Dutch Cousins of Kentucky

Comment

Comment by Armando Framarini on November 30, 2009 at 3:02pm

Barbara,
I am a little disappointed with some of your comments, espesially for someone who has been researching for years.
1) Comment of the spelling of Montfort and the use "de" before the name and dismissing this information because your family spelled it a certain way. It does not matter how your family spelled there names! Many beginners overlook information because of a variant spelling. The person who recorded your ancestor spelled it like it sounded to them adding, subtracting or completely rewriting the name. You should put these items on a "to be checked out" list after you have exhausted better quality leads. Once checked and verified should they should be dismissed if not related. (a family in Holland have a family arms of Silver with 3 Red Mill Rinds and have these spellings in there line Montfort, Montfoort, van Montfort, van Montfoort, van Montvord, de Montfort, Van Montfoorde)

2) Dismissal of a connection to Montfort's from England. Many people make the mistake that because some emmigrants were from England they could not be related to our Dutch, Belgian, Walloon, etc... ancestors.
Thanks to the Duke of Parma in the Catholic/Protestant wars he expelled rather than slaughter, a large number Dutch and Belgian Protestant families in the 1500's. These refugees were spread out throughout Europe to Protestant friendly countries like Germany, England, etc.... Many of these refugees went to larger cities where wages were higher. London is famous for there large Dutch population in the 1500's, noted also for the oldest Dutch Reformed Church, Austin Friars of London. There were Montfort's in the records there. I think it would be better to say "No connections have been proven yet" unless you know where these Montforts came from also!

Banta I believe is Friesian name or origins.

Riker also Ryckers in New Amsterdam but Rijkers in Holland.

Demarest I know as de Mares/de Marres/de Marez/ de(s) Marestz because this family name is associated with names I have studied like Jacobs/Jacobson/Jacobsen/Jacobzen family, the Nevius, Neef, Neeff family, and the de Leonardis/Lenaerts/Lenaerds/Leenaarts family and the Ramaker/Ramacher/Radermaker families.

Have you checked CBG.nl webite of the Netherlands goverment. It is where the genealogies and heraldry is collected and preserved.
From the site they have "Montforts from America published in 1961, 1964, 1972
of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record"
Also 12 other genealogy reports on Montfort's
They also have the book "J.E. Murray. The Bantas of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Their ancestors and descendants. Palatine (Illinois), 1985"

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 30, 2009 at 12:30pm

whew......if you asked about any other of my lineage, probably have to really run it down in my files..but my MONTFORTS are off the top of my head...they have been my primary focus since the age of ten.....no idea how that focus would end....with connections to the Shakers, Low Dutch Colony in KY, first ship of settlers from the Dutch West Indies Company, Daniel Boone, the Traveling Church, the Cook family that arrived in KY very early...the Wilcoxsons.....I just wanted to find out why they came here....lol.

Comment by Richard Baldwin Cook on November 30, 2009 at 11:55am

Thanks, Barbara for running all this down. You have an enviable grip on your lineage. The research pays off.

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 30, 2009 at 9:12am

I suspect my Montforts fled to the north after the massacre in Paris in 1572...from whatever area they originated....ended up in Valenciennes where church records give the birth of Jan Montfort and at least two siblings if memory serves.....then to the Netherlands [probably between 1600-1624], being more tolerant of other faiths it was a logical destination. Historically its hard to say if Walloon or Huguenot though that was historically how protestants were referred to in France and the Montforts were protestant......my ancestry for the record is both Dutch and French...with a touch of German mixed in somewhere along the line.....on one side of my dad's tree.....the other side is definitely Scots with McClellan and McLeod...and always you got to have English.....mixed in, right??? I suspect the reason the Montforts were in the first ship of settlers was a lack of jobs in the Netherlands....and a mighty good incentive to go west young man...lol. Records indicate he was a lace weaver and you had to be in a guild for that and other professions. I'm not up on how guilds work, but believe they took the Dutch first and if any room left, then others could join. I can't imagine any other reason they were so quick to sign on.....except a promise of a new life, work, help to get established.....Harry Macy of the NYG&B cites that the first ship of settlers were of the Walloon persuasion....seeming to give some insight as to where they were from originally...in the area of the Spanish Netherlands that became Belgium and the language they spoke is referred to as Walloon.....which I've heard is a mix of French and Dutch...I believe Valenciennes fell into that area that they called Walloon....if that makes sense. By the time the Montforts were in with the Dutch at Nieuw Amsterdam, their language was more likely Dutch and it came with them to KY as they did use the old language at the church....but were also fluent in English by this time.
I know when I first became interested in the family at the age of ten.....I was told three things...they were French Huguenots, came to KY very early and their last name was Montfort....apparently that was also handed down to other lines of the same family as we cousins started comparing notes....what was told to us.....and these are cousins I only just met.....through tracing the family history. The only thing I will dispute is our line is from Simon deMontfort, father of the English Parliament.....there is no apparent/proven connection but and its a big BUT, there is a 300 year gap between the first known of our Montfort line and the time this Simon lived....and way back, there might have been a connection....only DNA would prove that. The line of Montforts that came into the Virginias and Carolinas some years after the ones that arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam, were from England and do have a connection to Simon deMontfort...our line has never used the "de" in any documents but do use the Dutch spelling of MONFOORT down to about 1790...the last record I've found that spells it like that....in the minutes of the Low Dutch Company of Shelby/Henry County, KY and which is in the archives of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, KY. I think its safe to say I'm a hybrid...lol.....with some interesting history on my dad's side of the family........

