Hi Barb and all, At 11:27 AM 8/25/00 EDT, [email protected] wrote: >What is the accepted name for Thones Kunders wife: > >Elin Streypers OR Lijntigen/ Helene THEISSON ? > >Thanks >Barb I'm sure there are others here who know a lot more about this than I. So, I hope they'll point out any errors. However, I've been meaning to ask some questions in this area, so maybe this is an opportunity to start the discussion. I'm not sure what is "accepted," but I'll tell you what I think is correct and why. The short answer is: Lentgen/Lijntijen/Lentje, etc. Matteisen/Teisen, etc. where the / marks separate alternate forms of the name. Now for the long answer -- First, here are 3 primary records or transcriptions of same: 1) The marriage records of the Reformed Church in Krefeld for 1677 (LDS microfilm #1,336,927; item 5) show the marriage of: "Tönis Kuners" and "Lentgen Matteisen" 2) The 20 March 1681 marriage certificate of "Derijck Isacks" and "Nolcken Vijten" in Krefeld was signed by "Lijntijen Teisen" as well as many others of the Original 13. Source: "The Ancestry of the Thirteen Krefeld Emigrants of 1683," by Wilhelm Niepoth, translated by John Brockie Lukens; reprinted in Genealogies of Pennsylvania Families... vol III pp 495-512; originally published in PGM in 1980. (Thanks to Anne, who cited this in message #368 on the listbot system.) 3) An abstract of the 7 Sept 1710 Marriage Certificate for the marriage of "Henry Kunders" and "Catharine Strepers" at Germantown shows among the names at the end "Lentje Kunders." Source: Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, vol II, no. 1, pp 66-67. (A footnote says: It is noticeable that many of the signatures were written by F. D. Pastorius, who also wrote the certificate.) Can anyone else cite any more primary records giving her name? Now let's talk about her name, starting with her given name. The above records show her name as Lentgen, Lijntijen, and Lentje. Even keeping in mind that spelling was not totally standardized back then, you might still ask, What is the correct spelling? If she were from The Netherlands, I would say Leentje. See: Kenn Stryker-Rodda, "New Netherland Naming Systems and Customs," NYGBR, vol 126, no 1, pp 35-45. So, for want of a more definitive spelling, I'll use Leentje for the rest of this message. Now Leentje is a diminutive name. So, you might also ask, What was her full name? We cannot tell from the above data. It could be Magdalena, or Helena, or even Elenora. See Stryker-Rodda op cit. Note that when we in English form a diminutive, we usually delete the last part of name. Matthew would become Matt, etc. The Dutch on the other hand, normally delete the first part of the name; thus Magdalena becomes Lena or Lentje and so forth. I have, so far, not found any primary records with her name in other than the diminutive form. Has anyone found a primary record with her shown as a Magdalena, Helena, or Elenora? But even if one is found, we must be careful. She may have told the minister or clerk that her name was Leentje; and then he may have on his own decided to record her with her full name and taken a guess (if he didn't know). As Mr. Stryker-Rodda says (op cit p. 37): "Many a girl baptized as Magdalena but called Lena was married as Elenora and appeared in baptismal records of her children as Helena." So, ideally, we would need to find several citations of her full name. But there is another avenue that may help us lean toward one name as opposed to the other two. And that is, What were the names of her granddaughters? Frequently, the Dutch and some Germans would name their first children after the child's grandparents. Henry C. Conrad in his 1891 book, Thones Kunders and His Children 1683-1891... has transcriptions of the wills of several of the children of Thones and Leentje. It turns out that son Madtis named his second daughter Magdalen and son John named his second daughter Magdalene. As far as I know, no granddaughters were named Helena or Elenora. So, if forced to choose, I would guess that the full name of the wife of Thones Kunders was named Magdalena. But I would rather play it safe for now (until I see some direct evidence of her full name) and say only what I know: Leentje or one of the actual recorded diminutives. I suppose it is possible that she, like her husband, changed her name to be more English-like (Ellen, eg.); but, again, I've seen no evidence of that. Now lets address her second name, a patronymic. A patronymnic shows that the child is a son or daughter of the father. Many languages have used this concept. In Dutch, the son of Jan was, I think, originally called ____ Janszoon -- meaning Jan's son. This seems to have evolved to Janszen. Other forms are Jansz. and Jansen. The daughters were called _____ Jansdochter, which came to be abbreviated Jansdr. In the New Netherland, daughters were usually called simply Jans or Janse, but sometimes Jansen. Leentje has a patronymics of "Matteisen" and "Teisen." This tells us that her father's name was Mattheis or Theis. Also, note that "Teis" is a diminutive for "Matteis," so they are in a sense the same name. For more on patronymics see Stryker-Rodda op cit. In addition, it appears that the family also had a hereditary surname: Doors / Daers /Dorss / Dohrs / Dahrs, etc. Neipoth-Lukens cite the 24 May 1670 bap. at the age of "about twenty" of "Leentien Doormans, spinster, daughter of Theis Doormans." For more details, see their article cited above. I've not run across any other primary sources that refer to her with the surname Doors, etc. Has anyone else? Some may wonder, Then where did the name "Elin Streypers" come from? Let's deal with "Elin" first. That is the name give to Thones' wife by Henry C. Conrad in his 1891 book. I don't recall that he gave any source for it. So, did he find a source I haven't? Or did he see a source that said Lentje and assume her name was Elin, not realizing that it could also be Magdalena or Helena? Or did she change her name to Elin at some point? As to "Streypers," again Henry C. Conrad says (p. 6) that the wife of Thomes was "supposedly to have been a sister of William Streypers..." Again, I am not sure where he got this. An article by Chester E. Custer titled "The Kusters and Doors of Kaldenkirchen, Germany, and Germantown, Pennsylvania" in the Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage magazine July 1986 pp 24-31 has an item that may shed some light. (Thanks to Dora for mentioning this article on her web site.) On p. 27 we see: "In a letter to his brother William in Germantown Jan Streypers wanted William to see that his (Jan's) 'five families' were provided land in that village. The translator of that document listed the names of the families. 'There went to Germantown Jan Streeper's brother William Streepers. Reiner and Herman Tyson were Jan Streper's wife's brothers. Thomas Conradt/Kunders, Loenart Arets, and Paulus Custers were their brothers-in-law.'" According to the above article and Niepoth, Anna Doors had married secondly Jan Streypers. Two issues with the above letter: What is the antecedant of the pronoun "their" before brothers- in-law? Is it William and Jan Streypers? Or is it Reiner and Herman Tyson and Anna Doors? What did brother-in-law mean in those days? I think it had a somewhat broader meaning than today. Depending on how you answer the above questions, you could conclude, I think, that Thones Kunders had married Jan Streyper's sister. However, I think the correct situation is that Anna, Reiner, Herman, and Leentje were all Doors siblings. And Jan Streypers married Anna. And Thones Kunders married Leentje. Now, if "their" means the Doors kids, then the present-day meaning of brother-in-law works for Thones -- he married "their" sister. If you assume "their" means the Streypers boys, then you will need a little more expansive definition of "brother-in-law" to get the right answer. Jan Streypers m. Anna Doors whose sister, Leentje, married Thones Kunders. I think that the broad way "in-law" was used in those days, Thones could have been said to be the "brother-in-law" of Jan Streypers (without either one marrying the other's sister). So, confusion as to just what was meant in this letter may have been the source of the Streypers theory. Regards, Howard [email protected]