I've found another Beeks ancestor that I overlooked,, and I've found almost enough to actually write a paragraph or two about him. I always enjoy finding these ancestors from The Netherlands, who were some of the first settlers of New Amsterdam, later New York city. It helps remind me that America was not just Puritans and Cavaliers, but has other heritages also, dating back to the first settlements of the continent. (Yes, I know there were Swedish settlers, French Huguenots and missionaries, and early s Spanish settlers, too, and I know there were native Americans who were here first). But ever since grade school, the Dutch settlers have interested me. And I'm a little bit jealous that these folks belong to my husband's family, and not mine!
It's possible that this was originally a French or Walloon Huguenot family, and it's possible that Jan Meet was father, a man who appears in English records. But actual proof as to his parentage and origins is lacking. The first we really know of him was that he married Styntje Jacobs on September 22, 1654 in Amersfoort, Utrecht, The Netherlands. The town had a Protestant majority, but a large Catholic minority and there must surely have been religious tensions there. Whether or not that was the reason the Meets emigrated to New Netherlands, we don't know.
He and his wife and family of four children left Amersfoort, Netherlands in March of 1663 in the ship "Rosetree". They arrived at a time of great political unrest, as the colony was about to be taken over by the English. By October of 1664, Pieter Meet took an oath of allegiance to the English King Charles II, and so began adjusting to a new continent and a new political reality. It's unclear how much impact this had on the every day lives of the settlers. Pieter was a resident of what became Brooklyn for perhaps 16 years but if found on a tax "rate" page for Bushwick in 1683. He purchased land there in 1680.
It's not clear whether it was his son or whether it was Pieter himself who moved to land near Hackensack, New Jersey. Some records say he died there in 1697 and some say he died at Bushwick. He was apparently not active in town government. We don't know that there was any conflict with the native Americans during his lifetime, in his towns. we just don't know much about him at all. But we do know he cared enough for religious or economic freedom to come to America and worship as he pleased, with the chance to give his family a solid economic base.
We can be grateful for all the families that made this trip, no matter where they went or when they arrived. They are part of the history of America, and of the history of the Beeks family.
The line of descent is:
Pieter Janse Meet-Styntje Jacobs
Jan Pieterse Meet-Gerritsje Jillsae Mandeville
Maretie Meet-Peter Demarest
Lea Demarest-Samuel David Demarest
Sarah Demarest-Benjamin Slot
William Lock-Elizabeth Teague
Sally Lock-Jeremiah Folsom
Leah Folsom-Darlington Aldridge
Harvey Aldridge-Margaret Catherine Dunham
Gretta Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks
Mary Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Note that the first person probably not of Dutch heritage in this list was Jeremiah Folsom.
Showing posts with label Meet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meet. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2019
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Beeks line: Gilles de Mandeville 1626-1701 Immigrant
You may not be able to guess from the name that this is another ancestor from what is now The Netherlands. That's because it seems that there is no one "correct" way to write his name. Some list him as Aegidius, some as Giles Jensen, some as Yellis, and I'm not sure that the Mandeville surname really "sticks", although he has parents and grandparents all the way back to 1525 who also have been given that surname. I'm going to call him Gilles because that's easier for me, but yet reminds me this is not an Englishman.
Gilles was born in 166 in Veluwe, Gelderland, the Netherlands in 1626, the son of Rev.Jan Michealse and Trintgen Wilma Van Harderwijk Mandeville. Oh, he may have been born in France and baptized in Doesburk, Geldeland, the Netherlands. I think he was likely born in the Netherlands, unless the information about his parent's birthplace is incorrect. The first think we really know about Gilles is that he, his wife Elsje Pieterse Hendricks, and four children sailed on the "de Trouw", to New Amsterdam, supposedly traveling with Peter Stuyvesant. That makes a nice story, the Stuyvesant connection, but I'm not sure that Stuyvesant had gone anywhere so that he would have been returning in 1659. (I could be wrong about that, of course, and it is likely that the families knew each other. I just don't find anything that says Stuyvesant had gone to the Netherlands in 1658-59. He seems to have been in New Amsterdam the whole time.)
He paid the way of himself and his family so he was not a poor man. He is associated with several pieces of land at Long Island, atNew Amersfoort and New Amsterdam, and when the English took over the Dutch colony, he was on a tax list for New York in 1676.He also had a farm at Flatbush and 30 acres at Greenwich. The main estate, the farm o Manhattan Island, was in what is now Greenwich Village. Gilles and Elsje were members of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York.
