(my) Writing Wednesday #5

I am continuing to “spiff up” each family's chapter in the family history. My chapter on Hans Dreper and Maritie Pieters is “cooked” at least to medium well – the chapter weighs in at forty some pages (single spaced, but Verdana font). I will take it out of the oven when I get the figures, tables, maps and illustrations incorporated... But it is lookin' good! After I think it is all done, I will read it aloud for flow, then circulate for other eyes to peruse... 

Meanwhile, I have begun the spiffing up process on the chapter on Jan Janszen Schepmoes and his wife, Sara Pieterse van Naerden. Jan Janszen Schepmoes, Sara and their two children^[1] immigrated to New Amsterdam aboard the fluiten (small ship), Dolphijn (Dolphin). The Dolphijn left Texel on September 7, 1637 and arrived in New Amsterdam March 28, 1638 ^[2] (six months!). Plagued by bad weather, a questionably unsafe ship, substandard services, and even moldy food, the trip undoubtedly was unpleasant. It may have been a small miracle that the family arrived intact after such a voyage. 

321st Anniversary of the Schenectady Massacre, 8th February 1690

“ … As to the causes of this bloody war, which they pretend originated with us, jealousy arising from the trading of our people...seems to be the principal one, for the Indians, that is to say, the Five Nations, were very friendly disposed toward us. The French begrudged us this and therefore made every effort to make them hostile to us …”

(Robert Livingston's contemporary account of the Schenectady Massacre[1])

On Februrary 8, 1690, the Iroquois and French attacked Schenectady in the dark of night. And the results were devastating. Burke, in his book, compares the Schenectady Massacre to other raids by the French and the Iroquois during the five year period from 1689 – 1704. During this time period, the Schenectady Massacre was by far the worst massacre in terms of fatalities (with 60 killed – the next highest was Deerfield, MA with 38 fatalities)[2] with 27 hostages taken (and a number of people died in the cold, driven out in their bedclothes). To put things in perspective, over 50% of the community died.

Willem Abrahamse (Tietsoort), [3] a Schenectady settler, was severely wounded in the massacre, but fled with his family to Esopus (Kingston), where they had friends.[4]

Willem and his wife, Neeltje Swart, had thirteen children, all of whom except Geertruy, Helena, Adrientjen, Marytje and Neeltjen were referenced in Willem's will (so may not have survived him). Of his children, Isaac, Helena, Adrientje, Marytje and Neeltjen would not have been born yet. Aaghe (Eytie), Elizabeth, Abraham, Sephanus, Jacob, Geertruy, Rebecca and Ariaantje would have been affected by the massacre.[5]

Tragically, Willem and Neeltje's nine year old daughter, Gertruy, permanently lost the use of her legs due to exposure from the extreme cold during their escape, and never walked again (see petition of 1707 where Willem asks for help because of his daughter's permanent injury).[6]

My Writing Wednesdays #3: Something Fishy...

A cold and blustery weekend, with ice (and 12" of snow last Thursday & Friday), made for a good "indoors" weekend... so I returned to one of my favorite families, Hans Dreper and Maritie Pieters. Maritie had a reputation for "petty quarreling." [1] She also said what was on her mind, and apparently didn't candy coat her opinions either - a tendency that occasionally placed her in a courtroom. So pigs weren't the only thing that gave Hans and Maritie headaches... on at least one occasion, fish did too!

Maritie evidently had been shopping for herring on a warm spring day (plankton eaters, herrings tend to be plentiful in the cool northern waters from May through August, a time when they are high in fat yet before mating season... the herring were caught in nets and and salt bine-cured in large barrels, sometimes with the addition of spices - the exact recipes were, of course, secret...). With different recipes for curing herring, obviously, herring purchased from one vender or another might be more or less to a given individual's liking.

