I wonder if anyone has come across the VANDEN NIEUWENHUYSEN family around Blackburn or Preston in the 19th Century? I have been doing a bit of searching in a friend's family on Ancestry and come across some sort of connection with this name. One of his family appears to have married John Baptist Van Der/Den Nieuwenhuysen. It is all a bit confusing, she appears to have married him in 1865 (circumstantial evidence from the BMD) but she married again before 1871 so I presume he had died. There is a step son Jonathan Abram VANDEN born in Preston about 1867 (he seems to have possibly used the shortened name). There is another step son, Robert Vanden Nieuwenhuysen, born about 1860 also in Preston. There also seems to be a daughter Mary Ann born about 1856 (from cemetery details below) but the only Mary Ann that I have found in the 1871 census was born in Belgium in about 1858. There are quite a few people with that name in Lancashire and some are born in Belgium so I wondered in anyone else had any connections with them and could perhaps help sort out this part of his family. The name seems to be spelt differently just about every time that it appears and one family contracts it to just VANDEN. But I am sure that is a common problem. I was given this information from Preston Old Cemetery which seems to fit with them. "I have a headstone inscription from Preston Old Cemetery with a very similar name to the above. Mary Ann Vanden Niewen Hoysen died 6th November 1905, aged 53 sister of Robert Vanden Niewen Hoysen who died 4th November 1908, aged 50 Mary Ann Vanden Niewen Hoysen wife of Robert who died 29th December 1920, aged 61 also Henry Clark, son in law of Robert who was killed in action on 25th August 1917, aged 36 also Agnes Ann Clark, wife of Henry, who died 10th March 1935, aged 54" Martin Briscoe Fort William M&LFHS | Gwynedd FHS