When Dutch people arrived in the United States or other English-speaking countries, often their names got changed. This was either done on purpose, to make the name easier to write and remember, or by accident because the clerk didn’t know how to spell the name and wrote it down phonetically. For this reason, a single family name can often be found in many different spellings in different documents.
This article gives an overview of the types of changes that names underwent and also gives a list of English versions of Dutch last names. This list is not complete and even for the names that are listed, chances are that many people with those names used even more exotic variants as well.
Common changes
Some of the Dutch names follow a predictable pattern when turned into English:
- Prefixes often get stuck to the name: ten Pas becomes Tenpas, de Jong becomes Dejong.
- Names ending in -ink sometimes change to -ing: Abbink becomes Abbing, Lansink becomes Lansing.
- V becomes F or PH: Veenhuis becomes Feenhouse, Vink becomes Fink or Phink.
- -kk- becomes -ck-: Blekkink to Bleckink.
- An open -e- becomes -a-: Resink to Rasink, Menink to Manink
- -els becomes -les: Wubbels becomes Wubbles.
- Parts of the name that are a noun are translated: -huis becomes -house, -kamp becomes -camp. For example ‘Nijenhuis’ becomes ‘Newhouse’.
- Names derived from occupations get translated: Bakker becomes Baker, Kuiper becomes Cooper, Konings becomes King.
English versions of Dutch last names
List of Americanizations
This list gives Dutch names and spellings of those Dutch names as encountered in American documents.
| Dutch last name | English last name |
|---|---|
| Aarnink, Arning | Arnink |
| Bargerbos | Baggebos |
| Bekerink | Beckerink |
| Brethouwer | Brethower |
| Brusse | Bruce |
| Buiel | Boyle |
| Damkot | Damcott |
| Demkes | Demkis |
| de Groot | DeGroat, DeGroot |
| Deetman | Deitman |
| Esselinkpas | Pas |
| Fukkink | Fern (for obvious reasons), Foking |
| Gerritsen | Garrison |
| Gijsbers | Gysbers, Cysbers |
| Glieuwen | Glewen, Gluen |
| Goudswaard | Houseworth |
| Greupink | Gruepink, Gropink |
| Grevink | Gravink |
| Hengeveld | Hengfeld, Hangrifelt |
| Hoftijzer | Hofterrie, Hoftiezer |
| Kappers | Kappas |
| Kastein | Cartine, Kastien |
| Kempink | Camping |
| Klompenhouwer | Klompenhower |
| Klumpers | Klumpas |
| Koffers | Covers, Covis |
| Kolstee | Coulstay |
| Konings | King |
| Kortschot | Croscut, Cortschot, Crosscut, Croscutt, Koskoty |
| Kots | Coth |
| Leemkuil, Lemkuil | Lemkuel, Lemkuhl, Leemkuel |
| Legters | Lichtus, Ligters |
| Lohuis | Lowhouse |
| Luikenhuis | Lookenhouse, Luikenhouse |
| Luimes | Lomis, Loomis |
| Meenk | Mink, Minks |
| Meerdink | Meijerdink, Meyerdink |
| Meinen, Meijnen | Minon, Mina |
| Navis | Navie, Nabies |
| Nekkers | Neckers |
| Nieuwenhuis, Nijenhuis | Newhouse |
| Obelink, Oberink | Obrink, Obering, O’Brink |
| Pekaar, Pikaar | Pikaart |
| Piek | Pike |
| Ramaker, Rademaker | Ramaker, Reymaker |
| Reessink | Rasink, Resink, Ressink |
| Reusselink | Reslink |
| Roerdink | Rordink |
| Roerdinkveldboom | Veldboom |
| Rospas | Raspas |
| Schreurs | Skewers, Scheurs, Schruis, Schruers |
| Sleijster, Sleister | Gluster, Sluster |
| Smid | Smith |
| Stapelkamp | Stablecamp, Stapelcamp, Staplecamp |
| te Grotenhuis | Te Grotenhouse, TeGrotenhouse, Grotenhouse |
| te Kolstee, te Kolste | TaKolste, Kolste, TeKolste, TeKolstee |
| te Kulve | Teculver, TeKulve |
| ten Bokkel | Tenbuckel, Tembokkel, Buckle |
| ten Broek | Broek |
| ten Hulsen | tenHulsen, tenHulzen, tenHuisen |
| ten Pas | Tempas |
| ter Horst | TerHarst, TerHast |
| van Albeslo | Armslow |
| Varding, Vardink | Fardink |
| Veenendaal | Fendaal |
| Veenhuis | Fainhouse, Fanehouse, Vainhouse |
| Veldboom | Felboom |
| Vervelde | Ver Velde, VerVelde, Felton |
| Vink | Fink, Phink |
| Walvoort | Walvoord, Welfoort, Walfort |
| Welhuis, Welhuizen | Wellhouse, Willhouse |
| Woordes | Wordes |
| Wubbels | Wibbell, Wubbell, Wubbells, Wubbel, Wubble, Wubbles |
About Yvette Hoitink
Hello,
I am trying to find out more about my dutch ancestors (last name is Hanshe). My 4th Great Grandfather named Henry Hanshe lived in New York City in 1795 and I don’t know if he was born there or immigrated sometime during the 18th century but I do know his ancestors were from the Netherlands. If this helps, his wife’s name was Catherine. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Joseph,
I would advise you to collect as much information about your brick wall and his family, associates and neighbors and work back from there. The 1870 census lists parents’ birthplaces, so be sure to collect the 1870 and later census records for all his children to see what they tell about his place of birth. Other records such as Henry Hanshe or his wife’s probate records or obituaries may also provide additional information about their origins, as could their children’s obituaries.
How do you know his ancestors were from the Netherlands? Do you have contemporary sources to confirm that or is it a family story? Hanshe is not a Dutch name. If I pronounce it in English, it sounds like the Dutch first name “Hansje,” a diminutive form of “Hans,” which is short for “Johannes” or John in English. Family stories often have some truth in them but get distorted as generations go by. For example, it may well have been Catherine who had the Dutch roots instead of Henry. I would advise you to keep an open mind about his ethnicity until you find reliable evidence.
What tips do you have for someone without any background info? I know that my family came from the Netherlands, but I don’t have any documents or any info but my name. Do you know if it was changed?
I agree with you that the name Holland suggests that your family is from the Netherlands, but the name “Holland” could easily have been a geographical name elsewhere as well. The Dutch name “Holland” comes from “holt-land,” woodland. It’s not hard to imagine that names like that occurred independently over Western Europe, for example from “hollow land” or “holy land.” The name Holland is pretty common in England as well; it may be that these people came from Holland but I wouldn’t be surprised if their name was derived from an independently created geographical name.
The best way to find out where your family name comes from is to research your direct male line backwards to find the first person who used the name. That should give you an indication of whether he was from the Netherlands or not.
Hello, my GGGrandfather Jon Rodemark / RODEMARKER born between 1806-1812 came to England between 1840-1850 and settled, he gave his birth place as South Lembritcht, Holland.
His father’s name noted on the marriage certificate was Henry.
Grateful if you could give some advice where to start searching please.
Hi Gill,
South Lembritcht is not a place name in the Netherlands. Do you have an image copy of the original document that had this name? It may be worthwhile to double check it to see if there was a transcription error. Of course, the clerk may have transcribed what he heard. There is a village called Limbricht in Limburg, but that’s a small village for which it doesn’t make sense to refer to the southern portion.
The name Rodemarker or Rodemark isn’t a Dutch name either. There are a few people named Rodemaker, mostly in the province of Groningen. See WieWasWie and search for Rodema*k.
The best advice I can give you is to first find out more in English records. What if any spelling variations did he use for his name? What were his children’s names (often they were named after grandparents)? What information did his death certificate or probate records give about place of origin or family members? What was his occupation?
Hi Yvette,
The only clue to his origins was from the English census and I doubt if the writer had ever heard of the place name. I was wondering if his surname should have been Rademakers or similar ?His surname was spelt differently on each census until the family finally settled on the spelling Rodemark. He was a basket maker but there are family stoties that he was a shipwrecked sailor. His first daughter was called Christiana and first son Thomas.
The name could have been Rademaker (meaning: wheelmaker). Because it was an occupational name, the last name Rademaker occurs in different places in the Netherlands. The Rademaker emigrants I’ve researched came from Gelderland and emigrated after 1845.
Do you know their religion? If they are from Limburg, if my suggestion about Limbrecht is correct, they would most likely have been Catholic.
Reading your guys’ discussion now and I can’t help thinking that South Limbricht might be a misspelling of Zuid Limburg, the official name of the province? And indeed, mostly catholic there.
Hope you found out some more Gil?
Examples of surname changes in my family include:
– Vedders (sometimes found as Fedders)
– Knijft became Knyfd
– Van Keimpema became Kempema
– Klein Rooseboom became Rosenboom.
My father’s ancestors immigrated to Iowa in the mid 1800’s when the land was unclaimed. Most of those families did not change the spellings if their names because the population was largely Dutch speaking immigrants.
My mother’s ancestors immigrated to New Jersey, a densely populated area of mixed nationalities. Many of them “Americanized” their first and last names.
My Dutch ancestors also immigrated to Iowa in the mid 1800s. They Americanized Van Cruijningen to Cunningham.
Also Carlier became Collier.
I didn’t Know the Pyke surname came for the Surname Piek, that’s pretty intresting.
I know there some people named Piek went by the name Pyke in the US, but that does not mean that all people named Pyke derived their names from Piek. To find out where your name came from, I recommend you research your family until you find your immigrant ancestor.
I have an early New Netherlands ancestor referred to as Pieter Luyster and one of the islands off the coast was called “Luyster Island”…some of his descendants continued that surname, but mine is listed as Lester. I’ve been told two versions: one that they were English “Lesters” and Luyster is the Dutch version for records etc…or that they were Dutch “Luysters” but my branch anglicized it to Lester…Is there any to determine which explanation that may be? thanks Jerri
The best way to find the origin of any name is to trace it to the first known person who used it. Do you know where Pieter Luyster came from? The name Luyster or Luijster (which would be its Dutch spelling) are not in use today anymore. The name Van de Luijster is, but it is very rare. Without additional research into your immigrant ancestor, I can’t tell you whether the English or the Dutch origin is more likely.
I appreciate the reply. In the interim I heard from another descendant who posted an article written by a Luyster descendant and a Cert. Genealogist. He states that Pieter arrived New Neth. In 1656 with the patronymic of Pieter Cornelis/Cornelisse…and when the English took over and requested Dutch inhabitants adopt a more English sounding surname, Luyster was what Peter chose…he notes as you do, that there is no ‘y’ in Dutch and it was close to lijster…which he says used to mean “frame” and since Pieters was reputed to be a carpenter, it made sense to him….Pieter married twice: first to Aeltien Tyssen and second to Jennetje Sneedicker presumably Dutch women…Unfortunately no one has any information about where he originated and the frequency of that patronymic makes it seem untraceable without an area to explore, but, I’m inclined to believe he was from the Netherlands…Incidentally I greatkt enjoyed my trip to Leiden/Leyden and Amsterdam a few years ago…Thanks Jerri
Great that you have been able to find more information. A ‘lijst’ is a frame, a ‘lijster’ is a bird (thrush). I have never heard the word ‘lijster’ be used for a carpenter. A frame maker would be a ‘lijstemaker.’ Do you know if Pieter had any children from his first marriage? If so, the orphan chamber may have been involved and orphan chamber records might tell you who the guardians were. Guardians were often relatives.
I appreciate the tip about orphans…. my ancestor Thomas appears to be the only sibling to marry an English person, Dorcas Gildersleeve…the others seem to have married men/women of Dutch extraction..perhaps that led/contributed to his changing from Luyster to Lester…thanks again…Jerri
My Dutch ancestors from Gelderland lived very close to the border with then Prussia and many records were recorded in the Catholic church records in German (or Latin) and often the ‘K’ at the end of the surname was changed to a ‘G’ in those records. Thus it was not only the English who modified Dutch names, and the German spelling occurred before they migrated to the USA.
Also, would it be possible to clarify the significance of Klein used before a surname. For some of my Dutch families it seemed to be used some times, but not others. Was Klein a standard prefix or part of the surname?
“Klein” means “small” or “little.” Klein is not a prefix but a part of the name of a farm. For instance, there is the Klein Hesselink farm. In the east of the Netherlands, people were called after the farm they were lived on. Sometimes, a farm got split up into different farms, or a younger son built a new farm near the old one. Usually, the original farm kept the regular name. Let’s say the original farm was called Hesselink, then the new farm could be called Klein Hesselink (Little Hesselink), Nieuw Hesselink (new Hesselink), Hesselinkshuisje (Hesselink’s small house), Hesselinksschoppe (Hesselink’s shed) and a variety of other names. The people who lived on this new farm would then call themselves after this new farm. However, their name was sometimes shortened to the original name. This could also happen after emigration, where the link to the farm was meaningless. I’ve seen several members of the Klein Hesselink family be called Hesselink in US records.
Thank you, Yvette.
I have the Nibbelink family that lived in/near Spork and that name was spelled a variety of ways in church records, including Klein Nibbling.
As always there is no better resource than you!
You’re welcome! I’ve seen the (Klein) Nibbelink family in records as well. There was even a Nibbelink from Varsseveld on the Phoenix in 1847, who died with his family. I haven’t found out their identity.
Very interesting. My husband is a Kleinhesselink from Iowa. We found one missing family changed their linage to Hesselink in Wisconsin.
My mother-in-law’s father was born Orin Veneklasen. His family immigrated from the Netherlands to West Michigan with a group of relatives. When he married his Irish Catholic wife and became Catholic he changed his name to Veneklase since he thought that Veneklasen did not sound like a Catholic name. Apparently all of the Veneklasens and Veneklases in the Holland, Michigan area are related.
My mother is convinced that her grandmother’s maiden name “Bird” has Holland Dutch ancestry. What kind of name change from the Dutch would result in Bird, an English name? The Birds came from New York, and Illinois where her grandmother was born, then she ended up marrying a Stephen Parker in Muscatine, Iowa. She lived in Iowa the rest of her life with Stephen How can the Birds be Holland Dutch?
Have no explanation regarding ‘Bird’, but the spelling of my family’s name had to occur because English does not have the Dutch ‘letter’ “IJ” and thus either a ‘y’ (in long hand ij looks like a y with two dots above it) was substituted or an ‘ie’ replaced the ‘IJ’. It took me several years to finally discover this myself — although I later recalled my grandmother telling me something to that effect when I was a young child.
Some families merely translated their German name into the English equivalent. Could that be the case here? What is the Dutch word for Bird?
Thank you for your prompt reply.
Bird is the English word for “vogel.” It also sounds like the uncommon Dutch name “Baard.” Since people were so creative with finding new variations of their names, it is hard to rule any ethnicity in or out based on an English-sounding name alone.
Thank you for your help. I will be on the look out for Vogel and Baard. Karen Schmidt
Hi Karen: Doesn’t answer your question, but I found it an interesting coincidence that my late husband’s Prussian family were ca, 1885 immigrants to Muscatine. His grandfather’s first cousin Pauline Zellmer married Charles Henry or Henry Charles Bird there. His origins apparently were VA and GA…the assumption was that those Birds were from Great Britain…may not be relevant to your family, but I have German ancestors who passed themselves off as Dutch – possibly because- due to wars – being German wasn’t popular…and the confusion over the German Deutsch [sp?] being mistaken for Dutch…Jerri
Muscatine, Iowa was just a ferry ride from Illinois. Apparently, it was a popular place to get married. As was Maryville, MO for those from southern Iowa. I am at a loss for finding out where to proceed. One possible connection has a senior Bird, possibly Thaddeus /Elisha Bird’s father starting in VA but died in GA. I know Lydia Griffin Agy (her married name) was widowed with seven children when she married Thaddeus/ Elisha Bird and then had Ruth Elmira about six months after they married, if my dates are correct. Lydia’s youngest child with John Agy was about 3 when Ruth was born. She could have been an Agy conceived shortly before John Agy died. Lydia married again in Muscatine after Thaddeus/Elisha Bird died.
Thank you for the idea. I will keep that in mind to remember a possible German connection. I wonder what nationality is the name Agy.
Another coincidence: A professor of literature I knew was a big fan of the ‘famous’ James Agee…Prof. maintained that the surname was originally Agy and they were French Huguenots forced out of France for being Protestants [17th Century?]. In addition to relocating to England and USA, they may well have emigrated to Netherlands…Yvette would probably know…Jerri
Thank you again! Maybe it is the Agy family that was Dutch. Coming to New York in the 18th century via the Netherlands to New Amsterdam might make sense. With such an unusual name, there were few in America, even today. My, how family stories get passed down. Maybe I will research New Amsterdam for that name.
Yes, the Huguenots came to the Netherlands too, mostly to the province of Zeeland but several families settled in Leiden and Amsterdam too. Some of them were in the Netherlands for a few years or generations and then moved to America. Others stayed in the Netherlands. I have several Huguenot ancestors from Zeeland myself.
This has been a most illuminating conversation. Just trying to make sense of family stories has opened up a whole new perspective on my ancestors.
I’m back tracking down another side of the family. The name is Buell, though sometimes, early on, as Buel or Bewell. de Buele was used after the Norman invasion of England. French, Flemish, Dutch. Variations in spelling were numerous in the 17th and 18th century. Were there Dutch records of those names?
