Garrett van Swearingen - Who were his parents?

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Alex Moes
Private User
Ard van Bergen

Did you see this?
http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=6122&p=loc...

The gist is that he is from South Holland:
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijnsaterwoude

The archive for that village is here:
http://www.streekarchiefrijnlandsmidden.nl/archiefbank?miview=inv2&...

BUT Rijnsaterwoude BDM records only go back to 1680, i did do a search for the names Swearingen, Sweringen and Seringen just to get an idea of how "common" the name might have been but found absolutely no records.

Oh and speaking of coincidences, on Monday i was asked for help with a Moes family from Leimuiden which is all of about a mile from Rijnsaterwoude.

One last thing, just to be thorough I searched the national archives (WieWasWie) for Swearingen, Sweringen and Seringen. The only success was "van Seringen" with 10 results mostly from Utrecht, about 25 miles from Rijnsaterwoude, in the mid-1700s.

Great work! So we have the right village now (Rijnsaterwoude ) but can't prove Swearingen is from it?

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/swearingen/3786/

I see this comment on his Wikitree profile

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_Swearingen-14

There is indeed a 1648 baptism of a Gerrit/Garrit in Haarlem: "Netherlands, Noord-Holland Province, Church Records, 1523-1948," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-31169-13996-29?cc=203... : accessed 17 November 2015), Nederlands Hervormde > Haarlem > Dopen 1642-1651 > image 353 of 554; Nederlands Rijksarchiefdienst, Den Haag (Netherlands National Archives, The Hague).
BUT HOW COULD HE HAVE MARRIED AT AGE 10 (THEORY 1)?

Here's the traditional genealogy

http://www.wvgenweb.org/ohio/genswear.txt

One point of curiosity for me was his Roman Catholicism. Was he born into or did he convert?

I also wouldn't rule out a name change. :)

Also - did we try the names David Janse Swierngh and Hester Jacobs?

I've set Claes Albert Henric van Sweringen up as a deliberate parent conflict for Gerrit. Maybe we can develop his family (children Albert & Mary) further.

a few remarks on Hester Jacobs
her parents are named as "Unknown Jacobs" suggesting that she was born as Hester Jacobs
In that time surnames were hardly used by common people so it is almost certain that Jacobs is a patronymic, so all we know is that the first name of her father was Jacob.
Regarding religion: The Netherlands was involved in a war of independence with Spain (1568-1648) and although Catholics were tolerated, they were essentially second class citizens. It is almost unimaginable that someone would convert into Catholicism in such circumstances

there is also a problem with the location "Beemsterdam". The name is completely unknown in the Netherlands.
Typically, a Dutch name ending in "-dam" was given to a settlement located near a dam in a river. E.g. Rotterdam originated where the (small) river Rotte ended up in the big river Maas. Amsterdam even has a central square called "Dam" which is the location of the dam constructed in the river Amstel.
However, there is no river Beemster. Beemster was a lake (north of Amsterdam) that originated from the collection of peat, and was converted into a polder in the period 1607-1612 (at that time the largest polder ever created).

Please feel free to "Dutchify" the names & locations. It seems clear that original transcriptions were not especially accurate.

Were there particular regions Catholics [from Bavaria according to one legend] are more likely to have lived in?

I had thought of conversion as an adult upon marriage.

http://www.shakerhistoricalsociety.org/learn/the-city-of-shaker-hei...

In 1657 Gerret was a crew member of the Dutch West India ship "Maurice."

I thought I has seen as a supercargo, that is, as a shipping clerk, not a sailor.

http://fourkings.freeyellow.com/Swearingen.html

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nycoloni/shprimau.html

Spelled in this transcription with a W

Gerrit van Schweringen, Supercargo

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:3161...

On 13 April 1669, a bill was passed by the General Assembly of the province of Maryland for the 'Free Denization and Naturalization of Garrett Van Swearingen and others,' upon the following petition. The petition was transcribed as follows:

'To the Right, Honorable, the Lord Proprietory of the Province of Maryland and Avalon, Lord Baron of Baltimore.

'The Petition of Garrett Van Swearingen, was born in Reenstwerdam, Holland, under the dominion of the States General of the United Provinces: Barbara De Barrette, his wife, in Valenciennes, in the Low Countries, belonging to the King of Spain: Elizabeth Van Swearingen and Zacharias Van Swearingen their children in New Amstel, on Delaware Bay, then under the government of the said States General: ... and your Petitioners being now removed into this Province --- being invited to come and dwell in this Province upon confidence of your Lordship's Declaration of July 2, 1649, whereby you did empower your Governor to grant lands to any persons of French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, or other foreign descent, in as ample manner, and upon the same term, as to any persons of British or Irish descent.

