L is For Loyalist Ancestors

Olive Tree Genealogy is continuing a new Alphabet Genealogy series of blog posts. I'm not following the usual way of going A-Z surnames. Instead I will create a one word "tag". Then I will share an ancestor (mine, my husband's, an inlaw's or one of my children's) who fits the tag

Today's letter is L for Loyalists.

A Loyalist is any person who is loyal to their allegiance (especially in times of revolt). During the American Revolution in what was to become the United States of America, a Loyalist (also called UEL - United Empire Loyalist) was anyone who remained loyal to the King of England. They were called Tories in their own country but Loyalists elsewhere. Most fled to Canada and helped settle that country, particularly Ontario and Nova Scotia

I have 3 Loyalist ancestors - Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick, his son Cornelis Vollick and Jacob Larroway, the father-in-law of Cornelis Vollick. All of them fought in Butler's Rangers and settled in the Niagara area of what is now Ontario.

If anyone else is a descendant of Isaac the Loyalist, or his sons Cornelis Vollick and Storm Follick, I wrote a 3 volume set of books on this family for genealogists.


 From Van Valkenburg to Vollick: V.1 The Loyalist Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick and his Vollick & Follick Children by Lorine McGinnis Schulze


Available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca or e-book version V. 1 From Van Valkenburg to Vollick

 





I've also written a guide for researchers who are seeking a Loyalist ancestor in Ontario. 


 

Guide to Finding a Loyalist Ancestor in Upper Canada (Ontario) is available in paperback or as an e-book on Amazon.com and on Amazon.ca
 

F is For French Ancestor

Olive Tree Genealogy is continuing a new Alphabet Genealogy series of blog posts. I'm not following the usual way of going A-Z surnames. Instead I will create a one word "tag". Then I will share an ancestor (mine, my husband's, an inlaw's or one of my children's) who fits the tag

Today's letter is F. Do you have a French ancestor in your lineage? I do. In fact I have several.

Sophia De Roche was born in France 21 May 1748. Jacob Burkholder (a Mennonnite born in Switzerland) and Sophia (a French Huguenot)  fled religious persecution in Switzerland  to come to Pennsylvania in 1765 on the ship Myrtilla.

Jacob and Sophia Burkholder were the first settlers in Hamilton Ontario Canada on land called the Burkholder Settlement. A monument to them was erected in 1949. Jacob filed a petition for land where he states arrived July 1794, applied for land 7 August 1794.

A few of my other French ancestors were:

David Demarest
 David de Maire, [Demarest] from Picardy, and Wife and four children 18, 12, 6, 1 yr od were recorded on the ship Bonte Koe arriving in New Netherland (New York) in 1663

Philippe Casier
 Philippe Casier (my 10th great-grandfather) of Calais France, is first mentioned in the Huguenot settlement of Martinique in the French West Indies. In 1635 a party of old and experienced settlers had gone to Martinique from the neighbouring island of St. Christopher, which had been settled by French Huguenots in 1627. In 1645, Philippe Casier and others left the island and returned to Europe. Casier went first to Calais, then to Sluis, Flanders where his daughter Hester was born. Some time after 1652, Philippe and his family moved to Mannheim in the Lower Palatinate of Germany, along with other Huguenots and Walloon Protestants.

David Uziele
David Uzille was from Calais but his family came originally from near La Moussaye (south of St. Malo) in lower Brittany. He was a farmer, born about 1635. He married Marie Magdalina, the eldest daughter of Philippe Casier from Calais, before 1659. David Usilie, as he was recorded, emigrated from Calais on the ship the Gilded Otter in 1660

Simeon LeRoy dit Audy
Simeon LeRoy dit Audy was born in 1640 in Creance, Normandy, France.  About 1681 or 1682 Simeon and his wife took some of their family to Kingston,New York. Nine of their eleven children were recorded in Canada. Several of the sons began using the surname Larroway. My branch were Loyalists arriving in Upper Canada during the American Revolution

Jacques Hertel 
Jacques was the father of Ots-Toch, the Mohawk woman who married Cornelis Van Slyke in New Netherland (present day New York)

and more!

Are You Your Own Grandpa or Grandma?

Today I had an interesting genealogy find ...my son's 5th great-grandfather's sister Sarah Stead was a witness at my son's wife 's 4th great-grandmother's marriage in 1817 in Ramsgate, Kent, England.

Since my daughter-in-law's 4th great grandma was a Fuller born in Ramsgate and we descend from a line of Fuller in Ramsgate back to the 1700s, it would not surprise me if eventually I find that my son and his wife are "cousins"

Believe it or not, this is not unusual. I use FTM for my preferred Genealogy program. One day out of sheer boredom I ran a kinship report and was shocked to learn that my father was also my cousin.