I have 26 early to mid 16th c ancestors who came to New Netherland in my maternal and paternal lines..Most had or assumed one word surnames; e.g.Moll, Pier, Post, Banckert, Crankheit…..I’m curious as to why the maternal side tended to be ‘vans’ as in Van Couvenhaven [from Deventer], Van Schaik, Van Wert and Vandervliet whereas in my paternal lines there is one Van Etten, but the others are “De” as in De Duyster, De Grauw, De Hooges, De Lange/Longe…..only other difference besides origins in the Netherlands, is that the maternal line tended to settle in Long Island or New Amsterdam area, whereas the paternal ‘de’ line were in Albany and Kingston area [to use their English names]…Am I incorrect in thinking that both ‘van’ and ‘de’ mean ‘of’?
Van means From. So they were probably living in villages and cities when they got their name. “i’m Tom from Bruseels: becomes Tom Van Brussel So “Van Couvenhaven, Van Schaik, etc were from Villages called that way. De means The. So “De Lange” (“The Tall [one]. So probably one of your ancestors was a tall one “are you Marks son? Yes, i’m a son from Mark the Tall [one].
correction: I meant early to mid 17th C….just off a hundred years is all…
My uncle traced my dutch ancestors back to Hendrick Van Dyck. He came from Utrecht, Holland. Born in 1610 and died in 1688. He is mentioned in the book entitled “Geneology of the first settlers of Schenectady.” He immigrated in 1640., this came from Salem,NJ Historical Society. He was schout fiscaal under Stuyvesant, whatever that means.
Schout fiscaal would mean tax collector. Schout is a title wich was used then for a civil servant usually used for juicidal and or any legal servants.
My husband’s family has disagreed with the pronunciation of our last name for years. Part of the family says De Groodt with a long oo sound while others say it like “boat”. That is the first question. The second question is, is the original way to spell it with the “d” or De Groot? He once met a man who said he came from Holland and that spelling was the old way to spell it. Any help would be appreciated as my husband has always wanted to know.
Thank you,
Lesley De Groodt
Dear Lesley, in dutch spelling your last name would be spelled as de Groot.
Greetings from The Netherlands
Thank you for clarifying the correct spelling of our name. I was so pleased that you responded. Our next question is the pronunciation. Is it De Groot like “boat” or like “oot” like in the word “loot” This has been a big deal to our family. I Will be on the edge of my seat.
Thank you for your time,
Lesley DeGroodt
Groot rhymes with Boat. But I would be very surprised if you can manage the guttural Gr-sound 🙂
I Wasn’t on the edge of my seat for long.My husband is so happy to know that we are teaching our children the correct way to say our name. You are so appreciated. I Wish I could shake your hand.
Can’t thank you enough.
Lesley De Groodt (De Groot)
I’ve had an interest in the pronunciation of American surnames for a while. It’s always seemed tricky to me to predict when the sound-spelling correspondence of the source language (Dutch in these threads) is retained–to some extent–rather than an English sound-spelling correspondence used. When I lived in Denver, a Councilmember, Mary De Groot, ran for mayor. People were surprised to hear De Groot pronounced with a ‘long o’ and I would have predicted otherwise with vowels spelled using digraphs, at least when the source language was Germanic (I’ll spare you the reasons). So I have a few questions: (1) Do some people in the U.S. pronounce their name, De Groot/Groot to rhyme with ‘boot’? (2)
Is Dutch ‘oo’ mostly pronounced as a ‘long o’ in American surnames (there is debate at my work how to pronounce the name of the American athlete Jesse Van Doozer)? (3) How much does popularity of a name (De Groot is a fairly common Dutch surname) condition the retention of Dutch sound-spelling correspondence? (4) Similarly, in areas less settled by the Dutch did greater Anglicization of pronunciation take place (e.g. the pronunciation of Stuyvesant in New York with a ‘long i’ doesn’t surprise me, but, hypothetically, a street in Denver so pronounced would.
I realize these are onomastic questions that don’t directly address genealogy, but I have found these threads very informative and I think people are interested in how Dutch names relate to their Americanized/Anglicized pronunciations. Even brief, informal answers would really help me.
1: I don’t know how most people in the US pronounce “De Groot”. Even if they pronounce the -oot the Dutch way, I doubt they know how to pronounce the guttural G 🙂
2: the -oo- in Dutch is pronounced like -oa- in English, so like you would say groat. Van Doozer is another situation. I think that name may have been Van Duyzer originally (after Duysart in Scotland). The Dutch pronounciation of Duyzer is close to the English pronounciation of Doozer. I think the spelling got changed when people wrote what they heard.
3: I do not have any statistics on this. Many families were in the US for a long time before the De Groot name became so popular in the Netherlands, so I don’t think that has a large effect. Literacy of the people using the name may also be a factor in retaining the original spelling.
4: I have seen this effect in my own research, where Dutch emigrants in the 1800s who settled in English speaking area changed their names much more than people who settled in Dutch speaking areas.
Regarding how Dutch names are pronounced in US, it should also be noted that the Dutch IJ has no equivalent in English and those of us with the IJ had the spelling changed to either ‘y’ (which I am not sure the Dutch use at all) or in my case to ‘ie’. It took me a long time to figure out the IJ in Dutch, but maybe I am just a slow learner.
The UI-UY sound: try the O of OOOnion. That helps American speakers. My last name has an UY-sound too. The G is extremely difficult to pronounce for English speakers (think about Americans say Van GOOO instead of Van goghhhhhhhhhh).If you really wanna learn how to pronounce it. Just listen how Dutch speakers say “Van Goghhhh” and don’t look at the letters 🙂 . I have seen De Groodt AND De Groot in Belgium, 🙂
I’m residing now in Nc, USA.
Hello Lesley,
In the Netherlands are two not blood related families De Groodt.
One comes from Amsterdam and the “dt” at the end would have been a mistake from an official at city hall. After writing ‘de Grood’, the person at the desk would have said, “No, it’s with a t” and a ‘t’ was just added.
One comes from Heumen (near Nijmegen). I am a member of this family.
My father told me one of our ancestors was a French soldier, coming to the Netherlands and his last name La Grand was translated to De Grood and the “t” was added because the normal spelling here is Groot.
I have no confirmation these stories are true! 🙂
In Belgium ‘de Groodt’ is a lot more common.
Yes, the oo is pronounced as in boat.
And the right spelling of “De” is
– With a capital D when after Mrs or Mr (Mr De Groodt)
– With a small d when after the first name (Lesley de Groodt)
Groot means big or large.
If you have any more questions, please let me know.
Lidwina de Groodt
Hello my father’s dad’s side comes from the Netherlands or so I’ve read. The last name is now Conine but was konijn before it got changed in 1600’s when first arrived. The ancestors I’m looking for are leendertse Phillip konijn, or conyn…so many different spellings I’ve seen. From what I’ve read they migrated from the Netherlands ( leedertse was born in ghent) and moved to Albany,NY. I’ve also read that they started the name coney island because there were so many living there in that time. Any help would be appreciated!
Hi Autumn:
I have several books on early New Netherlands/New York..and I checked the indexes…
in one title “Beverwijck” by Janny Venema..she lists two Coningh – a Frans and a Thomas
Coninck/Coning{h}, Coningk, and Koning are a few variations in “Deacon’s Accounts 1652-1674 of the First Dutch Reformed Church of Beverwyck/Albany, NY”
“List of Inhabitants of Colonial New York” by O”Callaghan has 4 Conines: Casper, Derk Phils, Lenarad, and Phillip,,but they seem to be more in the 1700s..the first 4 are on lists of residents of Livingston Manor [not sure of date], .the last Phillip is listed as taking in a 12 year old Palatine boy [ca. 1710-1714] as a bound servant..don’t know if this helps at all..
P.S. per Wikipedia: Coney Island was originally called Konijnenlland which was translated as Rabbit Island…[Yvette could verify that translation] however others refuted this as the origin and other explanations are offered..
Jerri
Hi, Autumn. I am a direct descendant of Leendert P. Conyn. His father, Philip, is the last traced ancestor of the Conine family in Albany, NY. My email address is amy.conine@yahoo.com if you styl have questions.
We were under the impression that my husband’s King surname came from Koenig. And you show Vink as becoming Fink or Phink but I have an ancestor whose surname appears to have been Vink/Vinck but his son (who was a child when they arrived from Rotterdam via Dover in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 18 Sep 1727) later used “Wink”. I believe both families were from Germany/the Palatinate. I realize that illiteracy and the language barrier resulted in many surnames being changed – some into different variations even in the same generation.
Hi Colleen,
This list contains English versions of Dutch names that I or visitors of this site found in their own research. This list is not exhaustive, the US names could have come from other names too, or the Dutch names could have turned into other names. Koenig in German and Konings in Dutch both mean King, so both names could have been translated to King in English.
I, too have a German Palatine ancestor named Winegar…however in 1790 census and other earlier records in New York it is written as Vinegar which is apparently how it was heard by person writing it down…
I had an aunt (by marriage) who grew up in a German speaking community and she pronounced the letter ‘v’ as a ‘w’ when, and visa versa, when it was the first letter in any word — including my name as Wirgil. So not surprised that the same thing would happen when writing a name.
Virgil
Colleen – are you referring to Sebastian and Jacob Wink? I believe we have common ancestry. Many webpages on the internet claim Wink is of English origin but that is not the belief of our family. We trace our ancestry into the US via Rotterdam as you say.
Hi Yvette, so I often browse around the internet trying to find out more information about my surname. But when I do I can only find links for Facebook pages or news articles of people not really any historical data. I’m not really sure what I’m looking to find but was wondering if you had any insight into the meaning or where it came from. I do know the name was originally Roerdinkveldboom but when my ancestors migrated to Wisconsin some dropped the Roerdink and some dropped the Veldboom.
Roerdinkveldboom was one of the cottages belonging to the Roerdink farm in Winterswijk. “Veldboom” literally means “field tree” and probably refers to an old defensive barrier in the area (the ‘boom’ would bar the road). I have many Roerdinkveldbooms and Roerdink-Veldbooms in my database.
My paternal ancestor was Leendert Phillipse Konyn or Conyn. Born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1620, he settled in Albany, NY around 1645. I assume that his name was really Konijn and there are numerous Jewish Konijns who died in the holocaust. There are also quite a few Jewish Konijns in the Netherlands. Even though my early ancestors were baptised in the Dutch Reform Church, could they have been crypto-Jews? I also read somewhere that they were also Huggeunots.
Crypto-Jews were uncommon here, since Jews weren’t persecuted. Most Jews did not have family names before 1811. Konijn (rabbit) is a common Dutch and Flemish word so I would not suspect any foreign origins on the name alone. One thing you could do is research the family and see who they associated with. If those people all belonged to the protestant church, they most likely did too.
Hi Shelley,
My name is Paul Konijn and I live in Belgium. I can trace my ancestors back to around 1600 in De Beemster, a polder to the North of Amsterdam, where most people with the name Konijn originate from and most of them are Catholic. The Jewish family Konijn came originally from Poland and probably changed their name from the city Konin in Poland to the more Dutch sounding Konijn. I haven’t found any connection of Leendert Philipse Conyn to my family. I read somewhere that he was a Huguenot and his name was originally Conine, that would explain his Dutch Reformed connection. I also found a lieutenant Lucas Conijn in Amsterdam on a painting by Govert Flinck. This painting is in the same room as the Nightwatch by Rembrandt in the Rijksmuseum and used to belong together. I don’t know where he fits in either…
Hey cousin, I back to Leendert Conyn as well. He was married to a Stynmets which is a Jewish name. I traced her line back to 1198 today. I’ll copy and paste a list I made of the ancestory just with first names of Stynmets. Should help.
leendert p. conyn & agnietje c. stynmets…from agnietje…. johannes casper steynmets(b1585), johannes k, kasparius, phillipus, johann f, karlhelm, karl, johannes jobst (b1350), jobst, coussaint, michelius, bernardus(born in France 1223 though every other generation in Germany (why?), michelius Johannus Steynmets 1198-1226
My New Jersey grandmother’s last name was Sweetman. While researching our genealogy I kept coming up with English names when I finally looked up the Dutch equivalent. There they were, as SOETEMAN, from Goedereede. My Frisian relatives didn’t change the last name of De Vries, but they changed all their first names. Foppe became Frank, Aukje became Agnes and Trijntje became Trina (pronounced Tryna.
Thanks for sharing al this information!
Great example of a name part that got translated, thank you!
Trying to reach holly,because I too have a new jersey soeteman/sweetman connection. Also trying to determine what diimmen van den houten might have been Americanized too. Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. Take care and have a great day.
Marcia – happy to see your reply. Dimmen Soeteman ended up as Demmin Sweetman. He is listed at a girl on the transcribed passenger list and came to NY on the wooden Barque North Sea in 1857. Lets compare notes – e-mail me at Myquest55@aol.com
Marcia – never heard from you- I hope you will still contact me. I welcome anyone else with a Sweetman/Soeteman or NJ De Vries connection to contact me at the above e-mail address. Happy to “meet” new relatives and share information!
Dear Yvette,
As a Dutch person it can be quite the challenge to figure out as well, I admire your work!
My search is about trying to find where ‘Giltaij’ originates from. Because of the ‘ij’ , a Dutch origin is likely, although ‘Giltaij’ does not sound Dutch at all. However, we can be traced back to Zuid Holland (Sliedrecht/Dordrecht) late 18th/early 19th century. I’ve read about the English/American surname ‘Gilday’ and the Belgian/French ‘Giltay’, but nothing on these names having changed or translated through immigration. Have you heard of or read about my name before? Any tips on where to proceed my search? Bij voorbaat dank!
Our family name Giltay originates from the French speaking region of Luik (nowadays in Belgium). The first Giltay that moved to the Northern Netherlands was ‘Jan Giltay’ who settled as a silver smith in Dordrecht in the 17th century. Almost all Dutchmen with our name are descendants of this person. The name is derived from the first name ‘Gilles’ and means the family of little Gilles.
Hello Yvette
I am hoping that you may be able to help me identify possible Dutch ancestry. My 5x Great Grandfather John Staines (silk weaver of East London- possible Huguenot descent?) married one Alice Vandebaize in St Dunstan Stepney, London in 1775. Alice’s father was Charles Vandebaize, a gun maker born 1731 Aldgate, London, and his father was Phillip Vandebaize born c. 1680, place unknown. The name was spelt in different ways, Vandeboose being one variation. Would this family have come from the Netherlands in the late 1600s?
I would be very grateful for any guidance
Many thanks
Adam
Baize is a name of Southern French origin from the Languedoc region. Some French Huguenots went to the southern Netherlands to fight against the Spanish in the 16th century and some of those are thought to have stayed and married in the Netherlands. Hence the netherlandised prefix Van de Baize. Baize is also a textile with Ypres a main centre. Staines may be an anglicised version of Steen or Van der Steen or it may be of Saxon origin and apprenticed into silk making. Both names mean “stone”. There is also a place named Staines along the Thames River. Fair blonde blue eyed outcomes could be due to danish viking ancestry in the Netherlands or a Moorish Scandinavian ancestry. Steen is originally a name of Scandinavian origin. Also French Huguenots can have what is termed a Moorish appearance attributable to an ancient Scandinavian migration which also goes across Southern France and into the Iberian peninsula and North Africa. Does your family have fair members in a noticeable proportion say around 50%. It appears that I am also a descendant.
Addendum
It appears that the name Vandebaize is unique to London in the 18th century and peters out as one crosses back into the 17th century. It also appears to be derived from some other naming variation. No corresponding names in the Netherlands or Belgium have been found. If say a Dutch born or speaking respondent in London was relying on oral communication at the time of registry then the registrar or Minister would be left open to his her own interpretation and this may account for some of the variations. There is also the skill of different readers at the time of digitising records to take into account. As a consequence there are many variations and origins that appear to come up in the records. These include de Burse, Van der Beurse, Van der Burse, Van de Buss, Vandebas and Vandibas. There appear to be a couple of other families who may be brothers with similar preferences for first names in or around the same area who may or may not be related. Alice for example is recorded under the name Vandebaizd. Just a few of the above variations do correlate with names in the Netherlands and Belgium. Belgium is the former southern Netherlands, which is where most Dutch immigrants and refugees came from in the 16th century to settle in places like Stepney. As there is so much uncertainty about the origin of “Baize” part used in this context there is no certainty about a French ancestral component as well.
Addendum 2
Reliance on a single record or a single letter comes with a high level of risk. However a person matching Alice’s father comes up as Charles Vandebas (c 1731) spouse Martha and similarly it would appear his father comes up as Philip Vandebas spouse Mary. As an example of naming practices much earlier records give an example of Joys (Jois?) de Burse who christens his son as Vandeburse in 1599 in England. A possible explanation is given the angst from having to leave everything behind supplanting a child’s surname with Van was a means of ensuring that all one’s children wouldn’t forget their Dutch heritage. Mother’s sometimes used their surname for a middle name of one of their children for similar reasons. There are quite a number of records for de Bas around mostly Amsterdam and to a lesser extent Brabant for example. As the Netherlands was a refuge an ancestor with this name could also have come from outside the Netherlands at a much earlier time. If one also follows the father’s occupation then that could lead to a number of major cities in Flanders- Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent and Tournai which were skilled at gun making.
