Jacob Janse Gardenier - Was He Your Ancestor?
Cliff Lamere 24-27 Mar 2004
Last revised 31 Mar 2004
Table of Contents
Purpose of Webpage
Names Recorded for the First Immigrant
Some Spellings Used by Descendants of Jacob Janse Gardenier
Are There Gardeniers Not Related to Jacob Janse Gardenier?
Scroll down to view the following board messages with which I seriously disagree, OR click on the word Find to be taken directly to excerpts of the message and my discussion. Click on the subject of the message to be taken to the version online.
1) Author: Timothy Von George Find below
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 26 Jun 2002
2) Author: Timothy Von George Find below
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 26 Jun 2002
3) Author: Timothy Von George Find below
Subject: Re: Gardinier Origin
Date: 28 Jun 2002
4) Author: Haviland Gordineer (Turtle) Find below
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 15 Mar 2004
5) Author: Haviland Gordineer (Turtle) Find below
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 31 Mar 2004
Purpose of Webpage
I study only one surname; Gardenier and its multitude of spelling variations (including Gardinier and Gordinier). This webpage is written in reaction to misinformation that is found on message boards. I have left messages there directing the readers to this webpage which would be too long to put into a message. And, unlike the messages posted on message boards, this webpage can be updated if new information becomes available to me.
I am gathering information about the Gardeniers born in New York State (including to what states they may have migrated). I currently have over 2300 Gardenier/Gordinier entries in my database. Many of them are duplicate people who will be merged after I can prove that they are the same person. If I have enough years of good health remaining, I will publish a book. In the meantime, I will do Gardenier research for a fee.
It is my intention here to correct some online statements that would cause irreparable harm to Gardenier research if they should become widespread notions. Each of those discussions is in a different color. I first quote the inaccurate message and then offer my comments.
Wherever I use the word Gardenier in a general sense, it is meant to include all of the scores of spellings that have been recorded over the centuries.
Names Recorded for the First Immigrant - revised 31 Mar 2004
In 1664, the Dutch colony of New Netherland was conquered by the British without a shot being fired. The British required that each person have a surname. Before that time, many people used patronymics instead. That means that they had a "last name" that told who their father was, but such a "last name" might change every generation. The first Gardenier immigrant used the patronym Jacob Janse. This means that his father was Jan. Following the father's given name in a patronym, there is always 1-4 letters, always including an 's' as far as I know. Examples would be -s, -se, -sen, -sz, and -szen (I have seen all of these in references that mention Jacob.). Patronymics worked fine in a community with very few people, but created confusion in a larger community which might contain several unrelated Jacobs whose fathers were named Jan. Surnames solved the problem.
Jacob actually started using a unique surname prior to the requirement of one. In 1648 (and maybe earlier), he was recorded as Jacob Jansz Flodder (pronounced with a long 'o' as in 'flow' by a Dutch researcher born in the Netherlands). The spelling of the middle name varied in the records (Jansen was common). He was often referred to simply as Flodder. The source of the surname is unknown, and it did not survive in any of his descendants although one of his sons temporarily used the name Jan Floddersz (meaning Jan, son of Flodder). In "Early Records of the City and County of Albany and Colony of Rensselaerswyck" Vol. 3, pg. 415 (by Jonathan Pearson), Jacob is mentioned in 1674 as Jacob Jansz Gardenier. He is sometimes called Jacob Janse Gardenier, alias Flodder. This shows that he was the same person who used the Flodder surname.
So, by 1674 or earlier, Jacob had taken the Gardenier surname. All of his male children have been recorded with Gardenier or some spelling variation of that surname.
Lest you be misled, I should point out that a family member back in the Netherlands has been recorded in a document with the Gardenier spelling. It is possible that the Gardenier surname was already in use in the Netherlands when Jacob came to New Netherland in 1637 or 1638 (he was recorded as Jacob Janse at that time). Or, the surname may have been created in the Netherlands after Jacob's departure. At some point, Jacob decided to abandon Flodder in favor of Gardenier. There had to be some strong reason for him to change from Flodder, a name he used in business and by which he was very well known even by the Van Rensselaer family.
