Hello, I have read the latest newsletter with interest, regarding the VanArnhem genealogy by Pim VanArnhem, and I too made the mistake of assuming because it is on the internet it must be correct. However, while searching the parents of Sara Tuenis I ran across conflicting information regarding Sara and Tuenis (The Turk) Van Salee as her possible father.  While it would be great to have a pirate in the family, facts are facts and there's no way he could be her father. It is unfortunate Pim has lead many of us VanArnhems, VanOrnams, etc. down the wrong path. However, before we get out the tar and feathers, we should take responsibilty for our own mistakes in not verifying the data he presented. According to my records, all of the descendants of Jan Dirkz, their names, dates, etc are correct. And I had this information before I found the VanArnhem genealogy on the internet.  I'm also thinking that Pim is correct in stating Dirkz Arnhem is Jan Dirkz father. I'd like to thank Pim (love the name!) VanArnhem for putting his genealogy on the internet. It is up to us as genealogists to check the facts for ourselves. As for Sara Tuenis, I recently received some information from a person in the Netherlands with the following data: Child: Sara Father: Teunis Jacobsz Nieulandt Mother: Nelletge Pieters Sponsors: Maertgen Philips                    Neeltgen Teunis                    Jan Janz Town: Rotterdam Date baptism: 9 Sept. 1654 Source: DTB Rotterdam inv. 29 Doop remonstrants ( A "light" kind of Protestantism) This could very well be "our" Sara Teunis. Sandy VanOrman

For Sandy--Remember that Sara and Jan Dircks were married in 1664 (and had a child only a few months later). Unless you can think of a plausible reason for an eight or ten-year delay after birth, this Sara Teunis baptized in 1654 isn't ours. For Arlene--It's not so much what I know about Jan Dircks and Sara as what I know is wrong and a lot of stuff I'm pretty sure of but will never be able to prove. Briefly (I've had a major computer crash since I did the work and my scrawled notes are in a box in the garage somewhere): Our Sara Theunis is probably the one who arrived on De Trouw in 1664. The timing's right and another of the known passengers on DeTrauw was present at the baptism of the second (?) of Sara's children. Awfully coincidental if it was some other Sara Theunis. I think there are only seven know passengers in the first place. There's no manifest for De Trouw but it's my belief Jan Dircks was aboard it, too. I can explain why he might have been, perhaps even ought to have been. In any event, based on daughter Dirckje's baptism, Sara was already pregnant when De Trouw entered the harbor. If Jan Dircks wasn't aboard the ship to do the deed we have to start down some pretty unlikely paths of supposition to accommodate the actual record. The first undisputable record is Sara's marriage to Jan Dircks from Arnhem, "soldier", a couple of months after the ship arrived. Jan Dircks, a soldier, got in trouble over possession of a pair of supposedly stolen boots. He was let off for being stupid. The Dutch handed New Amsterdam over to the Brits without firing a shot. Any soldiers that wanted to stay could do so and were promised a chunk of land. I can't find any record Jan Dircks ever received any, though. Sara had Dirckje and she was baptised. Witness was the wife of Jan Myers, ex-soldier whose home was right next to the fort. Jan Dircks and Sara for no apparent reason turn up the next year in Nieuw Harlem. Sara Theunis gets in trouble for gossipping. With her at the time is the wife of Jan Theunis (later Van Tilburg). Jan Dircks complains somebody stole a blanket out of a chest in his home. Jan Theunis is familiar enough with Jan Dircks and Sara's house to claim the chest was empty to start with. Ryker calls Jan Theunis Jan Dircks' "brother-in-law" but that seems to have been his own conclusion. That's undercut in the footnotes when he confuses this Jan Theunis with another one in New Amstel. Even so, the New Harlem Jan Theunis and our progenitors seem to have been closely associated and the "Theunis" part is certainly tempting. I think he was some sort of relative to Sara. Conceivably even her father. (Someone named Jan Theunis earlier had a lot of connections that sort of lead to the early Switz's. Even earlier there's a drunkard "carpenter from Leyden" who might have been named Jan Theunis who left a wife and at least two children behind in the Netherlands. There are possible connections from him to a whole swarm of Schenectady families that show up later on.) Jan Dircks leases some land for three