Addendum 3
There is a lot more to unravelling ancestral names than meets the eye so I have added this last comment. The other wild card is missing records and what to make of no matches. When there is a policy of annihilation anything left behind is at risk of accidental or deliberate destruction. It is not only property, and lives but heritage, history and records that go up in smoke. It also includes events like the Great Fire of London. Even so if there is no record trail going back in time for a particular name such as Vandebaize or De Baize, Vandeboose or De Boose, which show up in the 18th century then one should be reasonably confident that the ancestral name is something else. And to get a better idea of what that something else is one needs to go back much further in time to the 16th century. People from Flanders spoke a Flemish version of Dutch. And not knowing how vowels would actually sound all the following words can end up sounding very similar when spoken say in English. De Burse, De Bas, De Bus and De Basse and there are records for all these names in the wider Netherlands. Everything that I can find including immigration records from 1320 to 1550 points to a likely ancestry of one or more of tens of thousands who sought refuge in the latter half of the 16th century and mostly came from Flanders. The use of the word Huguenot first arises in England in 1560 and was thereafter broadly applied to anyone who was a “stranger” and followed Jean Cauvin’s teachings. The definitive account of the origin of the name was written down by a well connected French Huguenot historian Louis Regnier de la Planche (full name) who was a confidant of the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici and he published a number of historical works in the 16th century. These original publications are collector’s items today. The one he published in 1576 some 16 years after the Amboise plot provides the most accurate and reliable account of the origin of the Huguenot tag. There was a rebellion in 1560 in Amboise and protestant Huguenots were given a nickname by Monks to link them to a superstitious night time spirit called Le Roy Huguenot in that region as meetings tended to be held after dark. It is not too dissimilar to the use of the nickname Bohemian to represent the opposing political side in Northern Europe. Huguenots were Nobles, Doctors, Lawyers, Historians, Intellectuals, Craftsman and Artisans and loyal to the Crown. The exodus brought new crafts and practices to the host nations and represented a substantial loss to the former nation states.
This might help unravel the ancestry of VandeBaize name, which is a name unique to England or only found in English family records. Three hunting swords with the name VandeBaize have come to my attention. Each is remarkably similar and has a small flintlock pistol neatly built in at the hilt. One is in the Royal Armouries England and thought to be 1700-1730, with hallmarks that are illegible from the photograph. A second is less embellished, brass pommel hilt and scallop guard, steel blade about 2ft long and sold by a private auction house, Brightwells in England in May 2018. The letter B is in a raised font size. The third has found its way the United States, probably as war booty and is of a ceremonial standard with a beautiful hollowed and sculpted filigreed silver handle at International Military Antiques-USA. On the blade but faint is the word “La Victorie”. It suggests the maker was familiar with the French language. Following on from my earlier observation that some Dutch immigrants appeared to be putting the name Van in front as of the late 16th century (presumably to preserve their Dutch identity and heritage) I did some further searching using Baize. There are two records for baptisms in Leiden, the Netherlands. The mother’s surname de la Croix, and witnesses des Pre, Pasquier and Cateau are all surnames that come up as Walloons in England in the earlier part of the 17th century and well before 1685. Walloons were known for their gun making skills and a number went to Scandinavia as well as Leiden where there was a French protestant church and hospital for Walloons. It suggests the root name in English is more like Baize or perhaps Baisé. The latter in French sounds the same when pronounced at Baize in English or is very close. Many church records would be based on oral communication and name changes are not uncommon. So whilst it appears there are many missing records (some due to warfare and other destructive acts) a likely explanation is the family comes from Wallonia, perhaps Liege which is known for its gun making craft) in modern day Belgium. At some point during the turmoil in the Spanish Netherlands in the 16th century they left and went first to somewhere like Liege which is also known for cloth and baize making. In between the two major immigration events in the 16th and 17th centuries are shortly thereafter they moved again to England. There are a few rare documented accounts in books of Huguenot friends and family corresponding across the English Channel and immigrating between these main upheavals. Demand for their skills was very high in places like London. So that might help if one were able to physically search for any other records in the Netherlands and Belgium archives using Baize or Baisé.
Correction to fourth last sentence, should read Leiden, Dutch Netherlands: “At some point during the turmoil in the Spanish Netherlands in the 16th century they left and went first to somewhere like Leiden which is also known for cloth and baize making.”
“La Victoire” is the spelling engraved on the sword blade. Two finger typing has a few drawbacks.
Walloons spoke old French, which had Latin routes whereby the prefix “de” might go before the surname. In West Flanders the name with a Van prefix could be compressed into Vandecasteele as one word for example. People with names like de Smidt used the latin Faber as the English surname after migrating to Norwich. It shows how tracing root names can be very problematic. There had already been numerous assaults and upheavals across various towns and cities in the Netherlands well before 1685. There were tens of thousands of Walloons in Leiden and tens of thousand of Walloons in London, and some already departed for the New Netherlands and New Amsterdam from Leiden and originally from the Hainaut region of Wallonia. News that a third assault was underway and this time in France in 1685 would have most likely motivated many into thinking about moving for a second or third time across the English Channel to join family and friends who they continued to correspond with. There were also ad-hoc migrations to join family to meet demand for their crafts. And so while the term French Huguenot is used more broadly Dutch Walloons speaking old French and dispersed since 1520 should be distinguished as a separate group with a number of common threads. As it happens tracing the L’s for Baize a likely path is Languedoc region 13th century old French, old capital Toulouse, Leige in the Spanish Netherlands by the 15th century, then Leiden in the Dutch Netherlands after 1520 and London by the end of the 17th century. It is possible that Jeane de la Croix in Leiden is Philip Vandebaize’s grandmother or a member of his extended family.
Two baptism records in 1658 and 1652 show a possible grandfather’s name as Quentin Baize and is also spelt as Baizé in Leiden, both with a “z” in the actual written record. The witnesses are in the main extended family. Leon de Pre is the husband of Magdelaine del Croix (de la Croix). Jeanne Segon and another witness Jean Baize (also spelt with z) is her husband. But elsewhere the baptismal records in 1650 and 1654 for their children have the surname recorded and actually written as Baissier and de Baisse within a few years of one another. A further witness is recorded as Nassar Baissier. At this stage the scribe in charge of writing and his or her language abilities are not known. But one suspects oral communication, understanding different dialects and dependence on one person writing down the details is part of the problem. In other family related records the witness name is spelt eg Anne Baise. In the Languedoc region the River Baïse is pronounced Baiːz. In the History of France by M Michelet published in 1847 it is spelt Baize in English. In old French however it is pronounced Baïsa. And so it is not too hard to see how the latter when spoken in old French might be transcribed as Baissier and de Baisse, the de indicating it is one of the old French dialects but not originally or necessarily a part of old France at that time. The mother’s name de la Croix also first appears in the Languedoc region and has both noble and religious ranking in the ancestry. This is not unusual with Huguenot ancestry. However there is no other tangible evidence connecting the two. People did move around and Huguenots from the south of old France (some nobles) did go to the Netherlands in support of their fellow followers in the Netherlands. Some married and stayed thereafter. There is one marriage record for Ysabelle de la Croix in Leiden in 1587 that records her birthplace as Wetterlo (Wetteren near Ghent) and her husband in Turqoin (Tourcoing near Lillie [L’Isle]). Another for de la Croix has both born in Tourcoing. Some of the witness names indicate that this 1587 marriage may be the grandparents or extended family of the grandparents of de la Croix. At the time both places were part of East Flanders. Lille was under progressively Flemish, Burgundian and Spanish rule. It was annexed in 1668 to Louis XIV by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and then captured by the Duke of Marlborough in 1708. It was then occupied by the Dutch from later in 1708-1713 and then ceded to France in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht. The old French dialect in that region would be more likely Picard. So whilst Liège was and still remains the proof centre for arms most of the main cities had gun makers and these other records show East Flanders should be considered. It would be reasonable to conclude that Philip VandeBaize wanted to be identified with a Dutch heritage in London and had an old French speaking name which should include the possibly that part of his ancestry comes from old Flanders. And by way of a contrast even the Languedoc region had its own identity and own language and originally was neither a part of old France nor old Spain nor old Italy. So modern borders don’t really tell you nearly enough. Examples of Philip Vandebaize’s work in London show he was a master craftsman. Typically gun making was a multidisciplinary craft that could involve working with silversmiths, goldsmiths and engravers just to mention a few. Whilst it looks like about half of records for Leiden have not survived one may conclude the time period spent in Leiden or elsewhere in the present day Dutch Republic is of the order of 100-120 years before going to London. The time spent prior to that in the old Southern Netherlands (partially modern day Belgium or partially modern day Northern France is indeterminate at the present time).
One of the witness names was recorded as Nasar Baissier and not Nassar. Given some scope for baptism recording variations a first name of Nazar is most likely a Biblical reference to Nazareth. Elsewhere in the extended family there is an Abraham Baissier following a similar Biblical theme. Huguenots certainly followed this practice. There are multiple variations and origins of this first name across Europe and elsewhere.
The 1587 marriage cannot be a direct ancestor because the female surname de la Croix is not passed down the line. She may still be a member of the extended family. What remains of interest however is where she and her spouse originated from in East Flanders and the spelling used for the place names. The other marriage record in 1633 in Leiden (otherwise spelt in the records as Leyden) for Alardt de la Croix gives both parties place of birth as Tourcogne (Tourcoing) and otherwise spelt in another record as Tourcoigne. It points to old French speaking and possibe family or extended members from outside old French speaking Wallonia (with a Walloon dialect) to places of origin in old East Flanders near Lille near the border in this case with old France and who most likely spoke Picard old french dialect.
The modern French spelling of the town outside Lille is Tourcoing. The Dutch spelling is Tourcoigne. In Belgium the spelling can be Tourcoign and old historical accounts in French or old French use de Tourcoigne. Tourqoin would be a variation and it looks like for some marriage records the scribe in Leiden is more familiar with the Dutch language than either Flemish and to a lesser extent one of the various dialects of old French, which are Picard, Walloon, Champenois and Lorrain.
It is a long rocky road:
In the case of Jeanne Segon and husband Jean Baize some other recording irregularities have been found. These all come from the Walloon Church in Leiden which was the protestant church andone suspects had to cope with most of the Calvinist population whether they spoke Walloon or not. It was suffering from overcrowding and a second church (chapel) in Ouda, St Catharina Gasthuis was used for Calvinists. However I have not been able to find any surviving records from the latter. Searching by the witness name Jeanne Segon alone has revealed a Moïse de Baisse in 1650 and Jenne de Baigie in 1651. The witnesses Nazar de Baigie and Jenne Tibergien who I have determined is related to the de la Croix family has provided good grounds to deduce this is yet another surname spelling variation by the scribe(s) at the Walloon Church. Nazar was otherwise recorded as Nasar as a witness to a prior Baptism. The Liagre family are also witnesses and there is a marriage to Le Baiseur and elsewhere recorded as Baiseur and may therefore present a further spelling variation. No other records for witnesses Nazar (Nasar Bassier) or Ann Baise have been found.
On the Staines side there is a 1640 Baptism for Geradus to a Bartholomous Vanden Stein and spouse French surname Jois in Antwerp. There are also some records in for the Leiden Walloon Church. There is a 1663 Baptism for Marie to Bartholomee Van den Steen and Elisabeth de Heinnen in the Walloon Church and witnesses with old French surnames. Elsewhere it is thought he is Huguenot and there is a line of Bartholomous Vanden Steens in England as weavers. Also in London the records are in the Walloon Church and not the Dutch reformed church for those speaking Flemish. Another Vanden Steyn married to French surname Leclerq in Liege and the latter is also recorded as French Huguenot name in London. And similarly there is Joos Vanden Steen in London being granted a letter of denization from the King of Spain in 1583. The letter is to enable citizenship in England. One can reasonably conclude that there were Vanden Steen or Stein who were or had married into a number of French speaking families and went to the Walloon church.
To Sum Up
To round off the overall picture is Van in VandeBaize looks like it has been introduced in London, as one of the less frequent acts to presumably identify with a Dutch heritage. The rest of the name de Baize indicates he is of old French speaking origin and name. The details such as the raised font B and “La Victoire” on the flintlock pistol hunting sword combination that Philip made indicates a familiarity with the French language and a more recent arrival in London before 1700. That then points to another intermediate refuge. Leiden as a refuge was the most populace centre next to London for old French speaking people from the Spanish Netherlands. Quintin Baize could be a grandfather of Philip or a member of his extended family. His possible Grandmother Jeane de la Croix could come from around Lille. Both could have come from old East Flanders with a Picard dialect rather than Walloon. Both names first appear in the Languedoc region in Southern France as far back as the 13th century. Did Philip Vandebaize’s granddaughter marry a descendent of a another Huguenot family Vanden Steen or Vanden Stein in London who had an old French connection by marriage but at some point the name had become anglicised to Staines by 1775? All spelling variations mean stone in English and in old Norse it is Stienne. And one of the original places for the name Stienne is on the west coast of Norway who became Normans in Normandy or is otherwise named after Staines on Thames in England with an alternate Anglo Saxon origin. Half my Staines family is blonde and blue eyed. A Dutch old French Huguenot ancestry on the Staines side is possible that is all one can say at this stage.
Hello Ken
I don’t know what to say. You have done so much and provided an unbelievable amount of information and help. I have not had a chance to do much research into my family history over the past year or so but, like you, became aware of the sale of the pistol sword online- my father saw it. Philip is a direct forebear. Unfortunately we do not have the 10,000 dollars required to purchase it. I then checked back onto this site and have found all of your replies. Incidentally I have had a DNA test done recently (autosomal, Y-DNA and mtDNA) and north Europe was an area identified with possible ancestry.
I really cannot thank you enough for your time, effort and sharing of your knowledge.
I have had cause to review a number of matters. Firstly it would be useful and helpful to know via a DNA match whether each of us is actually related. Coincidently I had ordered a kit back in November 2018. This test shows no high confidence footprint in the Netherlands and that would be consistent with an ancestor who was old French speaking and who had migrated or sought refuge from somewhere else. I also have a light Iberian footprint, which suggests it is quite old. I have gone over the paper trail on the Staines side and can get as far as a best fit James Staines b 1804 parents John Staines and Alice. There are some 16 birth events between 1775 and 1815, one involving twins and three Alice births 1794,1801& 1813. A possible candidate for James’s father is John Weymouth Staines born 1777 and just two years after marriage. Alice Vandebaize was born in 1754. Mothers have used a practice of inserting a surname from their side into one or more first names. So after some more searching I have come across an Alice Weymouth who coincidentally was also born in 1754 and died in 1815. No births occur after 1815. This may all be a coincidence and it is Alice Vandebaize who is naming one her children with a middle name Weymouth. On the other hand it seems unlikely that two parent Alices would be the same however or that one mother could bear children up to the age of 61. But as I have found with other searching and matching quite odd things do and can happen, even with the use of dual names, a grandparents name or earlier surname. The possibility that there could be three parents providing records over this period, each with parents names John Staines and Alice is daunting although it was not unusual for any couple to bear 16 births but over a shorter time span. So whilst during the course of this review I can trace my ancestry into Huguenot territory in Middlesex I am unable to be sure that it does actually connect up to Vandebaize. I have also come across an Edward Staines, silk weaver born 1790 and living with a Lapage family who are either of Norman origin or Huguenot old French origin, Le Page. There are also separate references to VanderSteen as silk weavers in Flanders. I used My Heritage for the autosomal test, which does allow for an upload of other autosomal files and this might provide a different or more segregated ethnicity profile for comparison for your own benefit. It would be useful therefore to know are we both related to this family or did I trip over a missing link instead. In addition I have found there are at least four old French dialects in the South of France. These are Languedoc, Bearnese, Armgamac and Navarro-Aragonese. And as noted earlier on the names Baise and de la Croix do originate from the South of France. And there does appear to be quite a communication problem in Leiden. So one of these other dialects could underpin why. The Kingdom of Navarre, which is seldom mentioned, may also play a considerable part in this story. So if you could see a way to using the My Heritage ethnicity estimate with your file that would help toward clearing up this one aspect up from my side. Essentially I have tried to thread together limited records with history and then with ethnicity footprints to account for movements and origins. It is not without difficulty and/or varying degrees of uncertainty.
Hello Ken
Your information does throw up some questions re Alice and the Weymouth connection. My connection with Alice Vandebaize is through the Lapidge family. Mary Lapidge bn. 1848 is the daughter of Edward Lapidge and Alice Staines (marr. 1844, Stepney).
On the marriage certificate Alice’s father is Edward Staines. All census entries suggest Alice’s birth c1823, however I have been unable to locate a baptism, in the 1861 census she is living with her father Edward. Edward was married, I strongly believe, to Esther Matthews. In 1880 Alice is living with daughter Sylvia in New York, USA.
Edward Staines’ baptism was found in 1790 in Bethnal Green, son of John Staines, weaver and Alice Vandebaize. I have not yet found John Staines’ baptism, I have found Alice’s in Feb 1754 in Stepney, daughter of Charles and Martha.
On the marriage entry for Alice and John Staines, Charles Vandebaize is a witness and signed. Alice made a ‘mark’.
Like you I find it strange to think that Alice has children into her 60s which makes me think if there is another Alice lurking in there somewhere.
There is a marriage of a John Staines and Alice Westfield in St George the Martyr in 1800, interestingly there appears to be no children to this couple in this parish after the marriage. Could they have moved to the East End to start their family and subsequently account for the later baptisms of children attributed to John Staines and Alice?