Some Spellings Used by Descendants of Jacob Janse Gardenier
This section is intended to help you decide whether or not you are a descendant of Jacob Janse Gardenier. It is not a complete listing of the great number of spellings found in the records.
The Gardiners descend from British stock and are unrelated to Gardeniers. Gardiner and Gardener are occasional recorded misspellings of Gardenier, but these same people can be found in the records as Gardeniers (or similar spelling), especially at their baptisms. So far, I don't know of any branch that permanently became Gardiners, but there may be some.
Some Gardners are of German origin, while others came from other countries (Great Britain?). Almost all are unrelated to Gardeniers, although I know of one branch of New York Gardeniers that became Gardners. A couple of other men also switched to the Gardner spelling, but I don't know yet whether their children and grandchildren used that spelling as well.
Gordiniers are descendants of Jacob Janse Gardenier, except for some black Gordiniers in New York. Freed slaves usually needed to adopt a surname due to the fact that they often didn't have one already. I have not come across a black Gardenier yet.
Around the time of the Revolutionary War, a family of Gardeniers went to Loyalist Canada. They used the spelling Gordanier. A small number of their descendants came back to New York. I have heard of one or two such cases.
Gaudineer is a spelling that seems to have first appeared in the area of Peekskill, Westchester County, NY. It probably didn't exist before 1800 and possibly not before 1850.
Although the Gardinier spelling was rare before 1700, it eventually became the predominant spelling in New York.
Are There Gardeniers Not Related to Jacob Janse Gardenier?
1) There was a second Gardenier/Gardinier immigrant to the U.S. that bypassed New York. He was a Reformed Church minister who settled in Michigan, I think. It was probably in the mid-1800s or later. A genealogy of that family would be important because those are some of the very few Gardeniers in the U.S. who did not descend from Jacob.
2) I have corresponded with a New York Gardinier whose family history says that their origin was Alsace-Lorraine in Germany. Those German-speaking immigrants apparently went to Pennsylvania and then to Buffalo, New York. However, the person lived in the Buffalo area even though his great-grandfather was born in Wisconsin. The family history seems uncertain. Did they migrate to Buffalo twice? This person's father and uncle grew up using the Gardner spelling, but changed it to Gardinier when they got married. The great-grandfather was a Gardinier.
At this point, I have some doubts about the Alsace-Lorraine connection to a Gardenier, because a New York Grantier descendant also claims that place as the origin of their ancestor. "The Grantier descendants in both NY and PA had the same information that was passed down in my family, namely that the two 'Grantier' brothers immigrated to the US from Alsace-Lorraine a couple of years before the Revolutionary War." This published researcher believes that the confusion was caused by a church record that mistakenly named a Grantier/Grenadier as a Gardenier. I have not studied the particular case yet.
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 26 Jun 2002
<snip> other variations of the family name include Gordineer (my line) Gaudinier, Gordinier, Gardiner, Gardner, Gardin, Jardin and so on. [ Not the last two.] <snip> This family can trace the name back as far as William the Conquerer, who was the great Grandson of william the longsword. [False. Mr. Von George believes that Lion/Lyon Gardiner and Jacob Janse Gardenier shared a common heritage. They are NOT related. William the Conquerer and William the Longsword may be related to Lion Gardiner, but these men were not ancestors of Jacob Janse Gardenier (see my discussion of the Gardiner surname above). It is a fact that there has been an occasional recorded misspelling of Gardenier as Gardiner. Perhaps Mr. Von George had seen such spellings and accepted them as accurate. After reading a message board message about the Gardiner line, he may have then tried to incorporate the Gardiner ancestors into the Gardenier line. However, William the Conqueror was not related to the Gardeniers. I have read many of Mr. Von George's messages and must say that he goes out of his way to help other people. Without clear information available, it is sometime easy to come to a wrong conclusion, which is what happened concerning the Gardenier/Gardiner connection.]
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 26 Jun 2002
<snip> This family has been able to trace the line back to William the Conquerer who was the Great Grandson of William th Longsword. <snip> [These people may have been related to the Gardiner surname, but they were NOT related to Gardenier. See discussion in first message ( green ).]
