Ken et al, In the July issue of The Vanguard, I presented some "arguments" for the origin of the family name, whether Dutch, Belgian, Swiss, or Danish. To be blunt, the point is "how far back do we go?" In medieval Netherlands, which included both modern Belgium and what we call "Holland", the name was most abundant in East Flanders at least as far back as the late 1300s. (Of course, it had numerous spelling variations.) In modern "Holland" our presence was limited, centering around Amsterdam, Gouda, and Leiden, in the late 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s. We "Vans" in the U.S. all seem to descend from a man who was born in Belgium and lived in Amsterdam a scant dozen years before leaving the Netherlands. The name in the Old Country was frequently spelled "van Haedsdaele", believe it or not, and we still have relatives over there named "Van Haetsdaele" along the border of Belgium and France. Many have moved to France. I have hired Dutch and Belgian genealogists to do some digging for me and I have yet to find any connections outside these areas or any surname similar to "Orsdael" among these medieval ancestors. I believe, however, that there has been reference in some publications to an "Orsdael" on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, and it is part of Denmark. The town still exists and is more commonly called "Aarsdale" now. Considerable speculation exists that our family came from this Danish island town and moved to "Holland". This was the central theme of the article in The Vanguard. We may never be able to prove or disprove this. One thing which is interesting is that both the Danish "Aarsdale" and the Belgian "Haedsdaele" are actually pronounced something like "Ozdoll". Charles R. Vanorsdale ----- Original Message ----- I was at the Family History Library in Salt Lake last week. While there, I saw a new Van Orsdall book had been added to the surname books collection. The book is "Van Orsdall Family History", by Judy Van Orsdall Downey. The book appears to be self-published. It covers a branch of the Van line that starts with Tunis in Orange Co, NY and follows the descendents to various parts of Ohio. The author is Mrs. Steven Downey, 1815 46th Street, Des Moines, IA 50310. One of the comments in the book is that the name Orsdall or Orsdael -without the Van- is fairly common in the Netherlands. That raises a question about a possible origin of the surname that was taken by Simon Jansz. The report from The Institute for Genealogy in the Hague, which many of the Van researchers have acquired, mentions that the name Van Arsdale is not found in the Netherlands. But how about the possibility that there is some relationship between the name Van Arsdale and some other Orsdall in the Netherlands? Ken Keller krk@ma.ultranet.com ______________________________