This theory could be dispelled though as a widowed John Staines marries Charlotte Butterworth in St George the Martyr in 1818.
Adding to the confusion though is the bapt of Alice Staines to John and Alice in 1813 in Bethnal Green- John a weaver! Is this John Staines and Alice Westfield or an aged Alice Vandebaize?
I will have to sit down at some point in the near future and try to reconstruct some family groups to put some order into this.
On another note I suspected the Lapidge family to be one from France, I have got back to the parents of Joseph Lapidge born 1792 in Tottenham, north London.
I have also uploaded my DNA results on MyHeritage and would be ready in 5-7 days.
I had put another post without seeing your last reply first. It suggests John Staines the weaver and Alice Westfield are the parents of what I think is a second group, first born in 1801-1815. In my last post I had presumed that the father was John Weymouth Staines and would have married some time between 1797 and 1800 and would have been 20-23 years of age and had married another Alice. Sometimes the groom gets married where the spouse lives but then the groom’s work has to be given some priority. The common connection on the Staines side appears to be weaving. So for my puzzle the question arises is John Weymouth Staines first born son of Alice Vandebaize the husband of Alice Westfield? And even if that is the case there is still a question of whether my best fit or best guesstimate and search results lines up with my ancestry as well. The DNA match will certainly help in that regard, thankyou.
The first group of 9 children cover the period 1777 to 1797 being John Weymouth 1777, Martha 1780, Elisabeth 1786, Sarah 1788, Edward 1790, Mary Ann 1791, Alice 1794, Ann 1796 and Ellanor 1797. The second group of 10 children cover the period 1801 to 1815 being Alice 1801, John 1802, James 1804, Elisabeth 1806, John 1808, twins Ann and William 1809, Thomas 1811, Alice 1813 and Mary 1815. It is presumed Alice 1801 and John 1802 in the second group did not survive early childhood. Records at either St Matthew Bethnal Green or St Leonards Shoreditch Middlesex, London. The use of Alice in at least three families including Edward’s family (1823) is noted.
For Edward-Esther the group of children is Esther 1811, Edward John 1814, John 1816, Edward 1818, John 1816, Peter 1831. A cousin George is mentioned in a census est b1824. For the cousin’s family Benjamin-Esther the group of children is Benjamin 1816, Charles 1817, Louisa 1819, Edwin Vandeboeze 1821, George 1824 and Henry 1825. Estimated year of birth for Benjamin would be 1789-1792 and is therefore a likely missing record for the first group which would add up to 10 children and points to three brothers, John Weymouth, Edward and Benjamin.
Correction: For Edward-Esther the group of children is Esther 1811, Edward John 1814, John 1816, Edward 1818, Thomas 1820, Peter 1831.
Revision: For Edward-Esther the group of children is Esther 1811, Edward John 1814, John 1816, Edward 1818, Thomas 1820, Alice 1823 and Peter 1831. Last two born Hackney. Benjamin also married a Esther sometimes shown as Hester. And James Staines census (b1801-1805) also married a Esther sometimes shown as Hester. On my side a family marriage record has the mother as E scribble in very tiny quill pen. Only after the most trying examination could I conclude it was a likely match for Esther. There is no other census record that matches up. In addition there is a James Staines b1811 in Stepney who I am unable to trace to any family and comes from a census record that does not match but I note he was a silk weaver.
Hi
The information has come through on my heritage.
No match is coming up on the system and so it does not look like I have this ancestry. Census searching tends to be quite good and useful. However this points to another James Staines with no trace to a family. There are three Staines related DNA matches coming up which might help but is dependent on how old they are. Getting confidence with this is the most worthwhile outcome. On the other hand there is some information that is of use on your side and hopefully has sorted out a few quandaries. So it is back to the drawing board. Thankyou for your help Adam.
Hi Ken
Can I help? Can you tell me where you are at for certain re James Staines? Maybe a fresh pair of eyes may help. Regarding the DNA it is a shame there is no definite match however I have read recently that going back so far there may be shared ancestry where common ancestors share 0 cMs at all! I am still learning more about this side of research as I know very little at the moment.
Adam
I had come to the same finding in the last half hour and had prepared this next message. I am 8 generations away and think you are too. According to two independent sources going beyond 7 generations is below the detectable noise level with any confidence, which applies to at least one of us. So expectations may have been too high and therefore Jury is still out on whether I am or am not part of this ancestry. Also beyond a 2nd Cousin match there is a chance, 10%, 20%, 40% etc that the estimation isn’t actually a match. There are lots of traps for young players. Ethnicity estimations are a different kettle of fish apparently. Whilst I only have one Census match and that is encouraging and is the same outcome regardless of the mother’s name there are some issues with it. On the marriage certificate James (b1801-1805 on census) occupation is a Butcher. But then Silk Weaving was well on the way out. He died early and it looks like his eldest son James died early to. Esther is shown as a widow in the next census 1851 and has a child Mary to another. The surviving boys George and Henry are not recorded. Two little boys would have had to grow up quick and perhaps find their own way by about 12 years of age and before 1851. James (b1801-1805 est) is my GGG Grandfather. Occupations were not recorded in the 1841 census. And presumably James Weymouth Staines had some children. So I’ll have to cool my heels for a while.
Hi Ken
Can you clarify a couple of points for me please- I might be on to something- depending on whether I have been searching in the right place or not. I presume you descend from a child of James Staines and Esther. What is the child’s name and birth year? Was it after 1837? If so what is the mother’s maiden name on the birth certificate? Also what year do you have your James marrying Esther?
Adam
What I don’t have is a marriage record for James and Esther (est m 1827-1830) that could shed light on their parent’s names and occupations and place of birth. If James Weymouth Staines (b1804) is the groom he would be around 22-25 years of age when he got married. Nor do I have the actual birth or christening record for any of the boys. This information if found should help resolve that matter one way or the other. I am relying on digitised records for searching. What is disconcerting is the number of missing records and parish records for example you have been able to locate which don’t appear to have been digitised. So some manual help looking at the Old Church Saint Pancras, Middlesex, London parish records for example would be most welcome and helpful.
George went to sea as mariner and ended up the other side of the world. On his marriage certificate in June 1857 he is recorded as 21 years of age and does not know his mother’s surname but does know his father’s occupation and gives his father’s place of birth as London. There is a birth record using a search tool for St Pancras Middlesex Dec 1835, for George Thomas Staines with father James mother Esther. George Thomas Staines would be 21 years of age in June 1857 and so this is a match. There are two deaths for James Staines in Saint Pancras d1843 &1844. There is another birth record for brother Henry Staines May 1838, Old Church St Pancras. The two boys would be around 5 and 8 years old when their father died and when their older brother died. The 1841 census gives the older brother James’s birth date as 1831. Esther as a widow in 1851 and appears to have faired better than others in her circumstances. Later on George is using the name George Henry Staines on the birth certificates of his children. This is one of the issues. However given what happened at a very young age, he either did not know his given middle name because he was too young and is using his younger brother’s name because it sounds better or this isn’t him. But the unique link between a father James, a son George and a mother first letter E (quite possibly Esther) and the only census record coming up does suggest it is him. There are quite a few Staines in St Pancras and it means they could all be from a different Staines group but nothing else is coming up in the radar. So if you have access to the actual parish records either a marriage record or birth christening record that would provide any other information would be very useful and helpful.
Correction to groom aspect on last message : To recap it is thought John Weymouth Staines married Alice Westfield in 1800 and had a son James in 1804. John’s father John had married Alice Vandebaize in 1775. With respect to James b1804 what one is looking for is any information to confirm that this James married Esther. This information would normally be recorded on the actual marriage certificate. And then at the other end are there any actual birth christening parish records for the three boys born unto James and Esther that would shed any more light on occupations, witnesses rather than relying on a digitally transcribed record that has been put onto a computer system for searching purposes. Then I would have more confidence about being connected to this Staines family in St Pancras and then also to the Vandebaize Huguenot side upstream. It is a two part problem upstream and downstream that has been relying on best matching and very little other information.
1841 Census Revisted:
Upstream
Digitised translation and after reading up on what this census might say, says James Staines (ext b1701-1705) in St Pancras married to Esther was born in Middlesex, registration district St Pancras, Occupation Null. If you were born in the Census district it gets written up that way, number of lines. If not the UK 1841 census will simply state the other birth place in one line. This record does not line up with a James Staines b1804 in St Leonards Shoredicth to John Staines and Alice Westfield, grandson of John Staines and Alice Vandebaize. This Census record does not therefore connect upstream to the Huguenot Vandebaize side. That’s half of the problem solved. So better to get this sorted out and corrected than not being sure about it. It does not however get to the bottom of the wider Staines ancestry in London.
Downstream
Nor does this census record line up with the claimed occupation of a Butcher on George’s 1857 marriage certificate downstream but leaves it up in the air. There are some references elsewhere to a James Staines b1831 military service 1845-1854 Royal Navy but then there are more than one with this birth date and points to some involvement in the Crimean War. So either the St Pancras family in the 1841 are my ancestors and son George has engaged in some slight poetic listening when he got married in 1857 and afterwards or they are not my ancestors. As it is the only Census record with the combination of James father, mother E, George and his age and all four elements lining up and noting all the boys were too young to go to sea in 1841 I will have to rely on this Census record for the time being. A marriage record for James & Esther would help raise one’s confidence and point to the rest of this family upstream.
Hi Ken
I have a few leads but I need to clarify one or two points before proceeding to see whether I am tracing the correct line. Your ancestor George, you inform me was married in 1857. Was he married in the UK? do you have this marriage certificate from the GRO? If so can you give me the details on it please (place, wife’s name)?
Now concerning James and Esther –
22 May 1831, St Mary Islington. James Staines, batchelor, of this Parish and Hetty Pont of the same were married.
Three baptisms have been found: John James bapt 3 Jun 1832 St Mary Islington born 2 Apr 1832
George Thomas bapt 24 Jun 1836, St Pancras, born 19 Dec 1835
, Henry bapt 24 Jun 1838, St Pancras, born 15 May 1838.
The birth dates are written in the baptism register which is helpful, however Henry was born after the introduction to civil registration so I cross referenced his name in the GRO indexes online (which now incidentally include the mother’s maiden name) and I found the following: 1838 Sept quarter Saint Pancras, Vol 1 Page 206 with mother’s maiden name Pond. This certainly tallies up with the previous marriage entry found in 1831. I suggest you order this birth certificate to give you more information.
More information I forgot to add
1841 Census: St Pancras, Smith’s Place
James Staines 36 Butcher Y
Hester 35
James 10
George 6 Y
Henry 4 Y
This indicates a strong correlation to the family I referred to in my previous message. The ‘Y’ indicates whether the person was born in the county in which they are currently residing i.e. Middlesex/London. The column for Hester and James was blank.
Hope this is positive news.
An occupation match (which is the 5th element) does confirm this is the ancestral family in London. Usually marriage details are more reflective of the actual given birth name than how someone refers to themself later on. Hetty is also nickname for ancient Greek Hester and the Latin equivalent Esther. There are also Biblical and Persian origins and meanings underneath. Anyway it appears the name Hester is being used orally as a personal preference and when recorded by another might explain how it ends up being written down as Hester or Esther because both sound the same. The intended recording of ages in the 6th June 1841 Census was to round down to nearest 5 for ages 15 and above but apparently this wasn’t carried out by all enumerators and this is one such case. And that’s a bonus for anyone trying to sort this out. When these were manually transcribed it looks like the computer is applying this rule without thinking or knowing. Hetty Pont range of birth then is estimated to be June 1805-June 1806 and James Staines Head June 1804-June 1805.
George did not get married in the UK, as a mariner he sailed to the other side of the world. As far as I know there is no-online certificate ordering facility in the UK and is still operating in the Dark Ages. It is world that is in some ways still as regressive as the days of Little Dorrit and just as fearful of those it chose to rule over and yet on the other hand and in some ways quite progressive. Yet I have had to ask what is English ethnicity anyway? And the answer is in many ways English ethnicity is inherently made up of ethnicities of foreign origin; pan-European Celts, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians and Normans and that’s more than 500 years ago. The UK couldn’t be more EU if it tried.
The second part of the problem has now been solved too. Being able to look at the actual document is far better than relying on transcribed documents on a computerised search tool. Being able to find any of these documents is a blessing. If anything else turns up then you are certainly welcome to have a look. It is a great step forward.
Thankyou Adam.
Pont Surname Origins
Can be of Celtic, Anglo or old French Norman origin. Also French Huguenots of the name Du Pont changed it to Pont when they sought refuge in Holland and some of those eventually went to places like London. Du Pont is another French surname of origin in the Languedoc region of Southern France. I do have a high confidence footprint in Southern France although it is an extension of the Iberian ethnicity footprint.
Upstream Review: Not Solved
After cross checking the translated and digitised 1841 Census it is apparent that the information purportedly giving a parish birthplace is in error because it is the same for all of them. The marriage certificate for James and Hetty presumably gives a place of residence in Islington not their place of birth. So the possibility that James Staines who was born in St Leonards in December 1804 (right in the middle of my ancestor’s birth date range) with parents John and Alice remains open and therefore has not been solved as previously thought.
Upstream Review Update
It is becoming quite apparent that the official rules for the 1841 Census were not always followed. Each household got a form to fill out and each household then was left to interpret how to fill out the form. This census clearly was not filled out the way it was supposed to be filled out with respect to ages. James Head and sons George and Henry are all associating themselves with Middlesex but differentiating Hetty and eldest son James. But we don’t now whether they understood where the boundaries actually were and may have thought Islington was outside Middlesex for example. So this Census record is an unreliable indicator of where James the Head was born in Middlesex. And thus St Leonards cannot be reliably ruled out.
The 1841 Census can be a frustrating source of information and should always be treated with caution but at the same time never dismissed. When analysing the information on the census return in this instance one can only guess as to why the column “Whether born in in same County” is blank for Esther and James Junior. It is also important to note, however you may not been able to see this, but George and Henry are at the top of the following page and they do have a Y (yes) next to their names. Did the enumerator leave Esther and James (at the bottom of the page under James snr) blank leaving us to presume they were of the same as James? Who knows but it certainly doesn’t help. Have you found Esther on the 1851 census?
Great minds think alike is a saying. I had prepared this before reading your last message and had revisited 1851 and 1861 census records:
Hetty Pont, b Iver Buckinghamshire
1851 Census gives a Hester Staines (aka Hetty Pont) as Head of household a widow age 45, daughter Mary 0 years old. Her birth range June 1805-June 1806 is the same range as 1841 census. Place of birth Iver, Buckinghanshire, which is west of Middlesex County. Birth of her first born son James may have taken place whilst under the care of her parents in Buckinghamshire during final stages of her pregnancy and subsequently christened in the same St Mary Islington Church after birth and after going back to live with her husband James at the time around Islington. In the 1861 Census Mary is 10 but Hester is saying she is a bit younger and has lodgings with someone who presumably is able to look after her and is of a similar age. This then means James and/or Hetty did understand the question about the County of Birth on the census form in June 1841. It also means the Head of the family could have a birthplace anywhere in Middlesex including St Leonards. A record of a Hetty Pond c 1807 does not match because she dies in 1831 and her presumed birth date does not match either.
Conclusion to Date
And so James Staines who was living not that far from St Leonards in the period 1831-1835 could be James b 1804 to parents John and Alice Westfield and remains a contender. The family may have moved to St Pancras to take up work. And this also means a Vandebaize ancestry isn’t ruled out. I also note the possibility of another Staines marrying a wife of Huguenot French origins.
DNA Inheritance
There is a good article on dna-explained.com, which gives some examples of what you might or might not inherit from your GGGGG Grandparent. In this article the 8th person in the tree is described as the 7th Generation. In the best case scenario a person at the bottom of the tree might inherit a small amount of 0.39%. And I would like to add that another person on another part of the tree might inherit in the best case scenario for that person a different amount at 0.39%. The chances that neither line up is looking to be quite high. Moreover there are other examples whereby neither you nor your parents inherit any DNA at all from that parent. So a negative result in our case certainly does not rule out an ancestral lineage. And looks a negative result is far more likely in any case. It is suggested that one needs to test a wide section of the family and even after all that there is no certainty that your extended family actually has any DNA or a cross section of DNA that would produce a match. I would also like to add that in reality what isn’t mentioned is what happens when code changes from one generation to the next, that is replication is not perfect and one ends up with a fuzzy representation of the original code. These variations in code are essential for evolution. So in addition to all the other factors this fuzziness is likely to be very different down different branches of the tree. Therefore one should not be too put off that no match came it, because it is really a hit and miss affair and it looks like the odds were firmly stacked against it. One can only try and nothing ventured nothing gained. Nevertheless a lot of progress is being made on a number of fronts.
