RELEASE DATE: JULY 3, 2005

KINSEARCHING

by

Marleta Childs
P. O. Box 6825
LUBBOCK, TX 79493-6825
[email protected]
 

     Lubbock will be the location for the 45th annual conference of the Texas State Genealogical Society on October 21-22 at the Holiday Inn Park Plaza. For more information check the website at sites.rootsweb.com/~txsgs/.

     Because Americans descend from a wide range of ethnic and racial groups, it is not surprising that many early records in what became the United States were written in a foreign language. For that reason, family researchers are always glad when these documents are translated, transcribed, and published in English. Also helpful to  genealogists are supplementary notes by the author regarding such topics as name changes/translations of people and places or ethnic customs. Such is the case in the reprint of BAPTISMAL AND MARRIAGE REGISTERS OF THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH OF KINGSTON, ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK, 1660 - 1809 transcribed and edited by Roswell Randall Hoes.

     Containing reference to approximately 44,000 individuals, these ledgers constitute the oldest extant Dutch church registers in the United States. Names of many Dutch who first made their homes in New York City or Albany are found in the material as are names of a large proportion of the Dutch families who immigrated to America before the close of the seventeenth century.

     Since the Kingston Church was the only ecclesiastical jurisdiction between New York City and Albany for a long time, people from the vast territory in between came to the church to be married and to have their children baptized. Due to that fact, data about individuals of other ethnic backgrounds appear in the material. English families, a large number of Germans who settled at Newburgh and elsewhere, and French Huguenot residents of Kingston, many of whom subsequently moved to New Paltz, had their baptisms and marriages entered in the Dutch records.

     Divided into two sections, the book renders the baptisms and then the marriages in chronological order. Typically, the baptismal entries provide the name of the child, names of the parents (including the mother's maiden name), the date of the event, and names of the sponsors and witnesses. Usually, the marriage records give the names of the couple, their places of birth and residence, and the date when the marriage banns were published.

Examples of recurring surnames are BEEKMAN/BEKMAN, BEVIER, BOGARDUS, BRINK, BURHANS, COOL/KOOL, CRISPEL, DECKER/DEKKER, DE WITT, DUBOIS, FREER, HAASBROECK/HAASBROCK, HAMILTON, HENDRICKS, HOFFMAN/HOFMAN, HOOGDEELING/HOOGDIELING/HOOGTEELING, KIP, LEG/LEGG, LOUW, MASTEN, POST, SLEGT, TAPPEN, VAN ETTEN, VAN KEUREN, VAN WAGENING, WITTAKER, and WYNKOOP. Anyone seeking early New York ancestors from the Netherlands or other pioneering forebears who lived in the area embraced by the Kingston church from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries may find valuable data about them in BAPTISMAL AND MARRIAGE REGISTERS OF THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH OF KINGSTON, ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK, 1660 - 1809.

     The 797-page paperback is indexed. To the book's price of $59.95, buyers should add the cost for postage and handling charges. (For U. S. postal mail, the cost is $4 for one book and $1.50 for each additional copy; for UPS, the cost is $6 for one copy and $2.50 for each additional book). The volume (item order #2757) may be purchased by check, MasterCard, or Visa from Clearfield Company, 3600 Clipper Mill Rd., Suite 260, Baltimore, Maryland 21211 (toll free phone 1-800-296-6687; fax 1-410-752-8492; website www.genealogical.com).

     Ms. S. McClenny, 2036 S. Bowie, Amarillo, TX 79109 (e-mail [email protected]) needs the names of the parents and siblings of Thomas D. DAVIDSON, who moved in 1840 from Tennessee to the area that became Lockhart, Caldwell County, TX.