Subject: Re: Gardinier Origin
Date: 28 Jun 2002
<snip> This is a very well researched name. It has been traced back as far as William the Conquerer who was the grandson of William the Longsword. [False. See discussion in first message ( green ). ] <snip> There are so many spellings of this family. Here are some Gardinier, Gardineer, Gordineer (my line), Gaudineer, Gardiner, Gardin, Jardin, De Jardine, Gardinkirk, Gardynyr, And so on. [The last six are NOT related to Gardenier, although there have been some Gardiner misspellings in the records.] This explains why there is Dutch, Irish, French, German "Gordineers". [False except for Dutch. None of the others have been proved.] Jacob Janse Gardenier correct name was Jacob Janse Floddese Gardenier born 1630 in Holland. [Omit the Floddese part, which should be Flodderse. Jacob was probably born before 1620.] His father was Jacob Janse Floddese. [False. Both men did not have the same name, and Floddese has no known connection to Holland.] <snip>
Message #1 (see my response below)
Author: Haviland Gordineer (Turtle)
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 15 Mar 2004
Josina Gordonier - born in Indian Terr. 1621 - 1623 in what now is Columbia Co. NY is the origan of the name - Documentation can be found in the Waterman Papers/and or The Westchester Arcavies in Meville-Mackenzie / another is Mackenzie's "The Families of the Colonial Town of Philipsburgh". Josina marries in 1643 Jacob Jans Floderse'shis father is Jan Janse Floderse a capenter who come with the New Netherland Co. in 1615 - the children and there 10 adopt the mothers surname which is the native custom - the gordineer can also trace their roots to Sachem Wyandance Grand
Sachem of Long Island - Turtle aka Haviland R. Gordineer - e-mail [email protected]
Message #2 (see my response below)
Author: Haviland Gordineer (Turtle)
Subject: Re: James Gardinier
Date: 31 Mar 2004
I have received
some replies to my last posting and in answer to them - There are no records of
to the best of my knowledge., that Jacob Janse Flodderse every uses the surname
Gordineer, also borne as Gaudinier, Gardinieir, Gordonier etc, The Gordineer and
its many spelling finds its origin with Josina Gordineer who in 1643 marries
Flodderse - documentation can be found in Grenville C. Mackenzie's The Families
of the Colonial Town of Philipsbury - - There are two Known " copies"
both type scrip 1 - New York Geneological and Giographical Record 2- The
Westchester County Archives, 2199 Saw Mill River Rd, Elmsford, nY 10523 (914 592
1925) Note - All the records that i have and these's deal mostly with the
Gordineer's on the lower Hudson Valley - (note that the family seperates in 1686
with Albert Gordineer and some of his sisters and brothers moving to "what
now is", lower Westchester Co. The only records of Jacob Janse Flodderse
show his name as just that : these include courts records, apprentiseship papers
(cira 1630's), land deeds (both his and his fathers): The only
"Children" of Jacob that assume the susname Gordineer are the children
of Josina which is the native custom - The children of Jacob's second marriage
to a european women assume the surname of their father Flodderse - which is
later corrupted to Floders by their desendants - It is a gross error to assign
the surname of Gordineer and its many spellings (remember not many native's
wrote their own names or did the spelling) to Jacob Janse Flodderse, and it is
also in error to assume that all his children assume this surname - the records
prove other wise -
In ref to Wyandance - not all Gordineers - will find lines to this; the lineage
that i have found is through maternal grandmothers; search grandmothers with
surnames of Texel, Lent, Abrams, Van Tassel. May all feel free to contact me in
ref to their geneology search of Gordineer's.
My comments (written 31 Mar 2004, but they will be updated as I learn more): Haviland "Turtle" Gordineer is a Native American ("native Indian", "American Indian") with an interesting, but very different view of the origin of the Gardenier surname. He traces his genealogy through the maternal bloodline. In the early 1990s, he did research in Westchester County, NY. He and I are in the midst of some discussions about the Gordineer surname. His views and experiences are unlike mine. I don't know enough yet to be able to understand how the Gordineer name could have survived in maternal lines to this date.
