Hi all, At 09:34 AM 9/9/00 -0400, Jerry Dally wrote: >NY Gen & Bio Society Records Vol 90 p. 2 "A promise to certain Walloons and French dated 5 feb 1621 petition to settle in VA 50 or 60 families Walloon & French, all of reformed religion. Signatures of Mousnier de la MONTAGNE Sr., apothecary & surgeon; & Jr., medical student [who quite Lyden {Leiden} Univ]; Jan DeCROY (CRAY); Pierre QUESNEE (CHESNE), Jesse DEFOREST, Jan GILLE (VERBRUGGE); Jan DE TROU (de TRIEUX), Jean CAMPION, & Philippe CAMPION. > also a reference to Henry G. Bayer's book THE BELGIAN FIRST SETTLERS IN NEW YORK (1925). > Tom Dally >[I know Dr. Jean De La MONTAGNE settled in New Amsterdam and had a farm in Haarlem (outside boundries of NA)] I recently checked vol 90 of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record and could not find the above article. Has there perhaps been a typo in the citation? I have also seen a photo of the above petition. While there are 2 signatures saying "de la Montagne" one above the other, there is no mention of "Sr." and "Jr." So, I am curious what the evidence was for those designations. I might also mention that the signatures are arranged radially in a big oval; so the petition has been called the Round Robin. Around the outside someone has added how many additional people would be going with the men. Usually this is "femme" (or its abbreviation) plus a given number of "enfans". However, for 3 men (including both de la Montagnes) it appears to me to say something like: Somm__ a marier or Sonn__ a marier Baird has transcribed this as "Homme a marier". But that doesn't make any sense to me; furthermore the first character looks a lot more like an S than an H. I have the feeling that it means "plans to marry" or "will be married" or something like that. Can someone who knows French think of what the phrase could be beginning with Somm__ or Sonn__ or something like that? (The __ indicate one or two letters that I can't read.) Thanks very much, Howard hswain@ix.netcom.com