1639 Oct 02; Claes Janszen; Maryken

That's the formidable interest that observation of the witnesses can bring, isn't it? Great puzzle!

Now, looking at the Claes Jansen profile (but without looking into any records), it feels likely that this man's origin is Purmerend and that his profession was kuiper (a cooper - a maker of barrels).
Perhaps something similar goes for the 'unknown' witness - Burger Joriszen Smit? As a patronymic is user, Burger may stand for Borger and thus be a first name (though this is confusing, as it may simply indicate 'citizen' as well); Smit (smith) could be the profession.

Burger shows up as father in later baptisms so we may be able to build him out (i haven't actually searched Geni yet) if he doesn't yet have a profile.

Did the Dutch really have grandparents as godparents? In the Protestant counties of northern and western Europe that would usually be very odd. This is the first case I've ever seen. If true, it would be an important possibility to consider when evaluating christening records.

Justin, as far as I can tell, this is not odd at all in catholic environments. I frankly don't know about protestant environments. Having said that, regarding the records of the Dutch Reformed Church, let's keep in mind that you'll find catholics there as well - and other persuasions. As we know, non-protestant reglions were tolerated but there was only a protestant church in the province - so catholics registered births and marriages there. I'm not saying it's the case in this example, it's just a possibility.

So this would be a good research tip for the Dutch colonies but you aren't sure whether it would also be good in Netherlands itself. Is that right?

I did some quick googling. Grandparents appear as godparents even in Protestant countries. Not usual, but not impossible. I can't find a good summary, but I did find this discussion about godparents in 16th century England. Not relevant here, but I'm putting it out there in case someone else wants to look further:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/OLD-ENGLISH/2005-04/1...

I had never given it a thought, really. Then again, I'm only catholic on paper. Both my godparents were also my grandparents, and I was baptized by the dean of a major catholic seminary in Antwerp - so I'd think that there is no rule for catholics. I really can't judge about protestant churches, but it's really the first time I hear about it.
Indeed, from a research perspective this would make quite a difference if one thinks one principle or another is applied with regards to who can be grandparents or not; Perhaps the notion may be typical for particular branches of religions? It certainly makes sense to clear this up.

Summarizing what I thought I knew from many different readings over the years --

Before the Reformation and Counter-Reformation the church counted baptismal kin when calculating prohibited marriages. A person could not marry their own godparent, a child of their godparent, the godparent of one's own child, or a person who was godparent of the same child. So, it was usual to choose godparents who were relatives because marriages with them were already prohibited under other rules.

After the Reformation Protestant churches relaxed the rules about consanguinity. Many places continued the custom of having relatives as godparents even though the reason for it had been removed, but it became increasingly common for people to choose their friends as godparents.

Under both the old rules and the new rules, the parents themselves could not be godparents because the point of having godparents was that someone other than the parents would be responsible for the child's Christian education. I thought that rule also applied to grandparents, but apparently not. At least not consistently.

Also, under both the old rules and the rules it was very common to choose godparents whose patronage might benefit the child in some way. In my research in 18th and 19th century Sweden I've seen a pattern where this is especially true for the godparents of the first child or the first son.

I've been a godfather four times (two Lutheran, two Episcopalian). In three of those cases the parents wanted to choose a grandparent but the priests wouldn't allow it. They all said the godparents should be people who would be likely to outlive the parents if the parents died young.

I was also involved in choosing my daughter's godparents (Catholic). The priest would not let us choose one of our parents. He said it would be against church law (which might not be true). He did, however, strongly urge us to consider my step-father because that would have increased family bonds.

These are modern examples, though. I would be skeptical about using them to understand the customs of colonial New Amsterdam ;)

It never struck my attention previously but the records in the Netherlands in this time period (at least those which have survived in Drenthe) don't usually have a witness name recorded.
Those that stand out in my memory are when the witness is noted as being the sister of the mother.
As far as my experience with the colony goes grandparents as witnesses is quite common. Is it perhaps some disconnect between "witness" and "godparent"?

Witnesses are the same as godparents. It was one of the Protestant reforms. They wanted to place responsibility for the child's Christian education primarily on the parents, and to reduce the importance of godparents, so they changed the word.

If you are regularly seeing grandparents as witnesses, then you don't have to worry about the broader rules -- you know right away that, for whatever reason, it was at least a local practice for grandparents to be godparents.

Maybe the size of the congregation or the early immigrants preferring to use people they knew from "home" which in some cases would greatly reduce the number of candidates

1639 18 Dec; Borger Joriszen, jm van hersberg, in Silesien; Engeltje Mans, jd van Coinxste, in Sweden

What is jm? jd?

For this situation "bachelor" and "maid", it's literally young man and young daughter but in this context does not reflect age of those involved just that they have never previously been married.

Jennie Schouten just pointed me to Dutch research into the practices in the province of Limburg (predominantly catholic) since the 17th century. Priority in the choice of godparents was given to the grandparents and, if none alive, to uncles and aunts. It feels like we're talking more about traditions than firm church rules - but perhaps we need someone who knows the history of church baptism rules across religions to bring more clarity (or to bring more confusion, depending on how you look at it :-) )..

I am concerned now that while my initial detective work may still be correct the profile for Claes Janszen Kust may wrongly confuse him with another Jan.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=k4zStKaPmsEC&pg=PA184&...

Adding to the confusion is Claes Jansen van Purmerent

Could this be our man?
Claes Jansen de Ruyter Mabille
There is a grouping of baptisms which seem to belong to one Claes Jansen between 1639 and 1652.

One is :
1644 Dec 04; Claes Janszen Ruyter; Geertruydt; Maryken Liewents

Which could be evidence that "Maryken" is a family name.

