In the mean time, I have been researching a German branch of the tree. I am hindered by a) my internet connection and b) the fact I do not read German. I found that one cousin - Ida Heitmann - but I have plenty of others who were living in Germany at the time of WW1. (I told my nieces that we had neither Nazis nor slave owners in our family; I trust that statement remains true with this additional research. Certainly it's true on our paternal line - one good thing for having no wealth....)
I have been doing my best to add deceased family members to Wikitree. I am also learning about widgets. I just wanted to add this one below - for the fun of it; see what it looks like and what it does.
Join me @ WikiTree
Katie, I am enjoying your blog. As always it is entertaining and insightful. Just curious, have you read the Van Houten manuscripts? It is an old manuscript put together from a barrel full of papers found in the house of Gerrebrandt Van Houten in Paterson New Jersey. Very interesting collection of papers, some of which relate to some of our ancestors. There is an account of a Van Houten buying a slave. I don't know the exact relationship but I'm fairly certain that he was a relative of ours.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to Archives where you can download a copy. http://archive.org/stream/vanhoutenmanuscr00vanh/vanhoutenmanuscr00vanh_djvu.txt
On the left you will see a line that says see other formats. Click on that and choose PDF. You can then save it to your computer.
There is another book available on archives called History of the Old Dutch Church at Totowa, Paterson, New Jersey, 1755-1827, Baptismal Register, 1756-1808. This book is a great history of some of the Van Houtens. It lists Peter Van Houten and Rachel LaRue as well as the birth/baptism of Hannah (Anaetye) Van Houten. It also lists where he paid for a bench in the church. Very interesting.
CHUCK!
ReplyDeleteNo, I had no idea! I will look for i that manuscript. So, crap, basically you are telling me I may very well have misinformed my nieces.... the Van Houten line may have owned slaves. Shoot.
So, Chuck, have you definitively proven that it's Peter Van Houten and Hannah/Anaetye and Rachel Larue? I don't have anything which makes me feel certain they belong to us. i haven't been able to make the connection with documents.
But, how exciting for the info above. When i am back at the Lake I will print out. Thank you!