In his will, written in September of 1696 and proven May 22, 1701, he left all of his estate during Elsje's widowhood. His farm in Queens county, near Hempstead, with houses, barns,etc he left to his oldest son Hendrick,. The farm at Greenwich was to be sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds divided among his six adult children. The final execution probably didn't take long, as Elsje herself made her will the same date that Gilles' will was proven.
Gilles appears to have been a hard-working man with a good business sense, and enough money to get started in his new life in the New Netherlands. If he actually lived in all the places that he had land, he could almost be considered a real estate developer. I wonder what he would think of his most lasting "development", Greenwich Village, and its property values now!
The line of descent is:
Gilles de Mandeville-Elsje Hendricks
Gerritje Mandeville-Jan Pieterse Meet
Maretje Meete-Peter Demarest
Lea Demarest-Samuel David Demarest
Sarah Demarest-Benjamin Slot
William (Slot) Lock-Elizabeth Teague
Sally Lock-Jeremiah Folsom
Leah Folsom-Darlington Aldridge
Harvey Aldridge-Margaret Catherine Dunham
Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks
Mary Margaret Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Their descendants
Gilles was born in 166 in Veluwe, Gelderland, the Netherlands in 1626, the son of Rev.Jan Michealse and Trintgen Wilma Van Harderwijk Mandeville. Oh, he may have been born in France and baptized in Doesburk, Geldeland, the Netherlands. I think he was likely born in the Netherlands, unless the information about his parent's birthplace is incorrect. The first think we really know about Gilles is that he, his wife Elsje Pieterse Hendricks, and four children sailed on the "de Trouw", to New Amsterdam, supposedly traveling with Peter Stuyvesant. That makes a nice story, the Stuyvesant connection, but I'm not sure that Stuyvesant had gone anywhere so that he would have been returning in 1659. (I could be wrong about that, of course, and it is likely that the families knew each other. I just don't find anything that says Stuyvesant had gone to the Netherlands in 1658-59. He seems to have been in New Amsterdam the whole time.)
He paid the way of himself and his family so he was not a poor man. He is associated with several pieces of land at Long Island, atNew Amersfoort and New Amsterdam, and when the English took over the Dutch colony, he was on a tax list for New York in 1676.He also had a farm at Flatbush and 30 acres at Greenwich. The main estate, the farm o Manhattan Island, was in what is now Greenwich Village. Gilles and Elsje were members of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York.
In his will, written in September of 1696 and proven May 22, 1701, he left all of his estate during Elsje's widowhood. His farm in Queens county, near Hempstead, with houses, barns,etc he left to his oldest son Hendrick,. The farm at Greenwich was to be sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds divided among his six adult children. The final execution probably didn't take long, as Elsje herself made her will the same date that Gilles' will was proven.
Gilles appears to have been a hard-working man with a good business sense, and enough money to get started in his new life in the New Netherlands. If he actually lived in all the places that he had land, he could almost be considered a real estate developer. I wonder what he would think of his most lasting "development", Greenwich Village, and its property values now!
The line of descent is:
Gilles de Mandeville-Elsje Hendricks
Gerritje Mandeville-Jan Pieterse Meet
Maretje Meete-Peter Demarest
Lea Demarest-Samuel David Demarest
Sarah Demarest-Benjamin Slot
William (Slot) Lock-Elizabeth Teague
Sally Lock-Jeremiah Folsom
Leah Folsom-Darlington Aldridge
Harvey Aldridge-Margaret Catherine Dunham
Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks
Mary Margaret Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Their descendants
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Beeks line: Jans Pieterse Meet 1660- , Immigrant
Technically this post should be about the father of Jans Pieterse Meet, Pieter Jansen Meet. However, what little I know of Pieter Jansen Meet can be written in two or three sentences. He married Styntje Jacobs in Amersfoort, Utrecht, The Netherlands in 1654 and came to New Netherlands in 1663 with their four children, ranging in age from 19 to 3, and died in 1695 in Hackensack, New Jersey. So far that is what I know of the immigrant father, although I'll be looking for more information about him.
Jans Pieterse Meet (somehow some of the family became Meads) was just three years old when the family came to New Amsterdam on the ship "Rose Tree" in 1663. It may or may not have been a surprise to the family that about a year later, they were no longer living in a Dutch colony, as England took it over in 1664. Still, although the government was now English, the colony and all the settlements around it were composed of Dutch immigrants, and the family would have found friends and possibly relatives already here. There were people to "show them the ropes" of how to live in the New World.