years at Maspeth Kil in Brooklyn. (Jan Theunis probably had a lease nearby.) The Maspeth Kil farms are generally reported to have been poor ones. Back to Harlem. The rest of the known kids are born. The last appearance of Jan Dircks in any record I can find is a Harlem tax record for 1682. That's late in the period when everybody who first settled in Harlem sold out and went somewhere else. Accounts say the Harlem farms were pretty crummy, too. Nothing on the family until the kids start to marry a dozen years later. Based on the marriages it looks as if the (now surnamed) Van Arnhems were located somewhere close to Thomas Eckerson's farm. He was located about where present-day Gramercy Park is in New York City. In 1714 "Sara Van Arnhem", "widow", petitioned for some land near the Eckerson farm. I can't tell if this is Sara Theunis or her deceased son Abraham's wife Sara Eckerson. My guess is the latter but it's basically a coin flip. Circumstancial evidence puts Jan Jansz Van Arnhem who married Hester Fonda somwhere around present-day Cohoes north of Albany in the mid-1690's. His son Abraham seems to have been located there until at least the late 1760's. At about that time the NYC Van Arnhem lines appear to have moved to the Albany area but I don't know why. There are clear records of two of the families and traces of two others ion the area later. ---------- Besides the Eckersons there's one other thing that pops out in the earliest Van Arnhem baptismal records. Jan Dircks and Sara never appeared as getuygen/godparents/witnesses at the baptisms of any of their apparent friends (or kids, assuming they lived that long). Turns out there was a doctrine that you had to be part of "the body of the church", born into it, to do so. I don't know how carefully this restriction was observed. If Jan Dircks and Sara weren't Dutch Reformed, that could explain their absence nicely and it's one of the reasons I suspect Jan Dircks' supposed descent based on a Dutch baptismal record. (The other is the names aren't right; some of the parental and sibling names show up among the Van Arnhems but several others don't. Ever.) Another funny thing is "Theunis" never shows up as a Van Arnhem given name. (Or in the Van Tilburgs, either.) I think Theunis might have been a bona fide surname rather than just Sara's patronymic. "Dirckje" never shows up again, either.... ---------- Almost all of the above can be found in online versions of primary records, mostly in Google Books, none very obscure. Sorry, it took about 10 years to put together and I don't have time to reduplicate it right now. Heck, I'm late for a meeting right now. --pete ----- Original Message ----- From: <sandravanorman@comcast.net> To: <vannorman@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:34 PM Subject: [VANNORMAN] Pim VanArnhem Genealogy > > > Hello, > > > > I have read the latest newsletter with interest, regarding the VanArnhem > genealogy by Pim VanArnhem, and I too made the mistake of assuming because > it is on the internet it must be correct. > > However, while searching the parents of Sara Tuenis I ran across > conflicting information regarding Sara and Tuenis (The Turk) Van Salee as > her possible father. While it would be great to have a pirate in the > family, facts are facts and there's no way he could be her father. > > > > It is unfortunate Pim has lead many of us VanArnhems, VanOrnams, etc. down > the wrong path. However, before we get out the tar and feathers, we should > take responsibilty for our own mistakes in not verifying the data he > presented. According to my records, all of the descendants of Jan Dirkz, > their names, dates, etc are correct. > > And I had this information before I found the VanArnhem genealogy on the > internet. I'm also thinking that Pim is correct in stating Dirkz Arnhem is > Jan Dirkz father. > > > > I'd like to thank Pim (love the name!) VanArnhem for putting his genealogy > on the internet. It is up to us as genealogists to check the facts for > ourselves. > > > > As for Sara Tuenis, I recently received some information from a person in > the Netherlands with the following data: > > > > Child: Sara > > Father: Teunis Jacobsz Nieulandt > > Mother: Nelletge Pieters > > Sponsors: Maertgen Philips > > Neeltgen Teunis > > Jan Janz > > Town: Rotterdam > > Date baptism: 9 Sept. 1654 > > Source: DTB Rotterdam inv. 29 Doop remonstrants ( A "light" kind of > Protestantism) > > > > This could very well be "our" Sara Teunis. > > > > Sandy VanOrman > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > VANNORMAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message