(my) Writing Wednesdays #2

Or also known as: How I am trying to write a family history even my grandkids will want to read 

Just what stage of my writing am I at? I hope I am beyond procrastination... and that I will move things towards fruition rather quickly this year. BUT! It wouldn't make me feel very happy if my kids and grandkids took snoozers while reading my great tome (or worse yet, quit and went to play a video game). I can't just gin out the facts or the snoozer route is a definite possibility here. My solution is to provide some context "up front." Without context, it is really hard to imagine what is going on...

Imagine for a minute that I am describing a task to you that I want you to complete. I say, "It really is simple. First you get everything together in one place. Then you separate everything into different groups, unless there isn't much, in which case just one group will do. Although generally it is best to do fewer at a time, or you can end up making expensive mistakes. And really, the end of this task seems to never be in sight. Once the task is finished for the time being, however, you have to arrange everything into different groups again and then put them in their correct place." 

Not a particularly clear set of instructions, is it?

Moving right along...

It has been a bit of a busy week, but so far I am keeping with my resolution pace of at least four hours a week on the family history. I am still "detailing" the chapter on Pieter Stoutenburgh and Aefje van Tienhoven. By today's standards, they were quite the bunny rabbits (figuratively speaking) with at least nine children baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church. It appears, however, that the majority of their children did not survive childhood - perhaps that was one reason why Pieter worked for the OrphanMasters and even took in an orphan or two now and then.

• Enjeltje [Angelica] was baptized 20th August 1651. Rachel van Tienhoven, Aeltje's sister-in-law, is listed as the baptismal sponsor. Unfortunately, Enjeltie lived only a year, dying before sometime before 1652. 

(my) Writing Wednesdays, #1

Or also known as: how I am trying to write a family history even my grandkids will want to read
I have been collecting information for about 15 - 20 years now, but the detail work on the family history just never seems quite cooked (or I may have convinced myself to believe that because the task ahead is so daunting!). However, consistent with my New Years resolution for 2011, I decided I had better start writing. Now. As in today... I was waiting to dot every "i" and cross every "t", but I wasn't getting any information "out there" for my kids and grandkids. Quite simply, with a few thousand names I was working on (including siblings, etc.), I was overwhelmed. And I do have a day job. So before sitting down to write, I had to figure out how to divide my task into workable "chunks" (and then recognize that I might occasionally be issuing "supplements" for family members as new information become available - let's get realistic here). 

At this point, my first step was to find a good organizing theme. Although I could start "in the beginning" and organize from greatest grandparent forward, even I find this a bit tedious and at times downright confusing to be readling and simultaneously trying to keep track of everyone. I could also start "at the end"

Relaxed - kind of...

Well, in the brief hiatus I spent some time in a log cabin with no TV. Yes, boys and girls, you heard me right - there was no television set. Much like our ancestors, we had to make due with a variety of parlor games. So I got to thinking, what type of parlor games did the settlers of New Amsterdam play, assuming they had the time? So I did what any red blooded 21st century person would do - I googled it! What I found really interesting is that the game of Double Dutch - which is now a competitive varsity sport in New York's public schools - (you know the one - two jump ropes) was probably played by the people who lived in New Amsterdam at the time of the Castello Map.  If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself by clicking Double Dutch. 

New Year's Resolution(s)

I would really like to finish the first book of the family history this year - but it is slow going, at least in part because it never seems quite "cooked" yet. When do you stop looking for more records?

Keep your hands off their pigs!

I am a - hmmm - what should I call it? A semi-amateur genealogist. Well, actually, I am a victim of the genealogy bug, a disease... it is addictive. I don't even want to mention how much I have spent buying out of print books that contained one obscure fact or another on my (however many greats) grandparents.

Although I had a minor brush with the bug before, I really caught it when I saw a copy of the Castello Map of 1660. The map had identifiable houses denoted on it in New Amsterdam, what we now know as New York City. When I found that a number of these people were grandparents (with varying numbers of "greats" affixed), I became chronically infected.

One of these families was Hans Dreper (or Dreeper) and his wife, Marritie Pieters, who had a house and tavern on the corner of Here Gracht and Stadt Huys Laan. These two were quite the characters, and apparently (given the records I found), were a wee bit attached to their pigs...