We don't know what trade or occupation Pieter Jansen practiced, but his son Jans Pieterse was a weaver. He may have learned this from his father, or he may have been apprenticed in some fashion to another tradesman. Of course, he also acquired land as he matured. On May 11,1687, he was married to Grietje Mandeville, the daughter of Gilles Jansen de Mandeville and Elsie Hendricks on Manhattan Island. He was listed as a "poll" at Bushwick but by 1692 the new family was living at Flatbush, which appears to be a different location, although both are part of what is now the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
The record of where he lived and when is a bit confusing. He purchased property in 1695, 500 acres in what is now Mountain View, New Jersey. He joined the Dutch Reformed church in Hackensack in 1699. Yet in 1703 he was reported as living in New York City There were at least 6 children born to this couple-Maretje, Jan Janse, Jacob Janse, Christina, Elsje, and Gilles, but it's not clear where each was born. On October 7, 1710 he and three other men purchased 1000 acres in Morris County, N.J. He's believed to have died in New Jersey.
He wrote his will on November 1, 1709 and is thought to have died about 1714. I haven't yet located a copy of the will, but reports are that it wasn't probated until April 27, 1745, if that last date isn't a typographical error. I'd love to find the will, and an inventory, and if the 1745 date is correct, try to figure out why it took almost 30 years for this to go to probate. But for now, that part of the story is a mystery.
The Beeks family has so many interesting lines in it, from German to Dutch to English to French, but for some reason the Dutch lines particularly intrigue me. I'm glad to know this much about this family, even though I wish I knew more! Most of the information in this post came from the information on Geni, a Rootsweb post, and the Mills-Burkholder genealogy. I'd like to find more!
The line of descent is
Jans Pieterse Meet-Grietje Mandeville
Maretje Meet-Peter Demarest
Lea Demarest-Samuel David Demarest
Sarah Demarest-Benjamin Slot
William Lock-Elizabeth Teague
Sally Lock-Jeremiah Folsom
Leah Folsom-Darlington Aldridge
Harvey Aldridge-Margaret Catherine Dunham
Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks
Mary Margaret Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Their descendants
Jans Pieterse Meet (somehow some of the family became Meads) was just three years old when the family came to New Amsterdam on the ship "Rose Tree" in 1663. It may or may not have been a surprise to the family that about a year later, they were no longer living in a Dutch colony, as England took it over in 1664. Still, although the government was now English, the colony and all the settlements around it were composed of Dutch immigrants, and the family would have found friends and possibly relatives already here. There were people to "show them the ropes" of how to live in the New World.
We don't know what trade or occupation Pieter Jansen practiced, but his son Jans Pieterse was a weaver. He may have learned this from his father, or he may have been apprenticed in some fashion to another tradesman. Of course, he also acquired land as he matured. On May 11,1687, he was married to Grietje Mandeville, the daughter of Gilles Jansen de Mandeville and Elsie Hendricks on Manhattan Island. He was listed as a "poll" at Bushwick but by 1692 the new family was living at Flatbush, which appears to be a different location, although both are part of what is now the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
The record of where he lived and when is a bit confusing. He purchased property in 1695, 500 acres in what is now Mountain View, New Jersey. He joined the Dutch Reformed church in Hackensack in 1699. Yet in 1703 he was reported as living in New York City There were at least 6 children born to this couple-Maretje, Jan Janse, Jacob Janse, Christina, Elsje, and Gilles, but it's not clear where each was born. On October 7, 1710 he and three other men purchased 1000 acres in Morris County, N.J. He's believed to have died in New Jersey.
He wrote his will on November 1, 1709 and is thought to have died about 1714. I haven't yet located a copy of the will, but reports are that it wasn't probated until April 27, 1745, if that last date isn't a typographical error. I'd love to find the will, and an inventory, and if the 1745 date is correct, try to figure out why it took almost 30 years for this to go to probate. But for now, that part of the story is a mystery.
The Beeks family has so many interesting lines in it, from German to Dutch to English to French, but for some reason the Dutch lines particularly intrigue me. I'm glad to know this much about this family, even though I wish I knew more! Most of the information in this post came from the information on Geni, a Rootsweb post, and the Mills-Burkholder genealogy. I'd like to find more!
The line of descent is
Jans Pieterse Meet-Grietje Mandeville
Maretje Meet-Peter Demarest
Lea Demarest-Samuel David Demarest
Sarah Demarest-Benjamin Slot
William Lock-Elizabeth Teague
Sally Lock-Jeremiah Folsom
Leah Folsom-Darlington Aldridge
Harvey Aldridge-Margaret Catherine Dunham
Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks
Mary Margaret Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Their descendants
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)