Ethnicity Inheritance
As a separate matter from trying to match GGGGG Grandparents between two people I had some time ago thought about why do some members of a family say have a large amount of Scandinavian appearance and others do not, say dark hair? And this Scandinavian ethnicity might be from the Viking age, or Norman age (Norwegian Viking) and in the case of someone from the Iberian Peninsula an even older much more ancient Scandinavian migration and heritage which is referred to as a Moorish appearance. Conversely if say Scandinavian ethnicity petered out down the generations we might all end up looking the same. A possible explanation is the ethnicity mixes in our parents represent the possible ethnicity building blocks used to make you. The actual building blocks are selected at random and the final result can then be correlated into ethnicity groups. There is then a separate building instruction code, which can use and select any ethnicity building block at random and for different periods of time. So the average offspring might reflect the average ethnicity make up of your parents. But as natural processes follow a Gaussian distribution there are other outcomes but less frequent where the ethnic composition of the offspring isn’t an average representation of the parents. It is a possible explanation as to how we all have some very ancient correlation with a much earlier ancestor or ancestors and why some offspring can be so very different looking from their Grandparents, Parents and Siblings. It is a challenging concept and there is a whole lot that we don’t about how building code genes and gene building instructions actually work. Solving puzzles like this is also challenging and hard going but each step is useful in its own way.
Buckinghamshire
St Mary in Islington is a most remarkable Church building, way ahead of its time and a long way from Iver. There is an 1851 census record in Buckinghamshire with Grandparents John and Hannah Pond, grandson Alfred Staines est (b June 1843-1844). This is at a time when Hester Staines (Hetty Pond) is in St Pancras with Mary Staines 0 years. It suggests that Hetty’s parents are John and Hannah Pond in Iver, Buckinghamshire and are doing what most grandparents do, helping out. There are a number of Ponds living in Buckinghamshire with another Hetty of her Grandparent’s age. The death record for a Hetty Pond in 1831 is I suspect a married name and not related. Pond (variant Pont) is a name of Anglo-Norman origin. Lands were granted to a Norman Pond after the Norman conquest. On the Norman side the old French origin could De Pond or alternatively De Pont. The latter surnames in old French are also recognised Huguenot names.
Correction Mary Staines is 10 in 1851
Was right the first time. Tiredness is setting in. Mary Staines was 10 years of age in 1861 and 0 years of age in 1851 census.
I see St Mary Islington had to be rebuilt after 1940 and accounts for the more modern features, which are different from the original ones from an old photograph. Everyone ends up having their annus horribilus. Life has to go on. And so there’ll be a lot of busy beavers in the Île de la Cité.
Random Inheritance Real Life Example
There is an ancestry blog “Understanding Patterns of Inheritance”, which shows the large variability in the ethnicity mix in % across 4 tested siblings and demonstrates that one’s inheritance mixture is indeed randomly derived to some degree. In one ethnicity category alone the numbers vary from say more than 30%, 15%, 5% to less than 1% for each sibling. Only one sibling is attributed with Iberian ethnicity, less than 1%. And on Mr Heritage the Iberian footprint appears to be inclusive of various parts of France and may cover all of France and over and into the Spanish Netherlands. There are also different inheritance factors depending in what part of the DNA string one is referring to. Mother & Father markers tend be more traceable. However the downside is probability is about group outcomes and individual comparisons are far less reliable unless it is a very near relative. There will be something there across branches of the same family but detecting that something with today’s techniques and proving which ancestor it actually came from is beyond the realms of possibility when going back to GGGGG Grandparent. Or so it appears. But it was worth doing anyway even if it shows up the limitations with DNA testing and is also useful to know when trying to interpret any test DNA result.
When all seemed lost I finally have reliable DNA Cousin match from Ancestry Test House to person called AF, to Mary Lapidge daughter Alice Staines m Edward Lapidge at 13cM. Common ancestor is 5th GG Parent. I have found other family at 4th GG Parent in Sweden with 25cM, this time on MyHeritage. There is a lot of variability in finding any common cousin DNA overlap if any at this level. It does mean after many years I do finally have proof of Vandebaize ancestry and that John Weymouth Staines lived in Edward Street and Brick Lane Bethnal Green. His signature is similar to his brother Edward. The other brother Benjamin was indentured and learned to write from another person other than his father. Neither John Staines possibilities actually matched the age of death at 63 years. Why people chose to present themselves with different ages at different times is unknown but it surely has not helped and it could not have been done without modern genetic cousin matching. For comparison and without any group filtering I have from MyHeritage Test House at the present time 200 cousin matches in Netherlands, 48 in Belgium and 137 in France where at least 75% are families without any apparent outside inflow. This number of cousins strongly indicated family with this background but wasn’t conclusive as to why. I have found a Phillipus Vandebaize record on FindmyPast which also indicates a Latinised old French forename is use from Roman times ( a romance language) and is further evidence of Huguenot origins at one time in the Spanish Netherlands.
There is an earlier reply labelled “More DNA Problems: Proceed with Caution” dated 17 April 1.41pm and was a follow up reply. This post has ended up at the bottom of this webpage. I had concluded that the threshold of chromosome matching a particular ancestor is more likely to be at the GGG Grandparent level. It looks like initial control groups have been analysed and halopgroups associated with a geographical region have been identified and used by various labs in their computer programs as algorithms. For example the R1b-S116 Halogroup is associated more informatively a South European footprint which covers Belgium France Spain and Portugal and across into Northern Italy. And like asking what is English ethnicity it is fair to say that Belgium and French ethnicity is recognised as having an Iberian sub-group so to speak. But labelling either ethnicity as Iberian is like putting the cart before the horse. If your chromosomes and others match these control groups then you get a footprint associated with a geographical area. And it is apparent as more DNA matches are found the perimeter of my low confidence footprint keeps changing. I trust this is useful for anyone trying to interpret these tests because they certainly do need to be treated with a good degree of caution.
Weymouth Revision: Use of a place name is far less likely than a name of a near relative. It is usually from the female side. There were a number of Weymouth records in the area for the time. There is no record of a Mary or Martha Weymouth coming up on the Vandebaize side. However because of the chance of missing records this does not rule this more likely possibility out. There is also no information available about John Staines’s parents or mother or Martha’s parents or mother. For a place name one would need to be confident that Alice for example would be referring to a birth event for her Huguenot Grandparents in Weymouth around 1681 or a place event for the arrival of her Huguenot Great Grandparents in Weymouth. I am electing to rule this out. So overall a name of a near relative is far more likely.
There were French Speaking Huguenots who sought refuge in Weymouth UK in 1681 with the intention of moving to London and some came from Tournai, which is also near Lille in the former Spanish Netherlands. And so Weymouth used in James Weymouth Staines b 1777 may also refer to an earlier place rather than a relative as such, and therefore Alice Vandebaize could be his mother.
I have come to the view that the most likely explanation is two sets of parents John Staines and Alice with children all registered at St Matthew or St Leonards in Middlesex. The first are 8 children from 1777-1797 born to John Staines and Alice Vandebaize who married in 1775. No other marriage record has been found. However the second group are 10 children born from 1801 to 1815, including twins in 1809 as well as James in 1804. I am presuming the father for this second group is John Weymouth Staines, first born to John Staines and Alice Vandebaize. The birth names Alice and John in this next group are used twice. It implies the first born named Alice and John in this second group did not survive childhood but the parents (John jnr who it appears married another Alice) had a strong preference to have a surviving child each named after them. The last child in 1815 was born after Alice Weymouth had died, nor would she be giving birth at 61 years. This seems to rule her out as a coincidental record and unrelated. It also implies John Weymouth Staines married another Alice say 1797 to 1800 when he would be 20-23 years of age. Overall it lends more support to Weymouth as a reference to a place name of significance to Alice Vandebaize’s family Huguenot history but not necessarily on the Vandebaize side. The Weymouth Huguenots consisted of a mixture French Speaking who departed La Rochelle in France and old French Speaking from the Spanish Netherlands who spoke at least one of 4 old French languages. Using a place name for a middle name is unusual but then many aspects of their ancestral story are unusual to say the least.
My maiden name was Staines, and in my father’s family the eldest son carried the middle name of Vandebaize for many generations. He did not inherit the Vandebaize middle name, and I can’t remember if his father did, but certainly his grandfather did, and all who came before him back to the beginning of records. My great ( x however many) grandparents were John Staines and Alice Vandebaize who married in 1775. She came from a silk-weaving family, and I discovered he was called a ‘silk artist’, which I took to be a designer of tapestries (which my father said the family had been involved in). I have researched the Vandebaize family (and have found over 130 different spellings of the name) back to the 1630s in England.
My source information that referred to a Church in Ouda, which is now a museum is not correct for Leiden old French Protestants. St Catharina Gasthuis Chapel is located in Breestraat, Leiden.
Hello Yvette,
I have ancestors that emigrated to upstate New York long before our Revolutionary War, although I am not sure if they were Dutch or German. The name was eventually transformed into Runyen(s) or Runyan(s). Their religious records are from the Reformed Church which could be either Dutch or German. One married a Cook, also spelled Kook and she is a known speaker of Dutch or German. All were illiterate in English until the 20th century. I have also seen the name Runjan and Runjen in Reformed Church records in upstate New York. Can you shed some light on this surname’s origin?
Thank you very much.
Susan
Hi Susan,
I’ve never come across the name Runyen or a variation in Dutch records. before. I searched for all names starting with “Run” in the Family Names database and found no names that look similar. So I doubt that it is a Dutch name.
I was wondering if you could tell me what my name means. I’ve been trying to find out about myself lately like what is my nationality and one of them was figuring out my name. My last name is Lesterhouse which i was told it meant cuckoo bird nest or bird nest but i really don’t know anymore.It would be great to have someones help.
What is the history of the family surname America? A group of them in Limburg.
Among early settlers in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware USA is Nicholas America, 1680
Who were his lparente, there, – and descendants over here. ?
According to the Dutch Family Names database, the name America comes from the Antilles. I am surprised by that, I would have thought it had something to do with the town America in Limburg. By researching your male line, it should be possible to figure out which of the two explanations applies in your case.
Hi Yvette- My grandmother’s maiden name was Goudzwaard and I have been able to trace roots back to the 1400’s. I am curious about this name because through the paperwork I have seen it spelled as above with the z, Goudswaard and Goudswaert. These are all very different. Gouswaert is German but depending on the spelling it translates into Gold Sword or Gold Worth. 2 very different meanings. Several of the ancestors names are sea related such as Marinus and I see that one of the Goudswaard daughters married Simon Van Der Stel, Governor of Mauritius. If I went with the Gold Sword version I would believe that they could have been Jewish Pirates possibly? It seems that I came across documents at one point showing me they may have come from a Jewish Ghetto in Portugal but the Goudswaert leads me to believe they came from Germany. My research has me blocked at around 1490 which makes sense considering the Spanish Inquisition occurred in 1492. I also thought I saw the original Goudswaard village flag had the 6 stars of David. Documents also show baptisms throughout the years so could they have been converso’s? I had always thought a surname beginning with Gold was more than likely Jewish.
Any help you could provide would be fantastic. Thank you!
I’ve learned through a census that my great grandfather was named James Whiterock and on the US Census of 1930, it shows he was born in 1867 in Nebraska and his mother and father were from Holland. I can’t find anything further. I would love to know what name Whiterock came from and anything else I could find out about my history.
I was adopted and there is not anyone that I’m aware of living who can help or remember..
Hi,
Wittrock (= a German surname)
Grz.
Hello. I know my family came from holland way before I was bor nand im sure our name was changed. My last name is snoop so i was wondering if you could help me
Hello Yvette,
My family name in Canada has been changed to Vanderyacht and Vanderjagt. My father, Adrian Vanderyacht, was called Dutch as a nickname. He was the eldest child and the only one of five children to be born in Holland in 1914. However, I have been told, in Holland, that Vanderyacht is not a Dutch name. What do you think our original name was or do you think we might have been immigrants to Holland before we moved to Canada? This is a very interesting subject.
The original name was probably “Van der Jagt” or “Van der Jacht.” You would have to check the original Dutch records to be sure.
Hello Kathryn, Vanderjagt / Vanderjacht is a original Dutch name, and Adrian is a old unckle from me, the came from early 1500 from the isle IJsselmonde South Holland the village Barendrecht, most of them where farmers til W.O. II its one of the oldest family’s from the isle of IJsselmonde, I search my family about 70 years there are 6 different clan’s van der Jagt, my genealogy have on the moment over 80.000 persons from the Netherlands and all over the world, in the USA you will find descendants names in 6 different ways of writing.
Hello Pieter,
Thank you so much for replying to my post. I’m very excited about your information. It is good to know more exactly where my family is from. It certainly is an unusual name even though there are plenty of Van der jagts in the USA there are not so many here in Candada and I could not find any in the UK where I grew up.
My grandfather was Pieter Vanderjagt born Aug 25 1890 Hilverson, Holland. Pieter and his wife Helena (Huider) sailed for Canada from Liverpool, England on the R.M.S Megantic on October 30, 1920. Unfortunately they both died in their 40s as did my father but they had 7 children and not 6 as I said in my original post.
We will definitely be visiting Barendrecht and Hilverson when we return to Europe in the next couple of years.
Hello,
My family Hoppe (Hopper now) came over from Reusel-de Mierder, Nordyk-Brabant, Netherlands before Sept 1651 and settled in
New Amsterdam. I have over 16,000 people on the tree now.
I recently started a family tree for my children on their father, DeVries side. His family came over from Goedereede, Zuid-Holland. I have seen many men’s names with a ‘sz’ on the end, I haven’t found any on my family’s side. I’m wondering if is because of where the DeVries family came from. A few examples are; Jansz, Jacobsz, Danielsz, and Abelsz, I know what the American name is without the ‘sz’ but can’t figure out why it is on the Dutch spelling. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Hi Edna,
As you can read in the following article, Reusel-De Mierden is a mistake in many trees, and should instead be “Netherlands.” https://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/ancestors-in-reusel-de-mierden-noord-brabant/
The -sz endings indicate patronymics: Jansz = son of Jan, etc. Patronymics with -sz endings were common in the provinces of Holland, where Goedereede was. Different regions had different traditions. “DeVries” was probably “De Vries” originally.
Hello Yvette,
My query is slightly different as it involves a possible Flemish immigrant to southern England. My 5th great grandmother is Mary Blonkerd, who married John Chambers at Salisbury St Edmund in England in 1780. They lived in Purton, Wiltshire and had a daughter Phillis who was born in 1782. The rector of the church wrote the name into the parish register as both Mary and her husband were illiterate so it is probably the rector’s interpretation of the spoken name.
Blonkerd is almost unknown as a surname as far as I can see, the only references I have found on Google is someone who died in the Netherlands in the 1800’s. From this I am wondering if Mary was one of the Flemish weavers who settled in Wiltshire from 1657 onwards. The noted Wiltshire clothiers, Paul Methuen of Corsham and Bradford on Avon (where a lot of my relatives lived) and James Brewer of Trowbridge sponsored 23 men ‘skilled in the art of making fine cloth’, with about 15 dependents as spinners, carders and weavers.
I cannot find anyone else with that name in the records, and I am curious as to what the actual name might be, or what the anglicized version of the name might be?
Many thanks,
Helen Ryder
It could have been Blankaert or a variation like that. That’s a Flemish name.
Thank you Yvette. I have also written to the Q&A section of a British genealogy magazine and they are going to try to answer my query in their next edition! I am excited to see what they find.
I lived for a while in West-Flanders (that’s the region of Bruges and Iepers) and a lot of Blankaerts are living there. In the dialect of West-Flanders, Blankaert is “Blonkoard” the phonological version coming very close to the way you would pronounce “Blonkerd” in English.
Hi Yvette.
Out of the blue my mom said her mothers family came from the Netherlands, I always understood they where from Germany. The story is their name was Dovenshock and that a family named Houseworth was leaving Germany but something happened so they gave their tickets to the Dovenshocks and when they got to the U.S. they had to keep the name in fear of deportation.
What would you say to look for next? I’m not sure of the spelling of Dovenshock.
Tamie Hartzell-Brueggemann
What period would that have been? “Dovenshock” is not a Dutch name but it could have been changed after emigration be easier to pronounce in the language of the new country.
The first Houseworth or Housworth is Henry born abt 1740 where I don’t know, and died bet 1775 & 1783 if this is my family I have in New York where his son Michael was born. I don’t have a spouse for him. I have always been told they came from Germany.
Thank you for your help.
Tamie
Dovenshock…Could that been “Dovenshoeck?” “deaf [people”s]corner” So “Hoeck”.
Of een oude versie van Duivenhok, =>Dove shed. (Dove is also dialect Flemish Dutch for dove…)
Hi Tamie,
I’m pretty sure the Houseworths originally came from The Netherlands.
In Dutch: Huyswaert or Huiswaard, eventually changed into Houseworth.
Hello Yvette, my Patronymic line surname is “Peek”. From what I have read online, the name was a variant of the Dutch name “Peake”. Do you have any origin info on the Peake Family. I will add that my Peek Family landed some time in the 1700’s in Charleston, SC with French Huguenots. Supposedly they were migrating there from Ireland. I do not expect you to be able know everything about them. I know that the banishing of Huguenots is a deep subject and caused a migration crisis in it’s time. I am just interested in the origin info on the family in the Netherlands and possibly even Northern Germany.
Thank you for your time and whatever help you can provide. It is greatly appreciated.
-Josh
“Peake” is not a Dutch name I’m familiar with. It sounds English/Irish rather than Dutch to me. Many names got spelled differently after emigration. I recommend researching the family in the earliest place where you know they lived to find clues about their origins, including researching their friends and associates. People often migrated in groups so if they traveled with Huguenots, chances are that they were from France and changed their name after emigration. If you don’t have any records that point to a Dutch or German origin, I would not start research here.