Comment by Richard Baldwin Cook on November 30, 2009 at 8:08am

One of the true blessings of coming to America from Europe in the 1700s was that you would not get driven off or killed because of uncertainties about who you were and just how reliable your allegiances were to one or another European prince. The uncertainties were real and so was the killing. Killing on all sides. Europe went through its own war lord period(s).

Comment by Richard Baldwin Cook on November 30, 2009 at 8:01am

Isn't the term "Huguenot" a label of uncertain (probably Swiss) origin from the mid 1500s? If so, then to say someone is not Dutch, because he is Huguenot, sounds a little bit like saying, someone is not English because she was Baptist. I also wonder how precise the term "Walloon" is, with reference to more modern notions of nationality. I think "Walloon" meant a resident of an area that became part of Belgium - not a precise designation of someone's ethnic origins. "Ethnic" is of course, also a moving target. None of this to discount decades of patient research. I'm just saying . . . I have German-speaking ancestors - Diller - in central PA by 1730s - who were in all likelihood French in the parents' generation - Protestants driven out of France by Louis XIV. But the kids (who may have spoken German in Flanders anyway) adopted a "reformed" Lutheranism of their ex-pat Palatine region and brought that with them to Lebanon PA. So, were they German? French? Huguenot? Calvinist? Lutheran? A little bit of all of the above. Throughout the 1600s there were lots of refugees flowing through the German princedoms, to say nothing of the Spanish Netherlands, many (most, I think) out of France.

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 30, 2009 at 7:31am

I did see on a map of the Netherlands a town called Monfort, but there seems to be no connection with my family to that town....I am relying on research of three me who have had the means to do more than I can, Fred Sisser, Jake Hannam and Harman Clark. All take my Montforts back to Valenciennes, France.with documentation....but am open to any new research that might further take this line to its origin, which I think could be Normandy.

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 30, 2009 at 7:06am

My Montforts most likely met the Banta line in or around Long Island in the mid 1600's but for certain knew them after both lines moved into New Jersey and began marrying back and forth. The family is also connected to the Demarest, Ryker, Blodgoet and other early New Amsterdam families. Both Montforts and Bantas moved to the Conewago Colony at York County, PA in the mid 1700's and then to Kentucky in 1780.

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 30, 2009 at 7:01am

Afterr 50 years of research, I KNOW where my Montforts were from...originally from Valenciennes, France to Amsterdam, Netherlands to Nieuw Amsterdam in 1624 the inland to NJ, PA, KY. They were considered Walloons. My earliest known/proven is Jan married to Jacqueline Moreau, their son Peter married to Sarah dePlanck, their son Jan married to Ida Brinckerfhoff, their son Peter married to Margrietje Haff, their son Jan married to Kniertje Marston, their son Francis Montfort married to Geertje/Charity Banta....the first into KY who are my great great great great grandparents. I have found NO connection to the Montforts who descend from the Norman/English Simon deMontfort whose descendants came later than mine, to Virginia. Beyond Jan who married Jacqueline there is speculation his father is Brisse Montfort, but no proof. I believe one researcher said there is doubt he was a native of Valenciennes but from another part of France, but no one seems to have a clue where in France.

Comment by Barbara Whiteside on November 29, 2009 at 9:44pm

Very true Armando....especially English trying to interpret Dutch names...which I am most concerned with researching. I did find in my own line that connected to the Dutch....the Montforts [French Huguenots who came to what became Nieuw Nederland in 1624 on a ship sent by the Dutch West Indies Company with the first group of settlers.]....that they followed a pattern in the spelling of their name....it is thought to have originally been spelled MONTFORT...then by the time they arrived in this country in 1624, they were using the Dutch spelling MONFOORT....used that spelling fairly consistently through app 1780 when they arrived in Kentucky, then they used MONFORT and by 1850 they had reverted...to MONTFORT again. This is only on my line of Montforts followed from NY to NJ to PA to KY and OH......some who remained in the east used MONFORT.

As to spelling anything in the early history of this country...spelling was haphazard at best even as you say among the elite and educated...as there were no uniform rules for spelling.

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