To be exact, my father is listed as my father AND as

my 8th cousin once removed
my 9th cousin once removed
my 11th cousin once removed
my 10th cousin twice removed
the husband of my 5th cousin once removed

Phew!

I was stunned. And confused. I knew what once removed meant - that we were a generation apart. Okay so far. Being 8th cousins meant we shared a common 7th great-grandparent. Being 9th cousins meant we shared a common 8th great-grandparent, and so on.

"husband of my 5th cousin once removed"? Well that meant my mother was my 5th cousin once removed and that she and I shared a common 4th great grandparent.

It wasn't making sense to me, as of course my parents and I share common ancestors! But how did we get to be cousins as well as father-daughter? This sent me off to have a good look at how my relationship to my father became a cousin relationship too.

It's a bit confusing but here is how it happened beginning with my father's 3rd great grandparents, Cornelius Vollick and Eve Larroway who married in 1795.

Cornelius and Eve shared two sets of common 2nd great grandparents. That is, Cornelius' great great grandparents were Jochem & Eva (Vrooman) Van Valkenburg. So were Eve's. Cornelius' other set of great great grandparents were Pierre & Cornelia (Damen) Uzielle. So were Eve's.

Two of Jochem & Eva's grandchildren (through their son Isaac and daughter Jannetje) married two grandchildren of Pierre Uziele and Cornelia Damen.

The Van Valkenburg grandchildren were Isaac Van Valkenburg (who married Maria Bradt the daughter of Storm Bradt and Sophia Uziele) and Marytje Van Alstyne who married Petrus LeRoy the son of Maria Uziele (who was Sophia's sister!) and Leonard Le Roy.

Here's a chart which might show the relationships in a less confusing way

I'll go into my mother's line and that tangled web of cousinship on another day.

The confusing relationships reminded me of I'm My Own Grandpaw a song written about a man who, through a combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother — that is, he becomes his own grandfather. Am I my own Grandma? My grandchildren love hearing how they are my cousins as well as my grandchildren....

But I KNOW My Great Grandma's Name! So Why Am I Stuck?

Many of us know our great grandparents' names. One of my great grandmothers was a Vollick. I knew that, and I had proof (baptism, marriage, census records)which I had found over 30 years ago.

As I traced her lineage back, I found the trail stopped cold at *her* great grandfather, Isaac Vollick the Loyalist. I could not find him in New York before he arrived in the Niagara area of Ontario with Butler's Rangers. I hunted in every resource I knew of, to no avail. There simply were NO Vollicks running around south of the border in pre-Revolutionary times!

And then I stumbled on a very generous lady who steered me in the right direction with a casual remark "Did you know that your Loyalist ancestor Isaac Vollick used to be called Isaac Van Valkenburg?"

Huh? How the heck did one go from being a Van Valkenburg to a Vollick??!!! But she was absolutely correct in her statement. The reason I could not find any Vollicks running around south of the border was because it was not a "real" surname! My Loyalist ancestor simply adopted it. I think he adopted it as a nickname "Valk" (Dutch for falcon) from Van Valkenburg (meaning town of the falcon in Dutch) which may be what his comrades in arms called him. And it stuck. It became an established surname and there are thousands and thousands of Vollick descendants running around in America and Canada today.

There are also Follick descendants - because some of Isaac's sons and grandsons became known as Follick and that surname also stuck. I believe this alteration was due to the German/Dutch sounding "f" for "v". So instead of hearing Vollick, an English speaking/writing clerk no doubt heard Follick. And thus another surname was born!

That experience taught me to open my eyes to the possibility that a surname as we know may have changed greatly over the centuries. It may have been changed deliberately as in the case of my Isaac Vollick, or it may have been changed through mis-communication or mis-hearing.

As a side-note, since my discovery 30 years ago that my Vollick ancestor was really a Van Valkenburg I have researched the family in detail and have now published three books on Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick, the Loyaist, and his two sons Cornelius and Storm.  

• From Van Valkenburg to Vollick: V1 The Loyalist Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick and his Vollick & Follick Children
• From Van Valkenburg to Vollick V2 Cornelius Vollick and his Follick and Vollick Descendants to 3 Generations 
• From Van Valkenburg to Vollick V3 Storm Follick and his Follick and Vollick Descendants to 3 Generations

The above books are available at New Netherland Books

Another example is my French LeRoy ancestor (prounced sort of like Le Wah in French - it's difficult to render it in text) settled in what is now Quebec in the mid 1600s. When he moved to New York, his name started being recorded as Larua, then Larraway. No doubt English speaking clerks mis-heard his name when he pronounced it! And so it began to be recorded as Larroway.