Could that be a version of Pieck? Like Anton Pieck
I am a Peake descendant. It’s a Walloon name. Still doing research to determine whether they go back to Belgium or originate in the Netherlands. My line was part of the settlement of New Amsterdam/New York, and then moved to Canada as Loyalists.
I’m Dutch and I don’t know where my Dutch ancestors came from. The last name is DeJong
As you can see in the article, De Jong is one of the most common Dutch names in the country. You will need more than just a name to find out where your ancestors lived. First names, dates, emigration patterns can all help.
The Dutch name van der Jagt become, Vanderjagt / Vanderjacht / van der Jacht / Vanderyacht and Vanderyajt.
More DNA Problems: Proceed with Caution
It is becoming apparent that what is generally thought of as an ethnicity ancestry and what these labs are producing is not the same. There is also another good article on dna-explained.com and the only one I have found to date that sheds some light on how the ethnicity map is produced. It certainly is a guesstimate thwart with problems. The method is relying on correlating your chromosome chart with other’s chromosome charts in a geographical area. Saying for example that French and Belgium people are ethnically Iberian indicates one of the problems. On the hand interpreting this as saying you have some ancestry in this region however is less problematic. In reality and underneath there is a shared and common ancestry on a broader regional basis. The only reliable information is a general footprint and a presence probably not visible beyond the last 500 years according to my own estimation. It is muddied because each ancestor up to 500 years ago is going to have inherited their ancestor’s genes from a much older time. So what you see with these methods is more like the top layer but there are other older layers underneath anyway. The actual percentages therefore need to taken with a grain of salt because it is not a precise estimate and should be accompanied by a confidence figure in %. For example along the lines of 30% plus or minus 29% might be closer to one’s family’s ethnicity. It would be reasonable to conclude that one cannot create ethnicity out of thin air but reliance on the current methodology risks doing that also because of mutations and false correlations. And so limiting these estimates to the last 1% for any individual is about as far as one could push this. I would also like to add that a more realistic threshold for being able to detect the presence of and match an individual ancestor is something nearer to GGG Grandparent using Chromosome genes and current techniques.
The above post was intended as a reply to Adam and relates to two preceding posts dated 17 April 2019 at 6:16 am Random Inheritance Real Life Example, and 16 April 2019 at 6:10 am Ethnicity Inheritance. It was in the context of using DNA ethnicity results from two individuals to see if this pointed to a common GGGGG Grandparent. Whilst no match arose out of it, it was subsequently realised that this type of outcome can occur either way but the odds were stacked against it. So it was back to the document trail, which is far more reliable provided more documents come to the surface and some more did.
And there is one related after post dated 18 April 2019 at 12:56 am on DNA matching which refers to a Halogroup example that spans Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and into Southern Italy) and is thought to be part of a control group that is then used to associate ethnicity matches with geographical footprints.
Should read Northern Italy.
Most informative article found to date on how generally ethnicity predictions are produced and the considerable variability in the estimates produced by each test house is reported in Science News, Vol 193 No 11 June 23 2018 p14 and online.
Further to my previous research, I checked the online GRO index and found Alfred Staines born in 1844 with mother’s maiden name Pond. This certainly confirms he is of the same family as the previous three boys born in the 1830s. You can order PDF versions of the birth certificates online from the website- http://www.gro.gov.uk. However when looking for Mary Ann, born in 1850/51 there was no trace, maybe Esther did not register her birth. Mary Ann was, most likely, illegitimate.
DNA results can indeed be problematic or seemingly utterly confusing. From my own personal point of view, I have one parent of Mediterranean descent however the test showed I had just over 25% south European. One would expect 50%! On reading various articles it seems that various genes from various populations can be passed on (I think). However there was also a strong connection to north Europe (Belgium, Netherlands and France) which certainly confirms your previous comments regarding the Vandebaize family and now, quite possibly Staines as well.
At the same time I had my motherline and fatherline DNA tested, my fatherline was distinctly Scandanavian.
Clerckenwell Silk Weaving Huguenot Ancestry
Thankyou Adam for having a look at the records. There is another contender for the father of John Staines b1804 and looks to have a stronger foothold. Before I get into that and for the record as a widow Esther was fully compliant with her Common Law rights, which took precedence over bits of paper then as it still does today. By way of a contrast, her standards as a mother stand head and shoulders over the moral insanity inflicted upon others by the likes of the Plantaganets and the Tudors. And it is the same moral insanity that has given rise to both our ancestral stories in the Netherlands, across France and then into merry England. This now leads me onto the next part of this ancestral story. There is also a lot of variability from one sibling to the next and it looks like the same cam be said for reports from one DNA test house to the next. That said it is noteworthy I do not have a strong footprint attributable to Netherlands, Belgium and France, only a low confidence once to Belgium and France and a high confidence one to South France and into Spain and Portugal. I am getting some matches to the Netherlands and Belgium as well as the Iberian Peninsula however. And this post may go towards accounting for some of the differences.
Two Contenders
What it boils down to are two contenders for the parents of John Staines b1804, weaver who married Alice and then as widower Charlotte Butterworth. One is John Weymouth Staines b1777 and Alice Vandebaize and the other is John Staines 1780-81 and Frances Blacklock who had a son Francis in 1790 in Bethnal Green. This second family comes from Clerckenwell Silk Weaving Huguenots, North of London in the Borough of Islington with records going back to 1650. This other John had a father John who in turn had brother James. By a process of elimination John born unto John and Jane in 1781 did not survive childhood. The next born b1783 would be too young. That born unto John and Mary in November in 1781 is also considered to be too young. There are two burial records for Bethnal Green date 1844 and 1854. The first relates to a John Staines b March 1780-March 1781. There is no record match for this birth date in the Bethnal Green area and does therefore indicate a birthplace somewhere else. Certain Clerckenwell records have still not been transcribed and digitised and so I am reliant on the manual research done by others. The last residence stated for the 1844 burial is Edward St Bethnal Green, which is now Kerbala St and is only a stone’s throw from St Matthew which is also where all three children born unto John widower and Charlotte Butterworth were baptised and christened.
Behavioural Matching
There are also some telltale signs to be gleaned from John’s behaviour. On both occasions he travels about 3km from where St Leonards is across the Old London Bridge, which was still standing, to a Church of some prominence and patriotic significance in Southwark Surrey. Henry V was welcomed back to England after his victory over the French in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 by the Aldermen of London. The Red Cross of St George was first used as Battle Standard and the V for victory sign used by Winston Churchill dates to back to this very event on the steps of the earlier church building. Neither John nor his spouse nor members of either family live and work there. Each time he returns to his place of residence and work in the Bethnal Green area and the children born unto each marriage are baptised at St Leonards or St Matthew. The Clerkenwell Staines family appear to prefer a Church of some significance or prominence for their marriage. The patriotic theme is also evident in St Pancras for example James, George and Henry. And so this behaviour and identity with a place outside Bethnal Green is more reflective of the Clerkenwell-Islington side of family than of any of the Bethnal Green area Staines weavers. I also note that my ancestor James and Hetty Pond got married in St Mary Islington which would be closer to the extended Clerckenwell Staines family members in North London.
Alice Westfield b1781 had just turned 19 years of age a few days before her wedding. So either spouse would be 23 years or 19-20 years of age when they got married. Alice Westfield’s parents are John Westfield and Alice Hodges. And there is an earlier John Westfield and another Alice around 1750 in the same area. It’s all too reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. So she too has a preference to name her children John and Alice, in this case twice over because tragically the first two did not survive early childhood. There is an 1841 census for John and Charlotte and their three children in Bethnal Green. Son Charles appears to have joined the Navy 1845-1854. John the father appears to have got somewhat younger with age but I have no doubt that he is the same John who was widowed. Instead of an age rounded down 50 he is more accurately around 60, and it appears dies in Bethnal Green aged 63. There is another Census record for a Charlotte Staines who was married in Kent and is living in Marybelone Middlesex, but is unrelated to this Charlotte Staines. Also Francis Staines and his wife are Silk Dyers and his daughter is Weaveress in the 1851 Census living in Bethnal Green. These are traditional skills. There was some strife over engine powered looms in Clerkenwell in 1760 and was possibility the catalyst for a move to Bethnal Green with their traditional skills.
DNA Matching Observations
Thereafter I did some experimentation with the matching search tool on Mr Heritage. I did observe that I had a 2G up and 3G down match to a second cousin identifiable on my family tree. Second cousin matches are usually spot on. And there was a 0.7% match (theoretical maximum 1.5%) for another cousin 3G up to one both 3G up and 4G down to his daughter. I also found matches with Pond, which is 3G, none for Westfield which is 4G, some for Hodges which is 5G, and 34 matches for Butterworth, which is 4G. None for Blacklock 5G but a couple for Blackstock and some for Morgan 6G, which is her mother. However before getting to carried away with it the further back in time and the further removed as a Cousin the greater the risk that it isn’t a match after all, just a coincidental association with a person with a similar name from that person’s family tree. On the other hand the number of matches at 4G for Butterworth is hard to ignore with the Staines side genes being the common factor. Beyond that however there is still a degree of uncertainty but far less than before. Getting any kind of autosomal match from just one individual is still a hit and miss affair and not that really conclusive, because it relies on a large sample of descendants and a only a few therein which actually have anything in common or detectable above the 0.1% reporting threshold.
Staines-Vandersteen Dutch French Connection
So overall and despite the law of averages pointing to John Weymouth Staines because of the more usual age difference it does not appear to be lining up all that well with the above. And that means a connection to the Vandebaize side does not appear to be there either. There is no other reference to John Weymouth after his baptism either. What I can say is there may well be some Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman Staines who were apprenticed into Silk Weaving. On the other hand there are a number of Staines from different areas with different Huguenot histories from different time periods associated with that area who do look to be descended from Vandersteen weavers in the Spanish Netherlands. The first came across in 1525. There are a number of accounts of these Vandersteen weavers coming from Wallonia and Picccardy in the Spanish Netherlands who spoke old French dialects and married others with old French names. For example from places like Cambrai and Lille. These earlier 16th century Huguenots anglicised their names and blended in with Anglo-marriages much earlier on than those who migrated or sought refuge say from 1680 onwards. If it were not for your post and for being able to use this website I doubt whether so much progress would have been made one one’s own effort and so what remains in common is the shared history. I started solving puzzles at a young age and later on the more complicated the more attracted I become to trying to solve them. Getting to the bottom of this personal puzzle, and there is more I feel to go with this story over in Southern France, is by far the most difficult of all. Thankyou for finding and flushing out some vital clues. It has certainly helped and I trust may be of use to anyone else trying to sort out his or her ancestry.
Footnote:
Because my footprint back into the Spanish Netherlands is likely to be much earlier one therefore might expect it to be weaker or further below the 0.1 % reporting threshold. I also have a medium confidence footprint for half of France. There is also a time factor to take into account when looking at these ethnicity maps as well as the considerable variability in them from one sibling to the next and from one test house to the next.
Footnote 2: Should read James Staines b1804, parents John and Alice and thus the quest was to identify just who John his father was.
Location Matching
Firstly there are 13 DNA autosomal matches for the name Butterworth not 34. Here is a summary of matches based on location. But one must have to regard to different persons in a family having different matches and that the older the ancestor the less visible. There are also far more English speaking people on the system and will therefore skew the results. However outside the English speaking world and given that one is looking at the topmost visible layer today the rankings are Netherlands 99, Germany 89, Sweden 85, Denmark 58. Norway 47, France 40, Finland 26, Switzerland 17, Spain 13, Austria 13, Belgium 12 and further down the scale Portugal 1. The ancestral contributions and reasons will be many fold and not limited to Staines ancestry.
Footnote 3: Correction
I must have been too tired again and have got my wires crossed:
Text above should read “What it boils down to are two contenders for the parents of John Staines weaver who married Alice and then as widower Charlotte Butterworth. John Staines is either John Weymouth Staines b 1777 Bethnal Green or John Staines b 1780-1781 outside of Bethnal Green. The former parents are John Staines m 1775 Alice Vandebaize and the latter parents are John Staines b 1748 ( m 1780 est) Frances Blacklock b 1760 who had a son Francis in 1790 in Bethnal Green.” Also two DNA matches for the surname of the Clerkenwell tree administrator, name Gerlach. Not a lot to go on but more clues that also potentially line up.
Clerkenwell Tree Flawed
The tree I was reliant on and put my faith in and attributable to a Mr Gerlach has a pivotal entry without accountability and appears to be erroneous. A record for the same names John Staines and Frances Blakelock is for a marriage in 1705 in St Katherine-by-the Tower and not in the year 1780. The St Katherine precinct did however accommodate very early Protestants and there was a Flemish cemetery within the grounds. I have no basis to rely on this tree and therefore cannot account for where John Staines who died in 1844 Bethnal Green comes from. This means I am unable to determine or account for who the parents of John who married Alice Westfield in St George the Martyr Southwark 1800 are. A number of factors still favour John who died in Edward Street and quite close to St Matthew with an earlier birth date 1780-1781. I shall not be reliant on anyone else’s tree in future unless it can be verified beforehand.
DNA Name Matching Traps
Before realising the above I tried to see what other names produced a match, including on the Vandebaize side. Benjamin Staines who married Esther had a son Benjamin b 1816 and his wife Mary Ann Garner is a Silk Weaver in the 1861 census Bethnal Green. The conclusion I reached was any name match beyond 3G and not a direct match with the same autosomal match name is extremely unreliable and inconclusive. Here are the results. First Batch: Lapidge 1, Garner 24, Baize and all variants 0, Osben 0. Second Batch Butterworth 13, Westfield 0, Hodges 32. Third Batch Pond 13, Staines 3. Fourth Batch (false tree): Blakelock 0, but Blackstock 1, Morgan 10, Gerlach 2. Fifth Batch experimental names: Vandersteen 1, de Pont 14, de Pond 14, le Pont 14, le Pond 14, Dupont 4, de la Croix 6, Steiner 6, Stiennes 0. These name matches can come from anywhere on a tree attached to someone who has some autosomal genes in common with me. But it is inherently unreliable and only serves to play with one’s emotions and does not prove anything other than to either confuse or substantially mislead one into drawing false inferences.
Summary
The 1841 census in St Pancras is now beyond doubt a match and has established a firm bridgehead. The marriage of James Staines b 1804 Middlesex in 1831 in St Mary Islington to Hetty (Hester) Pond b 1805-1806 Iver, Buckinghamshire locates one’s ancestry closer to two groups of silk weaving Staines. One is in the Clerkenwell-Islington area north of London the other in the Bethnal Green area east of London. The only search match for James Staines b 1803-1804 parents is a John Staines (weaver) and Alice Westfield married St George the Matyr in 1800 with Bethnal Green births for their children and places one’s ancestry in Bethnal Green. This ancestry belongs to one or other Silk Weaving Staines families. A connection between these Silk Weaving Staines families to an earlier Vandersteen family in the former Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) is quite a likely possibility. But beyond that there are a couple of possibilities with more factors pointing to John Staines b 1780-1781 than John Weymouth Staines b 1777.
Alice Vandebaize’s mother is “possibly” Martha Weymouth with parents Michael and Mary married 1728 St Dunstan Stepney. There is a gap in the baptismal record results between Michael 1729 and then Bing 1733 & Elizabeth 1734 which would allow for another birth for Martha say 1730 or 1731. This is only a guess because no record is coming up on the system. But it would account for naming her son John Weymouth Staines. Charles Vandebaize and Martha’s estimated marriage date is around 1750, first born Philip 1751, and that would make Martha around 19-20 years old when she got married.
According to a book by Alfred Plummer and published in 1972 on the “The London Weaver’s Company” which oversaw rules and regulations, weavers had to be a member. Apprenticeships for Silk Weaving started at a very young age. The distribution of the number of weavers by district in the 18th century is stated as Southwark 30%, Cripplegate 20%, Bishopgate 20%,Shoreditch 20% & Whitechapel 10%. Work was allocated by Masters on a daily basis who also provided the raw materials. Another account tells of the Master Weaver’s loyalty to the Crown and expectation that their weavers followed suit. The ongoing disputes and protests were against Government Policy and not the Crown. So John’s perceived patriotism is more in keeping with these expectations. But on the other hand his choice of a place of marriage is not in keeping with the rest of the Vandebaize Staines family. It appears to be a big ask expecting the rest of his family for example to march from Clerkenwell to Southwark for his wedding. So that tends to favour John being more local to Bethnal Green. There are four surviving John Staines in Middlesex from 1777 to 1783 that I can find and four marriages; 3 in Bethnal Green area and 1 in St George the Martyr. Only two of these marriages could be John who married Alice Westfield in 1800. One born in Bethnal Green 1777 and the other born outside Bethnal Green 1780-1781.
There was a great deal of upheaval and displacement over many years. Thousands could find themselves out of work at any one time. So apart from say relocating to be near the wife’s (Westfield) family in Bethnal Green there are many reasons why John (weaver) who married Alice Westfield ended up there for work reasons and then perhaps met his future wife shortly thereafter. But he may also be John Weymouth Staines who was born in Bethnal Green.
I note that Edward Staines’s family and Cousin George (son Benjamin) ended up having to move north to Hackney and resided at the rear of Silk Mill Row. That is living and being born in Bethnal Green and then having to move away in this case Northwards for a variety of reasons including work wasn’t unheard of. On the other hand John (widower) who latter married Charlotte Butterworth remained in Bethnal Green. What happened to the children from his first marriage has not been determined. So John b 1804 (Butcher) may well have had to move away to find work too, presumably to Islington and place of marriage about 2km from St Leonards.
