I always considered the largest piece of my pie to be Norwegian, as my mother is full Norwegian. My father once sat me down and laid out the rest of my lineage, down to 16ths. None of it included Dutch, though there were Pennsylvania Dutch in there somewhere. But he had a lovely resource--a box of materials that went back as far as his great grand father's Bible, journal, his wife's New Testament printed in Amsterdam in 1743. My father wrote a family book in the mid 1980s, stressing his great grandfather and all his descendants. Somehow he didn't catch that we might have any Dutch in us. When he knew he was dying, and that I was staring to work online, he gave the materials to me. I found a clue--My great great grandfather's middle name was Schermerhorne. That and the Dutch New Testament and having just stumbled on this list got me started. I think within a week I had found how many Dutch names are part of my genealogy. I'm still half and a smidge Norwegian (I found a Norwegian who came to Schenectady before 1690) I just wish I could tell my father. Doris Waggoner Seattle -- Barbara de Mare <barbarademare@yahoo.com> wrote: My mother had always told me we had Dutch ancestors, but I thought she was exagerating--why I'm not really sure. I knew we had Schuyler and Beekman ancestors, both of whom are Dutch, but thought they were an anomaly. It was my impression my ancestors were all English, with a small Palatine line thrown in. When I became a serious researcher, at least 10 years ago, I started with the Palatines, who married the Schuylers. From that I learned I had a few more Dutch ancestors than I originally thought, but still didn't think it was significant. Only in the past couple of years did it finally sink in that I had many, many Dutch ancestors. In addition to all the lines which fed into the Beekman and Schuyler lines, other English ancestors had married Dutch. I only gradually came to realize that being descended from one early Dutch family generally implies descent from many. The Huguenots were similarly recently discovered. My self-view was also changed with the knowledge of how very Dutch my ancestry is. I used to consider myself almost purely English, but now consider myself Dutch-English. The Palatine line is still small by comparison to the rest, as they didn't immigrate here until 1710. The Dutch and Engish were nearly a century older. Barbara de Mare from New Jersey Barbara L. de Mare, Esq. Historian, genealogist and attorney 155 Polifly Road Hackensack, New Jersey 07601 (201) 567-9440 office BarbaradeMare@yahoo.com (home) http://historygenealogyesq.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DUTCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

My mother's maiden name is Van Horne, but it never crossed my mind to question what country that name was associated with. I was told that my great great grandmother spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch" so in my ignorance I thought she was "Dutch", though I was told she was German. Which her parents were from Germany I found out through my research, of course. This great great grandmother had a child who married a Van Horne. When I began my family research in 1989 I started with my Mother's side. I was going on the basis of being connected with Jan Cornelissen Van Hoorn, but found that to be false information and learned I descended from Mathyse Cornelissen. Once I jumped into the age of the Internet it seemed like my education of learning who my Dutch ancestors were was abundant. The history of New Amsterdam to New York has been fascinating and when I see New York City on TV I always wonder picture in my mind what the area might have looked like in the 1600's. Being a descendant of Phillippe de Truiex I learned that my husband and I are cousins, so researching his Dutch ancestry has been fascinating also. Thanks to many on this list and to you Dorothy I have learned a lot about my ancestors and how to do genealogy research in general and researching Dutch ancestors. I still have some dead ends on other lines on my mothers side and hopefully I have a lot of years left to live so I can continue playing hide and seek with my ancestors. Lisa