history/ships/staten island/heraldry-

[violaine]

my family on paternal side, are from leerdam, netherlands, and arrived in new amsterdam (now new york) in 1661 on a ship which had sailed during the winter, for four months. they were among the 18 families who formed the first permanent settlement on staten island, today one of the five boros of NYC. earlier settlements had failed due to bad relations with the indigenous people there. [this last sentence is another topic.]

the first permanent dutch settlement then was started by our ancestor and the others, and was in the general vicinity of south beach, the town being called "dover" on old english maps.

the island had decent farm land, much available sea food, especially oysters, many peach trees, fresh water, temperate weather, many trading partners, access to other dutch families and the dutch reformed churches, only a short boat ride away in brooklyn, or a longer boat ride into new amsterdam--manhattan. how amazing it is to see those old dutch churches and realize my family probably worshipped in them. i never thought anything in new york had the slightest bit to do with my own family apart from one or two ancestors landing at castle garden or ellis island. but to discover that our family had quite a lot to do with the founding of new york just astounds me.

my descendants built up sizable land holdings, and after the family had been on staten island only a couple of years, the british invaded and new netherlands became a british colony. the dutch and their culture were still hugely influential.

some of the information above was recently shared with me, along with tons of in-depth heraldry/research on my family line: name of ships, relatives, belongings, dates, and occupations. i was really interested in the length of their journey- and how some people would have fallen ill to diseases, learning about and visualising how wild the island during the mid 17th century, when my descendants first arrived. sort of blows my mind. i have resources for immigrants to new netherland, and ship index logs. i would love to read about heraldry research like this from other people, if anyone wants to share. i'm going to post a link, which goes into great detail about the history of nyc.

http://www.thehistorybox.com/factual_first/1600_2.html