Here is my understanding of Mr. Gordineer's view. He thinks it is possible that a Gordineer came to the Hudson Valley of New York with the French before 1540. (Giovanni Verrazzano, an Italian, was sailing for the French in 1524 when he entered New York Harbor in search of a route to Asia.) That Gordineer or a later one married an Indian. Wyandance (on Long Island) and Josina, wife of Jacob (in Columbia County), were descendants of that marriage. Jacob used the surname Flodder, but not Gardenier, so the Gordineer surname did not come from him. Josina's children took her surname (Gordineer) as would be the usual practice in the Mahican tradition.
1) Response to information that is common to both messages: At some point, Jacob Janse dropped the Flodder surname and replaced it with Gardenier, the same surname used in Holland by a family member. As mentioned above in "Names Recorded for the First Immigrant," Jacob was recorded many times in his later years with the Gardenier surname (I quote one source). This is a problem for Mr. Gordineer's view of the origin of the name since he contends that in native fashion the surname of the mother passed to the children, but not to Jacob. He believes that Jacob did not himself ever use the Gardenier name. But, since Jacob did, Josina would have needed to pass the Gordineer name not only to Jacob, but also somehow to Jacob's family member in Holland.
I have no information that Jacob's father ever came to this country.
Mr. Gordineer did not have access to his records as he wrote these messages, so he has written from memory. For those of you who may want to look up the source of the two volume typescript by Grenville C. Mackenzie, its title is "The Families of the Colonial Town of Philipsburgh." The Westchester County Archives and the Westchester County Historical Society are at the same address. I could find the Mackenzie work listed only at the Historical Society (entry for members only), but I could have missed it on the Archives site. In any event, I have a copy of the three pages of the Gardenier genealogy which I think comes from that typescript. Josina's first name is mentioned, but nothing else is given about her in this source. After comparing with known info, I rated this genealogy "Poor". For example, he merges Jacob and his eldest son into one person. Three of Jacob's grandchildren are listed as his own children. These mistakes might have resulted because of the similarity of the names of Jacob and his son; Jacob Janse Gardenier versus Jan Jacobse Gardenier. Other factual errors in the first half of the first page caused me to lose confidence in Mackenzie's genealogy. However, a Westchester Co. researcher should examine the genealogy for possible clues.
Gardenier researchers sometimes ask about a connection to a Native American ancestry. If there is one, I do not believe it is the one described in Mr. Gordineer's messages.
2) Response to message #1 only:
Josina's place of birth is unknown, but there is a very good chance that it was in the Netherlands. Her maiden name is also unknown. I cannot say with certainty that she was not a Native American, but I do not believe that she was, or that she could have been the source of the Gardenier/Gordineer surname. I don't know what "Meville-Mackenzie" means. I could not find Meville as an author, nor as a place in two Gazetteers.
Mr. Gordineer does not believe that Chief Wyandance was related to Lion Gardiner, to whom Wyandance sold land in Eastern Long Island. Nor do I. I only mention this because Timothy Von George does.
3) Response to message #2 only:
I'm not aware of any of Albert's siblings moving to Westchester Co. Mackenzie mentions only Albert moving there, and that was "about 1692". I don't believe that Jacob's father came to this country (he is not mentioned in the ship's record of Jacob's passage), so I doubt that a deed exists for him. I will check, but not right away. " The children of Jacob's second marriage to a european women assume the surname of their father Flodderse ". There are no proven children by the second marriage. If any child of a Jacob Flodder was baptized, that would be proof enough, and we would know about it. The only possible child of the second marriage occurred over a decade after Jacob began using the Gardenier name. " Gordineers...; the lineage that i have found is through maternal grandmothers; search grandmothers with surnames of Texel, Lent, Abrams, Van Tassel. " I don't yet know how Native American surnames are passed on through the maternal line, but if Jacob had married a Gordineer, and his children picked up the Gardenier surname, how can the Gordineer name survive in women with the surnames Lent and Van Tassel, both of whom married a Gardenier. Mr. Gordineer may believe that the women were natives or partly native, but I don't think they were. In any event, they weren't carrying the Gardenier name. Their husband was. Looking at the names of the grandmothers will not help us follow the Gardenier/Gordineer name.
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Mar 2004