My great-aunt Dora used to tell me stories about her mother who was Dutch - she called her Jersey Dutch. After my aunt passed away, I decided to start looking up our ancestors. I knew my great-grandmother's maiden name was Storm(s) and that we were related to Blauvelts as well. After posting on Bergen County lists, one line led to another (as is so often the case in Bergen County) and I found the rest of the family which includes: Storm, Storms, Blauvelt, Banta, Folley, Doremus, Demarest, and Ackerman. Through this toilsome world, alas! Once and only once I pass; If a kindness I may show, If a good deed I may do To a suffering fellow man, No delay for it is plain I shall not pass this way again." ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.

These stories are interesting. I always assumed that most of my ancestors were from England and related UK countries, which many were. However, my mother used to tell her children that we were "stubborn Germans just like our father". The outcome -- when I began tracing our family lines -- my mother was found to have a few specifically German ancestors and my father's were Sottish (which we knew) and Dutch with a few people of French Huguenot and German/Palatine ancestry in the Dutch mix. Then there was the story that we were somehow related to Israel Putnam of Rev. War fame. It turned out we are descendants of the Dutch PUTMANS or POOTMANs My great grandmother who died in 1926 in Washington State was a STOTENBUR. After looking for a few years I found her earliest ancestor Pieter STOUTENBURGH, the 1st treasurer of Manhattan in 1635. My STOTENBUR line includes van Tienhoven, Van Rollegom, Teller, Van Vleck and Kip. My PUTMAN line includes Ackerman, Bradt, DeVos, Vandenburgh and Bosch. I know there are others. There are Barnharts and Roes who married into the PUTMAN line and likely were Palatines. Margaret Scheffler