So - what is "Reenstwerdam"

Bavaria is in Germany.

David
Hester
Eric
Berentte

Where are these names coming from. Does not sound like a Dutch family to me

Ard's comment about Jacobs being a patronym not a surname is so obvious I didn't think to mention it...

But where do these parents come from?

No point worrying about who Jacob was if we don't even know if there was a Jacob

This page is a good read but as usual no actual sources referenced http://www.poeland.com/genealogy/auxdata/vanSwearingen.txt

Reenstwerdam must be the same as Beemsterdam; it just indicates how difficult to read this old handwriting is, but anyway, I am not aware of any Dutch place name that sounds remotely similar to either of these.
A search on Google gave me coordinates that pointed to Rijnsaterwoude, a possibility but I'm not really convinced; the ending -dam still puzzles me.

Schweringen makes more sense: it is a (still existing) place in Northern Germany, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweringen
It is perfectly possible that an ancestor came from here to Holland, attracted by the economic boom that led to the so-called Golden Age in the mid-17th century or as a mercenary to fight in the war against Spain

and thanks Alex Moes for updating the profiles of Hester and her parents. My remarks about the patronym were indeed obvious (for us), but clearly whoever entered her parents didn't know about it

Berentte is perhaps derived from Berend, a normal name in Dutch (especially in the north-eastern provinces), and also similar to the German Bernd

This transcription

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SWEARINGEN/2007-06/11...

Has

The humble peticon of Garret Vansweringen, Barbarah De Barrette, wife of the said Garrett, Elizabeth Vansweringen and Zacharias Vansweringen, children of the said Garrett and Barbarah, Isaach De Barrette, Robert Roeland, Jean Jourdaine, John Vanheoch, Charles De le Roche and Peter Johnson, all resydants and inhabitants of this Province. Humbly Sheweth unto your Lordship, that your peticoner Garrett Vansweringen, was born in Roensterdwan, in Holland, under the domimion of the States Generall of the united provinces, Barbarah De Barrette, in Valegchene, in the Low Countryes belonging to the King of Spayne, Elizabeth Vansweringen, there also, Isaac De Barrett, at Harlem, in Holland aforesaid, Robert Roelands, in Brabant, within the dominions of the Said States Generall, Jean Jourdaine, at Rouan, in the kingdom of France, John Vanheoch, in the Collony of Virginia under the dominion of his Majesty of Great Britain, Charles De le Roche, within the kingdom of France, and Peter Johnson, in the kingdom of Sweaden, and your peticioners being now removed into this province, ....

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Roensterdwan, in Holland, any more possible?

And this thread comments on that one:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Dutch-Colonies/2015-0...

I didn't find the VanSwearinggen naturalization it in the MSA (Maryland
State Archives) itself yet, but someone else had, and posted the text
online. This apparently IS the source of the garbled place-name,
"Roensterdwan, in Holland".

See here:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SWEARINGEN/2007-06/11...

This record is actually dated 1792, when it seems some of the earlier,
colonial records of Maryland were being retranscribed and placed into the
now-state's archives. But the naturalization date for Gerrit & wife
Barbara, as well as several others, appears to be sometime in July 1669.
But here's your source of the alleged birthplace, anyway, and it's coming
from Gerrit himself, who we can expect would know.

... And we can confirm it was printed in 1792 and held in the Maryland Archives as "Reensterdwan"

http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000002/html/am2--205.html

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Suggestion here is similar to Ard:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Dutch-Colonies/2015-0...

"I'm still inclined to think that location was probably by the edge of the
Beemster polder, somewhere where a stream or creek had formerly flowed into the now-reclaimed land. There would have been a dam there and a ring canal around the whole polder, into which they pumped the water as they removed ...."

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That implies a place that no longer exists ....

The same discussion points out that the names in the David / Hester family do not repeat in Gerrit / Barbara's family; this in addition to the locational disparity.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Dutch-Colonies/2015-0...

>> Where did the name of Gerrit's supposed father come from? Gerrit had no
>> sons called either David or Jan/John. There is a wiki online that gives
>> this name, but the locations they are giving make this seem (to me) rather
>> doubtful. This David Jans VS supposedly lived, was married, and died in Reusel-de
>> Mierden, which is about as far away as one can get from the Beemster (a
>> polder in the northern part of Noord-Holland) as it's possible to be while
>> still remaining in the same country.

Hah! This transcription gives "Reensterdvvan in Holland"

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Dutch-Colonies/2015-0...

Off topic but want to link this resource somewhere

Index page to 17th century Hollanders in the Americas

http://17thcenturyhollanders.pbworks.com/w/page/742574/Index

Private User see link above. Lots of New Amsterdam, Dutch records translated.