As there is the possibility that there are missing records I cannot even be certain that James born in Middlesex between June 1804 and June 1805 was the son of John and Alice Westfield m 1800 St Mary Islington. It is a possibility but not a certainty.
Overall I cannot go beyond the marriage record for James and Hetty Pond in St Mary Islington 1831 and cannot reliably say I do have Huguenot ancestry. The town of Staines at the far westerly part of the old county of Middlesex was called Pont by the Romans. So my ancestor may in fact be Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman. Without any other form of corroborative evidence where James Staines b 1804 actually comes from it remains an open question from my side. And this conclusion comes about after realising that not all the records exist or have survived and not all records are on the search system.
John Staines m Alice
The burial record for a John Staines in Bethnal Green in 1844 gives a place of death as Edward St, which is just 2 short block widths west of St Matthew. His son Edmond (Railway Inspector) from his second marriage is living in Anglesea St, which is about 6 short block widths South-South East from St Mathew and remarkably close. These Street names have changed but no list of changed names accounted for Anglesea St. I was only able to locate this Street because of an account of their history in Bethnal Green and locations on an old map provided by the Mallandain family web site. This family lived (if I counted correctly) at some 7 different addresses in the space of 30 years but all around the same location. Whilst these two Street locations could be a coincidence it is looking more like John who married Alice Westfield was born outside Bethnal Green between 1780-81. British History online “Building and Social Conditions 1837-1875” states that 80% of Bethnal Green’s population in 1851 and 1861 were born in London. This could be interpreted a number of ways because Middlesex is recorded as a London address on the Census. But the population was growing quite fast. John could have come from Southwark to Bethnal Green. But there isn’t anything substantial in the records for the Staines side in Southwark though, but nevertheless this scenario could be possible. Like many other silk weaving families John Staines’s offspring chose different occupations because work for weavers in the 19th century was impacted by many factors including automation. And some, having chosen a different occupation moved further away from Bethnal Green to find work. I cannot say with certainty that this is my ancestry but it looks like if it were I would not be connected to the Vandebaize family.
Southwark Weavers 1571
According to a considerable seminar paper published in 2008 “ Immigrants and the diffusion of skills in early modern London: the case of silk weaving” by Lien Luu from the Centre for Metropolitan History, Institue of Historial Research, University of London:
In 1571 the main concentration of silk weavers were in Bishopsgate, Cripplegate and Southwark. Silk weavers in St Olive Southwark for example were Dutch speaking, with 80% coming from Brabant, Flanders and Holland. (This is interpreted to mean Dutch and Flemish speaking). Whereas those in St Boltoph Bishopsgate were 65% Walloon. (This is interpreted to mean old-French speaking). After 1685 the original Bishopgate industry expanded with French speaking Huguenots and became the Spitalfields silk industry. Thereafter the silk industry in Cripplegate and Southwark fizzled out.
Under the rules of the weavers company stranger weavers had to employ locals in many roles including apprenticeships. Thereafter they would be living, working and socialising together. Intermarriages will have followed, if for no other reason than to keep it in all in the family.
For any ancestor named Staines with an occupation Silk Weaver the ancestry is likely to be a mixed Anglo-Saxon or Anglo Norman ancestry intermarried with a Huguenot ancestry. But it could include Dutch, Spanish Netherlands or French intermarriage. In some cases Vandersteen may have been anglicised to Staines. But there is no known record of that occurring that I can find.
The elusive John Weymouth Staines
As to John Staines (weaver) who first married Alice Westfield from Bethnal Green in 1800 it appears most unlikely that his family therefore came from Suffolk. I have doubled up counting possible parents because one was a record for the same birth in the Hospital in Holborn. So it is looking like one out of the the four John Staines (1777, 1780-81 born outside Bethnal Green, 1783 and 1783) could have died before reaching marriageable age. Clearly John b1780-81 lived to 63 years. So John Weymouth is either the spouse of two other marriages or he did not survive to a marriageable age. I’ll keep looking. One only had to drink some water to dice with death every day. Disease struck whole families down and was indiscriminate. The same thing occurred in most major cities. My Cousin’s family but well upstream from me and with an Englishman practicing Medicine in Bourlogne sur mer suffered a similar fate.
The ‘elusive’ John Weymouth Staines was the second child of Alice Vandebaize and John Staines, born 1777 (his sister Elizabeth was one year older). He married an Alice (surname unknown) circa 1800. Alice Vandebaize was born early in 1754 and baptised on 17 February. She was the daughter of Charles Vandebaize and Martha, who married circa 1750, and had10 children. Charles , who was born in 1731,was the youngest child of Philip and Mary, who married circa 1703, because their first child Elizabeth was born in 1704. There were several variations in the spellings of the surname for Philip and his children.
There is a case for a Vandebaize ancestry on my side based on observations of movements, occupations, behaviours, naming conventions and proximity of family and friends. That is in addition to the possibility that John W Staines b1777 died in infancy and the next male was named John in early 1781 noting that many records for births and deaths are missing and there is a slot of another birth to have occurred. It is fully acknowledged that this does not offer the certainty that would otherwise arise from a record that contained the surname Vandebaize as a witness or a middle name say in a record.
At least one member of the Vandebaize family was into gun making of which three examples are known to exist today as mentioned earlier on. The VANDEBAIZE name is spelt as it was intended to be spelt on the flintlock pistol barrel. The use of the Dutch or Flemish Van de instead of Van der is much less common. But the addition of an old French surname Baize is not evident anywhere in the Netherlands as was explained earlier on. Getting back to tracking down John Staines the marriage records for St George the Martyr are contained in the birth and burial book which is held by the London Municipal Archives (LMA). There are no signatures recorded in this register but thanks to Adam Osborn’s help it was ascertained that John at his second marriage to Charlotte Butterworth was a widow. It is clear based on 1841 census and death record that he was living in Edward Street, which is 100 yards west of St Matthew, and 2-3 minutes walk away using a 19th century map of the area. Furthermore it is also clear that Charlotte Staines (nee Butterworth) as a widow then is the one in question on the 1851 Census in Poplar, where her date of birth is more accurately put as 1799-1800. Her brother John Butterworth married Eliza Pain. Eliza’s parents and siblings are recorded as also living in Edward Street in 1841. That is they are near neighbours and most likely points to how John Butterworth first met his future wife. In addition John Butterworth, Charles Staines from the second marriage and Grandson James Staines (my ancestor George’s older brother, George became a Mariner and later a Sea Captain) from the first marriage all have records for the Mercantile Navy 1845-1854. Moreover Eliza’s younger brother George is a foreman at the silk factory (does not say which one) and her younger sister Susan (Susannah) is a handloom silk weaver. As stated earlier on these handlooms were housed on the top floor. Emma Appleby (nee Lambert Huguenot name) is also concurrently recorded in 1841 living with Samuel Appleby and the Mason family in Abbey Street, which is immediately behind and east of St Matthews. It would appear they had already entered into a Common Law marriage according to their actions and wishes before having a formal Church marriage on Christmas Day 1841. One also had to be able to afford a Church Marriage and not all could. By 1830 industrial weaving activities resulted in severely depressed earnings for handloom weavers and led to a great deal of unhappiness, malnutrition and protestation. While many found work in these factories many others left weaving altogether and droves of people chose to emigrate to New York or to other parts of the British Commonwealth. Emma Lambert’s family and the Virgin family are living in Fuller Street, which is about 50 yards west of St Mathew. Samuel and Etty Virgin are fancy trimming weavers. A fancy trimming weaver used a loom fitted with a Jacquard system, which could be programmed with pins to take 4-8 colours and create coloured patterns in silk.
John Staines and Alice Vandebaize chose to be married on 23rd April 1775 in St Dunstan Stepney, which is described as the Mother Church for the East of London. Daughter parishes were thereafter created from it. This is an old style Gothic style building favoured by Huguenot families as well as neo-classical styled St Matthews and St Leonards. This Church is about 2000 yards South-South East of St Matthews. Neither the groom nor bride appears to be living in Stepney. Thereafter all their children are baptised at St Matthews Bethnal Green or St Leonards Shoreditch suggesting John Staines and Alice Vandebaize were living further west somewhere between St Leonards in Shoreditch and some 800 yards west of St Mathews. John Staines and Alice Westfield (parents John Westfield and Alice Hodges) also chose to be married some way from where they lived in St George the Martyr Southwark on 30th June 1800 and is about 3500 yards South-South West of St Matthews. There are patriotic reasons for doing so as Henry V was welcomed back by the Alderman of London after the defeat over the French at Agincourt in 1415. After the marriage John Staines and Alice Westfield’s children were all baptised in St Leonards until after 1806. It suggests that after the death of two children they have relocated say in 1807 nearer to St Matthews presumably taking up residence in Edward Street. All the children born unto this marriage thereafter are baptised at St Mathews. Being so close there would not be any motivation to go anywhere else. These observations place both families nearer to St Leonards than say nearer to Edward Street earlier on. The preference for John and Alice is noted but then Alice’s parents were John and Alice Hodges. That is there are many John and Alices to take account of. It has been suggested based on a constructed family tree by Adam Staines that John baptised in May 1781 in Bethnal Green to John William Stienes and Fanny from LMA records is one of the same that died in Edward Street in 1844. That would make John just over 19 years of age when he got married to Alice who was a few days older than her 19th Birthday. It is not unheard of but his age is noteworthy. It is further suggested that he is the brother of Francis Staines born 1790 to John and Fanny Staines in Bethnal Green. There are no other records for any other child unto either parent. Francis Staines married Mary and are silk dyers living in Brick Lane in 1841 and Fashion Street off Brick Lane about 900 yards South West of St Matthews in 1851 with son and daughter weavers. Their craft is adding value to plain cloth and/or dying thread for use in a factory. Frances is later recorded in 1861 as a manufacturer. There is nothing in the naming conventions or occupations in the Staines-Westfield family or later Staines-Butterworth family that gives one any confidence that this John Staines is the brother of a Frances Staines. No actual date of birth is forthcoming and would need to be within a narrow window of Jan Feb to 3rd March 1781 if one were to take the date of birth on the 1844 death record as accurate and reliable. And therein is the overarching snag. And that is because of Charlotte Butterworth’s propensity to play about with their ages and place of birth it does not give one any confidence in what she may have thought or said at the time of death in 1844. It is not always the case, but an attraction to a much older man and a disregard for telling the truth is consistent with a narcissistic personality. And I have seen on two occasions the devastating effect that a Step Mother with these traits can have on innocent children who have lost their mother. There is no empathy or real motherly love for the children from the first marriage. And so at the beginning of 2020 and after an exhaustive analysis based on the above observations and patterns of behaviour the more likely match is an Alice Vandebaize ancestry but with a cautionary low-moderate level of confidence attached to it. And that is because all the documentation about the date of birth that is available is problematic.
I have uploaded my My Heritage DNA file to FTDNA and have doubled up my ethnical footprints as a result. It shows that I have western European as well as multi-continental footprints including North and South East Africa and two in West Asia. It is consistent with the cosmopolitan mixture one might get from an Iberian Penninsula footprint even though it is attributed to a small amount. It became apparent that combining rather than comparing was a valid step. This is because the ones chosen for the reference group are intensively analysed using correlation techniques. Essential the diversity of the group is being weeded out and those persons with that diversity discarded. But what this does is create a subgroup with a narrow genetic profile. Go to another test house that uses similar techniques and the genetic profile of that subgroup is different. There is likely to be some overlap but also areas not covered by the other test house. So if one test house does not see you so to speak chances are another will. And put another way a nil result does not mean no. My own conclusion is matching to any group is fairly reliable whereas the % attributed to what is in you or your family is quite wobbly. If you get an ethnicity match take note of it because the chances are it’s part of your heritage and ancestry. So I’m exploring what ever I can with the test houses to find cousin matches, which might allow one to raise the level of confidence.
And then again it might no but all one can do is try out what ever is available.
Footnote 1: The other suggested surname is given as Steines from Adam Staine’s constructed tree. The mother’s name Fanny is a diminutive form of the French name Frances and also can come from the Spanish name Estafany, which in English is Stephanie. The mother may well come from a Huguenot background. However this surname is typically German in origin with examples in the Netherlands and Belgium after presumably intermarrying therein. The baptism records for John Steines May 1781 are cited as being taken from 2 sources, (i) Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1812. London, England: London Metropolitan Archives, and (ii) England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. Neither has been confirmed.
Footnote 2: Silk Dyeing is highly specialised and traditionally also handed down from father to son. It requires access to good quality water and good heating facilities. It can and should result in much better earnings than handloom weaving. Some silk dyers were able to become considerably wealthy. The suggested John Steines (as a brother of Francis Staines) would be the oldest son by 9 years and yet he isn’t engaged or trained in this highly specialised and better earning skill only the much younger son. This is a further observation that detracts from my ancestor John Staines who married Alice Westfield being the brother of Francis Staines-Silk Dyer.
Some more information has been found which presents a stronger case for a Vandebaize ancestry. This has enabled me to raise the confidence level to a moderate rating and above 50%. It puts the Westfield and Vandebaize families in close proximity to one another earlier on and further away from St Matthew Bethnal Green.
John Westfield and Alice Hodges were married in St Dunstan Stepney in Sept 1776, which is about one year and five months after John Staines and Alice Vandebaize were married in the same church in April 1775. It is the mother church of East London and favoured by Huguenot families. Moreover the first born unto the 1776 marriage is baptised in St Mary Whitechapel. The significance of this is the Vandebaize family in the 18th century were either baptised in St Mary Whitechapel or St Botolph without Aldgate, and is about 600 yards South-West of St Mary, which in turn is about 1000 yards South-West of St Matthew. This places the spouses of each John & Alice family, that is Alice Vandebaize and Alice Westfield in close proximity to one another and using the same churches earlier on. By 1781 Alice Westfield is baptised in St Matthew Bethnal Green. Edward Staines’s family use St Leonards in the early 1800s whereas Benjamin Staines’s family use Spitalfields Christ Church Stepney. John Staines uses St Leonards up to 1806. There is a triangle of three churches bound by St Leonard and Christ Church Stepney at the base about 1000 yards long and St Mathew at the apex with each side of the triangle about 800 yards long. This triangle covers all three families of John Edward and Benjamin in this time period and put all three in close proximity to one another. It is noted that in the same time period the children of Francis Staines (silk dyer) and Mary Staines (silk dyer) baptise their children at St Leonards and is the only other suggested Staines family but one with a highly specialised occupation connected to silk making albeit silk dying and is not evident in either of the John, Edward or Benjamin families. There is no birth record tying any John Staines or similar name silk weaver to Jan Feb 1981 and no other ancestry approaching anything like the above. A doubting Thomas might say however the latest information is coincidental. On the other hand it is apparent that the probability that a spate of coincidences are collectively disconnected gets smaller and smaller the more of them that are found. But the probability that they are in the main connected to one another starts to asymptote towards 1 the more of them that are found. From my standpoint the scales have tipped over in favour of a Vandebaize ancestry with a moderate level of confidence. When it comes to Cousin matching the test houses do not report on any autosomal matches beyond 6 levels. And that is because there isn’t any confidence in the result. One has to imagine say different amounts of small segments spread across 23 chromosomes, with those from say Adam and I inheriting a random amount spread out randomly across the 23 chromosomes. The probability that there is just one segment overlapping and in common from two persons each 8 levels down is far less than the threshold limit of 0.1% of either persons Chromosomes. The only way to prove ancestry like this using DNA would be to exhume and extract DNA from the ancestor and then match to a direct male line using Y-DNA or direct female line using mt-DNA. Well it isn’t Richard III so no one is going to be doing this on my account. No record is guaranteed to be accurate and there are many examples where errors have occurred. Either John Staines misled and deceived Charlotte or Charlotte misled and deceived those processing the Death record for 1844 or John W Staines died in infancy and another John Staines was born unto Alice Staines (nee Vandebaize) in Jan Feb 1781. We will never know what the truth of this aspect is. Charlotte has already shown a propensity to colour in the truth because she isn’t all that happy with the image projected by their age difference. No man would be concerned about having a younger bride, quite the contrary. As no birth record of any kind can pin point a date of birth to Jan Feb 1781 in Middlesex the information about his alleged age and birth date at the time of death had to come from personal knowledge at the time of death, that is from Charlotte. For my part it has taken a number of years to get this point. It was important to me to establish this ancestry for a number of reasons. And one such reason is I suspect this ancestry also underpins a much earlier heritage, which I am still investigating and that is also why more DNA reports are being sought.
Burial Notices Sometimes Unreliable
It is truly a roller coaster ride. I have had to pull back myself because I don’t want to rely on just one record. But then the most unreliable records in terms of dates are death records because they rely on someone else to provide the details in those days. It is evident from the 1841 Census that someone understated John’s age, by at least 6 years or more. And if that is the case perhaps John’s family from his second marriage to Charlotte in Southwark thought he was younger than he actually was when he got married. That is John is a crafty old horse. Therefore his actual date of birth could be 4 years older than stated on the burial record and there is no outsider as such because as a weaver it was John Weymouth Staines who was buried in 1844 and was last living in Edward Street.
