I was wondering what the common practice at the time might have been, even though individual cases would have varied, of course. That Catharina would have married 17 months after giving birth to the child, and to a minister at that, implies to me that standards in the heavily Dutch & Palatine-influenced Hudson Valley differed from those of Puritan-influenced New England. By 1808, scarlet letters and sentencing to the stocks was over, but an unwed mother may not have been embraced by the community if they knew about the child. The family may have tried to conceal the birth altogether by sending the pregnant woman away. This doesn't seem to be the case here, though. Johann Jost Frantz embraced his grandchild by specifially leaving him money. Was this culture more forgiving than that of Puritan New England and more willing to live and let live? I think it's quite reasonable to assume that "1808 baptized David" = "1811 will David Crawford". But whether or not "1808 mommy Catharine Frantz" = "1810  marriage Catherine Frans" is another question, which is why I mentioned that possibility. However, there is precedent for it being her in that marriage record as several of Catharina Frantz's siblings are known to have married at the RDC/Shawangunk and are listed in that very same small book under the name of "Frans": Anatje, Joseph, and Elizabeth. I tried searching in Google and Bing for any genealogy information on the "Pulvereck" name and came up completely empty. The only hits I got were for German-lanuage websites that mentioned the word as structures in a fort that translated from "Pulvereck" to "powder corner", similar in appearance to the bastions in star forts. There were no surname references and certainly no genealogical info. So, my question about how the children of unmarried women were named in the early 1800s has no common-practice answer? Oh, well. ________________________________ > >From: James Harder <jaharder88@yahoo.com> > > I've seen it all three ways it that period: > Child taking the presumptive father's surname even without a marriage or proof. > Child taking the mother's surname. > Child taking the step-father's surname when the mother marries. > ======================================================================

The only thing I can offer is my ggg grandmother's child from Schenectady in 1798. Neeltje Schermerhorn had an illegitimate child who was baptized in the DRC there as Clarasa Van Slyck that year. The child is mentioned twice--in her mother's New Testament (which I have) with her list of all her children, where she is given no surname at all. This led me to ask the list, some years back, to help me find her father. Lorine found the baptismal record, where she was shown with her father's name. Lorine scoured other documents, and she didn't show up in marriage records or wills, so she concluded this child died young. So in this particular case, the illegitimate child was given the surname of the father, Harmannus Van Slyke. As Julia notes, this case could well be the exception to whatever convention there might have been. Doris On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 11:31 PM, juliasgenes <juliasgenes@yahoo.com> wrote: > I was wondering what the common practice at the time might have been, even > though individual cases would have varied, of course. > > That Catharina would have married 17 months after giving birth to the > child, and to a minister at that, implies to me that standards in the > heavily Dutch & Palatine-influenced Hudson Valley differed from those of > Puritan-influenced New England. By 1808, scarlet letters and sentencing to > the stocks was over, but an unwed mother may not have been embraced by the > community if they knew about the child. The family may have tried to > conceal the birth altogether by sending the pregnant woman away. This > doesn't seem to be the case here, though. Johann Jost Frantz embraced his > grandchild by specifially leaving him money. Was this culture more > forgiving than that of Puritan New England and more willing to live and let > live? > > I think it's quite reasonable to assume that "1808 baptized David" = "1811 > will David Crawford". But whether or not "1808 mommy Catharine Frantz" = > "1810 marriage Catherine Frans" is another question, which is why I > mentioned that possibility. > > However, there is precedent for it being her in that marriage record as > several of Catharina Frantz's siblings are known to have married at the > RDC/Shawangunk and are listed in that very same small book under the name > of "Frans": Anatje, Joseph, and Elizabeth. I tried searching in Google and > Bing for any genealogy information on the "Pulvereck" name and came up > completely empty. The only hits I got were for German-lanuage websites that > mentioned the word as structures in a fort that translated from "Pulvereck" > to "powder corner", similar in appearance to the bastions in star forts. > There were no surname references and certainly no genealogical info. > > So, my question about how the children of unmarried women were named in > the early 1800s has no common-practice answer? Oh, well. > > > > > ________________________________ > > > >From: James Harder <jaharder88@yahoo.com> > > > > I've seen it all three ways it that period: > > Child taking the presumptive father's surname even without a marriage or > proof. > > Child taking the mother's surname. > > Child taking the step-father's surname when the mother marries. > > > ====================================================================== > > ------------------------------- > 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 >