You must have an open mind when researching ancestors. You don't know if they changed their names. It may have changed due to mis-recording based on language differences. Did they change it to escape a bad situation? Did they change it simply due to having an established nickname that took hold? Whatever the reasons, if you are truly stuck on an ancestor, think about possible name changes. You may need to develop an entirely new area of thinking and researching!

52 Ancestors: I Think I am My Own Cousin

Amy Johnson Crow has a new challenge for geneabloggers called Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy challenges genealogists to write about one ancestor once a week. I'm having fun with this and I hope you are too!

This week I am going to tell you about my ancestor Cornelius Vollick and his wife Eve Larroway. Cornelius, my 4th great grandfather, was born in 1761 in New York. He fought for the British during the American Revolution in Butler's Rangers. After the War he came to Ontario Canada as a Loyalist and settled in the Niagara area. There he married Eve Larroway who was the daughter of another Loyalist.

Interestingly enough, Cornelius Vollick's great grandmother Sophia Uziele, was the sister of Eve Larroway's great grandmother Maria Uziele. Since Cornelia and his wife Eve shared the same set of great-great grandparents, that makes them 3rd cousins. 

Here's the surprise:

Cornelius and Eve shared TWO sets of common 2nd great grandparents, not just one!  Cornelius' great great grandparents were Jochem & Eva (Vrooman) Van Valkenburg. So were Eve's. Cornelius' other set of great great grandparents were Pierre & Cornelia (Damen) Uzielle. So were Eve's.

Two of Jochem & Eva's grandchildren (through their son Isaac and daughter Jannetje) married two grandchildren of Pierre Uziele and Cornelia Damen.

The Van Valkenburg grandchildren were Isaac Van Valkenburg (who married Maria Bradt the daughter of Storm Bradt and Sophia Uziele) and Marytje Van Alstyne who married Petrus LeRoy the son of Maria Uziele (who was Sophia's sister!) and Leonard Le Roy.

Here's a chart which might show the relationships in a less confusing way

When I used an old version of FamilyTreeMaker some years ago my father was listed as my father AND as

my 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th cousin once removed

Phew! What cousin relationship that does that give me to Cornelius, Eve and my own children? I confess it confuses me and I've not yet figured it out. And I don't have that older version of FTM anymore. All I know is that genealogy is always full of surprises!

I May Be My Own Grandma.....

I use FTM for my preferred Genealogy program. One day out of sheer boredom I ran a kinship report and was shocked to learn that my father was also my cousin.

To be exact, my father is listed as my father AND as

my 8th cousin once removed
my 9th cousin once removed
my 11th cousin once removed
my 10th cousin twice removed
the husband of my 5th cousin once removed

Phew!

I was stunned. And confused. I knew what once removed meant - that we were a generation apart. Okay so far. Being 8th cousins meant we shared a common 7th great-grandparent. Being 9th cousins meant we shared a common 8th great-grandparent, and so on.

"husband of my 5th cousin once removed"? Well that meant my mother was my 5th cousin once removed and that she and I shared a common 4th great grandparent.

It wasn't making sense to me, as of course my parents and I share common ancestors! But how did we get to be cousins as well as father-daughter? This sent me off to have a good look at how my relationship to my father became a cousin relationship too.

It's a bit confusing but here is how it happened beginning with my father's 3rd great grandparents, Cornelius Vollick and Eve Larroway who married in 1795.

Cornelius and Eve shared two sets of common 2nd great grandparents. That is, Cornelius' great great grandparents were Jochem & Eva (Vrooman) Van Valkenburg. So were Eve's. Cornelius' other set of great great grandparents were Pierre & Cornelia (Damen) Uzielle. So were Eve's.

Two of Jochem & Eva's grandchildren (through their son Isaac and daughter Jannetje) married two grandchildren of Pierre Uziele and Cornelia Damen.

The Van Valkenburg grandchildren were Isaac Van Valkenburg (who married Maria Bradt the daughter of Storm Bradt and Sophia Uziele) and Marytje Van Alstyne who married Petrus LeRoy the son of Maria Uziele (who was Sophia's sister!) and Leonard Le Roy.

Here's a chart which might show the relationships in a less confusing way

I'll go into my mother's line and that tangled web of cousinship on another day.

The confusing relationships reminded me of I'm My Own Grandpaw a song written about a man who, through a combination of marriages, becomes stepfather to his own stepmother — that is, he becomes his own grandfather. Am I my own Grandma? My grandchildren love hearing how they are my cousins as well as my grandchildren....