Charlotte’s Wedding
When John (widower) and Charlotte Butterworth got married in 1818 she would be about 21 or 22. He on the other hand might have presented himself to her as a spritely 37 year old still able to compete with other suitors or alternatively as an over the hill 41 year old. What might a crafty old horse do I wonder? And this is same old crafty horse who got younger as he got older on the 1841 census and the same one with image related habits indicative in his choice for a Church wedding locale. And his choice for a Church wedding at St George The Martyr in Southwark would certainly impress any patriotic Master Weaver whom he was dependent on for his work and daily sustenance. There is a saying from the 1930s and that is if you are looking for a motive back self interest because it is winner every time.
If john Weymouth Staines remarried in 1818 he would have been 41. I was given to believe the Vandebaize family were all weavers of silk tapestries, and John Staines (his father) is listed as a ‘silk artist’, which would tie in with that theory.
I cannot say with any certainty that John W Staines b 1777 is my ancestor. What I can say is my John Staines ancestor was a silk weaver working and living in Bethnal Green. Traditionally this occupation was handed down from father to son. His eldest son James was indentured to a Butcher usually at 13 years of age, starting in about 1817 for a 7 year apprenticeship whereby his food and board were provided by his host and would be one less in the family to look after. When James got married he was 27 and his wife 24. James’s brother Thomas was a silk weaver. He married and moved away to Rutlandshire by 1841. In his place is a weaveress living with the family of the second marriage in 1841 in Edward St. Not all death records had a year of birth attached but apparently this one dated 3rd March 1844 (also in Edward St) did and is stated as 1781. The first marriage was on the 30th June 1800. The second marriage was on 27th Dec 1819. That would make John 18 years and 7-8 months old whereas his bride was just a few days older than her 19th Birthday at his first marriage. She waited until after he 19th Birthday but he could not? Girls mature quicker than Boys and usually the groom is more established in his early 20s and settled down. Thus in my humble opinion the birth date attributed to John as Jan Feb 1781 does not present itself too well. It’s problematic. Furthermore there is no birth record that I can find that matches this date of birth. But then there are many missing records as well as those moving into London to find work. Moreover in 1841 John gets younger (birth date range 1787-1791). Charlotte’s range is 1792-1796. In 1851 the second wife Charlotte is a widow and is visiting her brother John Butterworth in Poplar who was a Master Mariner. She gets younger again and her birth range for that record is 1799-1800. Charlotte is present at both census and at his death. It looks like by 1841 the first family have scattered and may have even had a falling out. She may well have thought this was his Birth date, that is the one he provided her with or led her to believe. One simply does not know what the truth of the matter is. In addition there are many missing records and latching onto the only available one that looks like it might be a match without any other corroboration simply won’t do is the conclusion I have had to come to. I have tried to map out all the Staines related families and see if there are any cousins or nephews that might connect them up. Nothing else has surfaced. So it will remain a quandary with a lot of uncertainty. For your information Benjamin Staines m 28 Dec 1814 Esther Savory (Huguenot name). His son Edwin has the middle “Vandebaize” name. There is no birth record coming up for Benjamin Staines although he is clearly part of this wider family. In all probability anyone silk weaving in Bethnal Green with an 18th century footprint will be socialising with, living with, working with and intermarrying with Huguenot families or descendants.
Correction: At the first marriage John would be 19 years 5-6 months old. That is better but still on the young side for the groom.
Some additional information: I am certainly aware of missing birth records or ones that I cannot account for. There is a slot for a birth record say in Jan Feb to 3rd March 1781 for another born unto John Staines and Alice Vandebaize. There are instances of a child born and given the mother’s or father’s name but not surviving infancy or early childhood and thereafter another is so named. This did happen with the firstborn children Alice and John born unto John Staines and Alice Westfield. So in that event the firstborn John W would not have survived infancy or early childhood. And therefore that could lead to another John later on in 1781, but this time a survivor. There are many instances of death records not coming up either. In addition the Weaveress in Charlotte Staines’s household in 1841 is using an anticipated married name Emma Appleby to Samuel Appleby who is also a silk weaver and born in Bethnal Green. They actually got married on Christmas Day 1841. Her maiden name is Lambert (Huguenot name). Another in Charlotte Staines’s household in 1841 is Martha Butterworth and she marries Samuel’s brother George a boot maker in the last quarter of 1852. In the 1851 census Charlotte’s age is stated as 51 and place of birth Birmingham Warwickshire not Bethnal Green Middlesex as claimed in 1841. It is possible that her brother being the head of the household and the one responsible for the Census submission did not want to make a false statement about his sister. In that event Charlotte would have been 19-20 years old when she married John Staines who was at least 38 years old. In 1841 Charlotte appears to be bringing their ages closer together to keep up appearances say. That is she is claiming to be 23 to 27 years old and John 25 to 29 years old at the time of marriage. It is indicative of a mother in-law psychologically blocking out the previous marriage and children. There is a cousin of Edward Staines b1790, George b 1823-24 living with the Lapidge family but I am unable to find a birth record and hence his parent’s names. So something like this requires a great deal of patience and persistence. But overall I cannot say without corroboration that my ancestor is a member of the Vandebaize side of the Staines family. It remains an open possibility but without any certainty.
To answer my own question: George Staines (silk weaver in 1851) cousin of Edward Staines (b abt 1790 silk weaver) and living with the Edward Ladpidge (Huguenot name) and Alice (nee Staines) family in 1861 in Prospect Place Hackney was born on 11th Jan 1824 to Benjamin Staines and Esther Savory (Huguenot name).
There are two further replies for 2nd and 3rd of January 2020 under Jill Murray (nee Staines) 5th June 2019 1:08 pm post. For Jill or Adam Osben one could simply do a page search on 2020 to find them. It is the culmination of a lot of exhaustive analysis and overall is pointing at a Vandebaize ancestry but with a low-moderate level of confidence.
Some more information has come to light and has raised the confidence level to moderate and above 50%. This post is below the other two and is dated 5th January 2020.
Too Many Loose Ends
I have realised that one cannot make anything more reliable or more certain out of what it is based on, which in turn is unreliable and uncertain. The UK GRO leaflet explains that the age of death on an historical record has not been confirmed and is prone to error. And in part any next of kin left to provide such information at the time of death is most unlikely to even know what day it is. Moreover any historical birth date is actually a post record estimate implanted in this case in the IMI LDS Index but did not include a 12 month window before the date of burial. This implanted date of birth is added in because it is then used for search purposes as a data element. There is a death record for John Stains in St Leonards in Nov 1843 age 66 which would match John W Staines b April 1777. But this does not prove who he is either because there are many John Staines in England coming and going. At this stage and after more record searching it is apparent that one cannot prove my ancestor John Staines lived in Edward St, or that he married again as a widow to Charlotte Butterworth or that his first wife Alice died between 1815 and 1819. All one has is a mystery man who died between the 1841 and 1851 census in Edward Street. Two thirds of the people living in the area were weavers. And so having the same occupation or being married in the same church does not prove anything else either. St Dunstan All Saints in Stepney was very popular and used by those nearby and farther afield. Furthermore marriages in adjacent years does not prove the Westfield family were acquainted with the Vandebaize family in the 1770s. So overall I am no further down the road than a low confidence guess and this isn’t going to be any better or any worse than anyone else’s low confidence guesses at the end of the day.
Other Information
The Minister who presided over the marriage in 1800 in St George the Martyr and in St Mary Islington in 1831 has the same name, but not so at St George in 1819. The Westfield family were silk weavers and the earliest born abt 1700 was a silk dyer. By 1760 the weaving had given way to sea fairing. The Weymouth family head was a shipwright and then later a mariner. The Hodges family (Alice Westfield’s father) head was a soldier. All liked using St Dunstan in Stepney. Samuel Vandebaize served on HMS Gibraltar’s Prize which was French sloop captured by HMS Gibraltar. The Captain and crew received a reward for capturing ships and thus it is likely he was a member of HMS Gibraltar beforehand. The sloop was sent to Halifax in Nova Scotia Canada during the 7 years with France. Samuel named his wife Sarah as his beneficiary in his will, which is kept in the Kew National Archives. Samuel is Charles’s brother and he was a gun maker. The example in the Royal Armoury is thought to be from the early 1700s so this suggests their father Philip was a gun maker too, passed down from father to son. There is no evidence of any textile making in the Vandebaize family in the 18th century. There is however a 2 out of 3 chance of meeting and marrying into a weaving family and this what happened to Alice Vandebaize. The earliest known church for Vandebaize is St Olive, which was saved by William Penn’s father and some men from the Navy yards nearby during the great fire of London 1666. About 1 in 10 men were employed in sea fairing activities. Thus none of the above is exceptional or out of the ordinary. Overall I cannot say which family I come because there are too many loose ends.
Correction:
The Church is St Olav Hart Street. I see it was Sir William Penn, Admiral who was in charge of saving this church. Also I was referring to finding any bdm record that was outside of the more frequent encounters, and therefore an exceptional bdm record that would put matters to rest. But none has surfaced to date.
Census Filtering
There are only two census records for Middlesex in 1841 with a John Staines born in the 18th century, one in Provost Street, St Leonards and the other in Edward St, St Matthews in the birth date range 1770 to 1790. The St Leonards census appears under the name Stanes in 1841(as recorded by the census enumerator in his writing) but is the same family using Staines (by another census enumerator) in 1851. The correct spelling appears to be Stanes as used in the electoral register in the 1860s for Reuben. Neither John is found living in 1851 censuses. There are two death records entered for a John Staines in Middlesex between 1841 and 1851 with birth dates attributed to the 18th century. John in Provost St is living with his son Reuben an Easting House Keeper. Neither John or Reuben were born in Middlesex and Reuben was born in Buckinghamshire. There is a birth record for John April 1777 (different day) in Buckinghamshire to John and Sarah under the name Stains whilst at least one sibling is transcribed under the name Staines. This could account for the death record in Parish of Bromley St Leonards in Poplar in Nov 1843 for John Staines 66 years of age noting that the name alternates between Stanes and Staines. This is also recorded under the GRO as a death in Poplar Union Workhouse, which had a substantial infirmary to cater of outbreaks of cholera in 1830-1 and was enlarged in 1849. It’s some way from Shoreditch, but it would depend on the nature of his illness or disease for isolation and there is no other GRO death record using any surname variation for the period 1841-1851. Overall this leaves a John Staines weaver born in 18th century in Middlesex and his family to Alice Westfield and one remaining census record to the family of John Staines widow (previously married) born in Middlesex in the 18th century and a death record for Edward Street in 1844 weaver born in the 18th century with a doubtful and problematic age of death recorded because it does not match anyone directly in Middlesex. It is also doubtful and problematic because his widow Charlotte and/or John have grossly falsified their ages in the Edward St Census for 1841. Baptism registrations and marriage choices also tend to link the two Johns living near St Matthew together. And the only remaining family for John in the 18th century in Middlesex is that of John Staines and Alice Vandebaize. This isn’t reliant on a hard proof nor does it provide one with a high level of confidence. On the other hand whilst this isn’t a direct method, it shows by a process of elimination and census filtering that there isn’t anything else left. And so that’s about the best answer I have to offer.
Traps for Young Players
It is also noteworthy that commercial ancestry search engines are using multiple records in different spelling variations for the same census record, for example Steines, Stennes and Staines. The correct spelling and reading of the record is Staines for the Edward St family, if one cared to check their marriage and children’s records. What this is doing however is misleading many users and adopters of these trees (sometimes in the thousands) to create more trees using false names and the end result is bogus family trees and bogus family members. And this underlines why I have had to go back and check over every detail for corroboration against the actual record image before reaching a conclusion.
Signatures Match
To answer Jill Murray’s earlier query: I compared John Staines signatures for 1800 and 1819 marriages. I had overlooked this aspect after reading St George did not record signatures but fortunately this is in another book. The J, S and t are written in the same style and movement, the t with two straight strokes to make a cross. The word “Staines” is broken into three movements St, ain, es in both cases. His handwriting is very different to how the Ministers wrote his name on both occasions. Beyond any reasonable doubt this is the same man some 19 years apart. So that is something more solid to rely on and means there are only 2 John Staines (not 3), 2 Census records for 1841 and 2 death records to account for, and as assessed immediately above.
Comparing Father & Son Signatures
I have been able to go one step further and compare two signatures from John (Snr) with that of John(jnr). One is from his marriage to Alice Vandebaize in 1775 and the other is from his daughter Ann’s marriage to James Dwight in 1816 in St John, Hackney. These have been carefully compared to the two signatures from John (jnr), his potential son and my ancestor. Ann’s uncle Benjamin Vandebaize is the other witness and signatory. What is noteworthy in the 18th century is the boys have writing skills, not so the girls but this does not mean girls could not read. All children would typically acquire the ability to read from the earliest age in order to read the Bible and most likely from their mothers. Writing skills were left until the boys had better motor skills and eye co-ordination from say the age of 11. Whilst others could send their boys as future breadwinners to a boarding school or a grammar school it was no so for those less well off. Learning to write in the 18th century was needs based and in this case it most likely comes from the father as part of the son’s overall training. The letter J is written the same way in all four cases, it starts from the right, curves anticlockwise and then downwards to finish the lower part of the letter J. The letter S is clearly identical in three examples with a characteristic small scroll loop at the bottom of the S and just only visible in the 1819 example from John (jnr). Digital imaging may not capture all of the writing detail and the above relied on zooming in to see the finer detail. In all cases the letter “t” is made up of one downward stroke followed by a horizontal line for the cross. John (Snr) draws his line to the right over the letters he intends to write whereas John (jnr) draws his cross more centrally about the vertical line. John (Snr) has a small needle’s eye loop for the letter “h” whereas John (jnr) has the loop closed. In my case for example the letter t would be crossed first and then the curved bottom of the t seamlessly joined to the next letter to form a continuous string of lower case letters. The smaller “s” in all four cases end with a characteristic hook shape. This is not what one typically finds with this letter. In all four cases a quill and ink pen would be used to complete the name. All lower case letters are neatly written and follow the same hand movements. In comparing these signatures one has to try to recreate the hand movements involved. All the above identifies a unique set of hand writing characteristics and provides compelling evidence to link the two. That is the father has taught his son how to write. The additional consideration is if my ancestor isn’t the son of John (Snr) who else could it be? John (jnr) is beyond doubt the same one in the 1841 Census, which gives his place of birth in Middlesex, living in Edward St with a date of birth in the 18th century and he comes from a silk weaving family with an 18th century footprint in Middlesex. The only other family is that of Francis Staines, which has one son Francis in b1790 a silk dyer not a weaver and no other siblings. One cannot simply pluck a name out of air 10-13 years earlier and then attach it to this family with any credibility and without any sources to base it on and without any proof any kind. It has become apparent that a quite few are building trees as numbers game and without any regard to the bona fides of what is being attached to these trees. Overall then the finding of the signatures and the analysis of each has allowed me to bring this matter to a close. But also no matter how one looks at it, including where the spouse’s families of both Staines families, it all points to my ancestor John (jnr) being the son of John Staines (Snr) and Alice Vandebaize.
Not sure if you would have any idea but I’ve just started looking through ancestry records. My grandmothers great grandfather was John Shuart (born abt Sep 1860-1861 Holland), parents listed on his death certificate as Andrew Shuart and Anna Van der bleck- both listed as born in Holland. There are no records at all that can be found on any of them beyond that (except for John’s united states records after immigration). Is there a possibility that I’m looking in the wrong place, wrong names, etc? Curious to see if you have any suggestions of where I might search to see if I can find anything in the history on any of them.
Hi, Ancestry has a member tree which includes, I believe, your John Shuart. It gives a place of birth as Noord-Brabant, Netherlands, parents Andrew and Anna Van der Bleck.
Hello! I hope I am not too late to ask a question, but I am desperate to figure out where my last name originates from and what it means! My last name is Hogan, though through ancestry I have been able to trace it back to its original spelling of Hoegen (at least I think it’s the original). The furthest back I can find is a relative born in 1702 in Vaasen (Epe, Gelderland). Multiple generations had the full surname Hoegen Dijk, which I know means Dyke, but I have no context for any of it. I would be so grateful if you could provide me with any information, as I have scoured the internet for years and have come up with nothing. I know for a fact that the name is Dutch as my great grandfather was a first generation American citizen and his parents came to America in 1870. All I can find are other versions of “Hogan” from other parts of the world not associated. Again, any help would be much appreciated!!
Do you see a lot of Dutch people emigrating to England in the 1500s? I am in the process of identifying all 64 of my 4th Great-grandparents, and was surprised to find out that two who we thought were “English” were only “English” for a couple generations, with their ancestors having immigrated there from the Netherlands. We also have the same situation with some “German” ancestors, who were only in Germany for a generation or two, having immigrated there from Switzerland. I love all this stuff!
My last name Leese was changed from Leys which was changed from Leijs. My other great grand was Beye(Beijs?) can you help me know what the meanings of the names are? Also Schrier. Most Dutch names now have ‘van’or ‘Vande/r’ and mine dont.
Most Dutch names do not have “van” or “van de”, although there are several that do. You can find the meaning of Dutch names on the Dutch family names database: https://cbgfamilienamen.nl/nfb/index.php?taal=eng
Fascinating comments… I agree with the above how the name Van Doozer and Duyzer may be connected… Het kan zijn dat tijdens de immigratie de naam is veranderd 😉 My own name Tim Duyzer or originally Tim Duijzer is niet zo origineel 🙂