Another of these baptisms is witnessed again by Aeltje Cornelis so strengthening the likelihood that this is one family.

1645 Aug 09; Claes Janszen; Lucas; Aeltje Cornelis, Catalyn Rapalje

I assume from the date that "Catalyn Rapalje" must in fact be Catalyntje Trico

Alex, the Claes Jansen de Ruyter Mabille profile looks weird. The patronymic doesn't make sense when we look at his father on Geni. Plus, his supposed parents seemingly didn't have a Claes Janssen amongst there children. Without looking deeper into it, I would think that "Kuyper" just refers to the profession of Claes Jansen van Permerendt Kuyper. Indeed, in the link you give, his job is also given as "wheelwright". I think the professions of wheelwright and ton-maker are probably very close.

My take is that the Claes Jansen described in the book i linked is not the Claes Jansen named as father in the baptism.
I think that the Claes Jansen who i first linked to is the correct father but that the profile for him has been mixed up with the man of the book.

I think that the cooper from Permerendt was too young to be the Claes Jansen of our baptism, and at his wedding in 1656 there is no mention that he is a widower:

1656 11 Nov; Claes Janszen van Purmesendt; Anneken Cornelis, van Voorst

Working through the Baptism list, I think we'll face a large number of similar challenges.
In many cases we just have a patronymic, and often the lack of the name of a spouse then further complicates the manner.
My best suggestion is that we try and work from the Baptism data that are most complete (and thus most solid). Through elimination, we'll end up with a shrinking list of 'complicated cases'. This may, in turn, bring more clarity. It already happened to me: by identifying one solid profile, I was able to identify a confusing one - simply because they couldn't be the same. What helps also is completeness: there are many namesakes born to the same parents, but obviously some of these died young (as parents would not baptize with the same names if the older ones were alive); as a result, we're able to clean up conflicts about the baptism dates, AND re-consider some wrong connections as we now understand that the previous identification of parents was wrong because the profiles concerned actually 'died young'.
The systematic approach through this list has all sort of benefits. We'll make mistakes, but at least we know where to go back to to reconsider and correct :-)

Nearly a year since i started this discussion, so long in fact that i had forgotten it's existence and was about to start a new discussion on the same baptism!

The amount of recent activity on the project had drawn my attention back to it and this same entry (2nd on the list) again drew my attention.

I still think my original feeling was correct, that the witnesses are the key, Cornelis Lamberts Cool is the maternal grandfather. Which makes the unnamed mother one of his daughters. On Geni he has two daughters Pietertje and Aeltje but i have found numerous online references to a daughter named Aechtje some of which conflate her with Pietertje. Obviously online trees are not reliable sources but they are good sign posts.

Interestingly i have also found a well written paper that explains why Pietertje was not married to Claes Janszen van Purmesendt and this matches my theory from January! I love being right :)

So far i have found the following "rumours":

Claes Jansen Rust Van Emden who married Aechtje Cornelissen Cool. Their children were Maryken, Arent b. ca 1642, and Lucas b. ca 1645.

and

Aechtje(Pieterje?) Cornelis, born in Holland, m Claes Jansen (Backer) van Emden

The post on Rootsweb which set me on this trail (this time around) was

"Cool Descendants *think* that the first wife of Cornelis was named Marritje, Maria or Maryken. This is based on the fact that all three of her children; Aeltje, Aechtje and Lambert each named a child with a variance of this name:
* Lambrt's dau:1642 Oct 05; Lambert Lambertszen; Maryken; Jan Pieterszen Roos, Marie Thomas, Tryntie Claes.
* Aeltje's dau: 10 Apr 1644; Gerrit Wolfertszen; Marritje; Wolferts
Gerritszen, Pieter Wolfertszen; Tryntje Huygens, Marritje Philips.
* Aechtje's dau: Claes Janszen, Maryken; sponsers: Corn. Lambertszen Cool, Pieter Wolphertszen, Burger Joriszen Smit, Neeltje Wolperts and Aaltje Cornelis. "

I will see what evidence i can dig up, this post is purely to focus my thoughts.

PS: it is astounding the number of MyHeritage users that list Cornelis Lamberts Cool's birth place as 1588 - Brooklyn NY USA!!!

Just to clarify "Cornelis Lamberts Cool is the maternal grandfather" is my theory not supported by anything but apparently quiet popularly held by other researchers.

Alex: Does this baptism help you in any way?

1639 Oct 02; Claes Janszen; Maryken; Cornelis Lambertszen Cool, Pieter Wolphertszen, Burger Joriszen Smit, Neeltje Wolpherts, Aaltje Cornelis

Yes, that is the one that i am trying to puzzle out :)

Being so early in the records means there is not much to compare it to but the witness names suggest that either the father or mother is connected to either the Wolpherts or Cool families. As we know that there was a marriage between those two families in this generation but neither family has a "Jan" (ie Janszen) at this point so to me this is proof that it is the mother rather than the father to whom these witnesses belong (perhaps the exception is Burger Jorisz who may be a friend/relative of the father). That is why i am focusing on the daughters of C.L. Cool as prime suspects for the unnamed mother, actually my Googling today just proves that i am not discovering anything new merely trying to flesh out the theories that others have held for years. Even if i fail to find proof i will probably end up building the Tree to match this theory with "disclaimers" on the profiles to explain myself.

** I should do a better job of reading back in threads...
and... Wouldn't our immigrant ancestors wonder about our levels of precision? :) ;)

I'm sure they would be stunned by the amount of effort we expend trying to trace 400 year o;d relationships for no other reason than to know.