry as the recipient over her own daughter.
Terry also wrote to tell me that she thought that the spinning wheel should go to Patti and that Patti would probably send me a picture of it if I asked. Terry was so gracious in suggesting to her grandmother that Patti should have the spinning wheel. However, I am a bit saddened that the story my mother told about the spinning wheel being donated to a museum wasn't actually true.
My great-great grandmother, Guri, had 35 great-great granddaughters, most of whom I expect would have liked to have her spinning wheel. If it were in a museum, the daughters of all of her descendants would have an opportunity to be connected to it.
I remember how excited I was to see the portraits of my great (6) grandparents hanging in the Museum of the City of New York. These portraits were painted in mid 1700s. For years, they hung in the living room of a descendant, Caroline Wells. Fortunately for the thousands of Jacobus and Margrietje's descendants, she never married, was an only child and on her death in 1939 she willed the portraits and some other items belonging to Margrietje to the Museum of the City of New York.
My mother started a business in the late 1960s and acquired three cordboards. By the late 1990s, these cordboards were obsolete. Finding parts and people who could repair them was increasingly more difficult. In 2008, I donated one cordboard to the museum in Tustin, California.
It is hard to imagine that items that are a part of one's life will become obsolete and an object of history. That cordboard was over 60 years old and built when my parents were young adults. My mother ran her business til she died. To me that cordboard represents my mother and an important part of her life. I am glad that it will be preserved as a part of the history of Orange County. I hope her future descendants that visit the museum will derive as much pleasure at seeing the cordboard as I did when I viewed portraits.
As I grew older I would not be surprised when items that were common place when I was a child would be a part of a museum exhibit. This was OK afterall I was a child and these items were artifacts of my parents' generation.
As the years passed, I am finding items that were new when I was a young adult are more and more often being added to museum collections and exhibitions.
When I created this blog, I expected that I would be only writing about events and circumstances that impacted my ancestors and stories that they told. But more recent events in my life made me realize that events in the lives of me and my husband were now a part of history.
My husband is now part of the oral history collection at the Silicon Valley Computer History Museum. Then I see other friends from the early years of our courtship and marriage also part of the collection.
The Computer History Museum is local. OK, I can handle the fact that my husband and friends are part of the collection. I had no idea that something of my intimate past would be included at the Smithsonian. I learned that a punch card designed by the UCLA Computer Club was now a part of the Smithsonian collection.
UCLA Computer Club was where I met my husband. I was one of three females that were members at that time when the rest of the membership consisted of about 200 males. Besides me, the other two were Diane and Mary.
As a math major at Cal, I took some programming classes that were part of the mathematics department courses. When I was at UCLA, I discovered the Computer Club, a place that I could get free time on the computer to hone my skills.
To support myself, I worked part time for a professor of Anthropology writing a program to analyze the data he had collected in India. I used the Campus Computing Facility to analyze Dr. Leaf's data. His project was charged based on an MUS. We pronounced this new charging unit moose. The acronym stood for machine unit second.
Computer Club was given so many free MUS to give to the members. One member created a drawing of a moose that was printed on the punch cards sold to the members. This is the image of the Moose punch card held at the Smithsonian:
Apparently the cards were printed on pink cardstock at some time. I remember them looking more like the color of a manilla file folder. Click on the image above to visit the Smithsonian website.
