Gerrit Wolfertse van Couwenhoven - Screwy timeline

Good catch. He is probably related to me in some way (besides marriage) since my great great great aunt was married to one of his descendants and my mother's top DNA cousin is a Dutch man. Our family lived with them in New Jersey and Ohio and possibly earlier in New York.

I'm guessing his death date is incorrect, but I'll see if I find anything.

He is the gggg grandfather of my ggg uncle :)

Peter Conover

Death: BEF 27 AUG 1645 in Flatlands, Kings County, Long Island, New York

Another source puts his death much later

http://www.conovergenealogy.com/Pages/newinfor.htm

yuck, that site made my head hurt.

regardless of his death the two youngest kids are born when he is 90 years old, so either wrong dates or wrong father. I haven't had time to look today.

NB the software is showing his age incorrectly for a few of the items on his timeline.

I agree about that site. I also take all Conover genealogy sites with a grain of salt. I have found inconsistencies, errors, and lack of completeness. Where there are baptismal records, land records, and wills that's best. It took me quite a while wading through all the families and all the repeated names to find Peter Conover's parents.

For pre-immigration i am going to rel on the article quoted in his About section:

In the October 2004 The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society Review, published an article titled "Wolfert Gerritse in the Netherlands: Further Thoughts About the Van Couwenhoven Family" by WILLEM VAN KOUWENHOVEN ...

There is an interesting paragraph regarding the relative ages of brothers Wolphert Gerritsz and Willem Gerritsz, the author uses deductions about the ages of Willem's children to argue that Willem was the younger brother but is perplexed how to justify that the younger brother stas on the farm to become tenant after the father Gerrit Jansz dies. I think that a reasonable clue lies in their names, and i think that the explanation is that Wolphert is not the eldest son as the , i think he is the middle son and that there must have been an elder brother who was initially the heir designate. With "Jan Gerritsz" the obvious candidate to take over their father's tenancy middle son Wolphert would have turned to commerce while younger Willem was still at home, Jan dies somehow before their father does and now Willem becomes the logical heir.

This also gives us a clue that the "data" in Gerrit Jansz profile is nothing more than someones guessing. His death is currently 1578, i believe this should be "AFTEr 1578" as the birth date of Wolphert is currently "c1579". But as we know Willem inherits the tenanc then their fathers death must have been close to or after Willem came of age so "c1600".

I have seen lots of people quoting the fact that Wolphert stated on October 8, 1638 that he was 54 years old making his birth c1584. The NYG&BS article actually lists a citation but who ever pasted it into the About did not cop the citations and i have not been able to locate anywhere else on the net.

So Gerrit Jans c1550-c1612 , son of Jan N.N c1520-?, children:
1. Jan Gerritsz c1581-c1610
2. Wolphert Gerritsz 1584-c1648
3. Willem Gerritsz c1587-1622

Jan Willemsen Van Kouwenhoven
"Death: circa 1550 (55) Monmouth,New Jersey,USA" ?!?!

Just to correct my earlier post, the NYG&BS article goes to quite some effort to point out that the link between the brothers and Gerrit Jansz is circumstantial.

I would like to propose that we edit the profile to "Gerrit N.N." c1550-c1604 aka Gerrit Jansz, Gerrit Jansz van Couwenhoven, Gerrit van Couwenhoven.Birth location unknown, death location Kouwenhoven.

Alternate data for Gerrit Janz Couwenhoven:

Field Main Profile select all Alternate Data

Manager Eric Shotwell Patrick Schoettmer Geiger Lee Robert Butts Linda Thompson, (c) Vernon Hintt, Jr.

Forename Gerritt Gerrit Gerritt Gerritt Gerrit Gerritt

Middle Name Jansz Wolfert Suype Jansz Jansz Jansz

Surname Van Couwenhoven Van Kouwenhoven Couwenhoven Couwenhoven Van Couwenhoven Van Couwenhoven

Birth Surname Van Couwenhoven Couwenhouven Van Couwenhoven Van Couwenhoven

Birth Date 1516 c. 1546

Birth Location Couwenhoven, Zeist, Utrecht, The Netherlands Utrecht, Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands Amersfoort, Utrech, Netherlands Couwenhoven, Zeist, Utrecht, Netherlands

Death Date c. 1578 c. 1576 12 December 1604 1578

Death Location Amersfoort,Utrecht,,Holland Utrecht, Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands Netherlands Amersfoort, Amersfoort, Utrecht, Netherlands

Following on from last post; unless someone has better evidence than some tree over at Incestry.com i think we should sever the link between Gerrit Janz Couwenhoven and Jan Willemsen Van Kouwenhoven.

I have MPedvJan Willemsen Van Kouwenhoven and added him to my Monmouth County, New Jersey project.

While I like the idea of following the article's hypothesis, in my experience there are a lot of descendants of the Van Couwenhoven family on Geni and we should email the managers of the two to discuss the idea of severing the link.

I have to read your last long comment and study the profile a bit. One option is to not sever but put the issue in the About with a statement up front that the link is circumstantial and not proven.

Also I am less than clear headed due to issues with a bad knee, so I will probably sleep on this and come back tomorrow when I'm clearer :)

From the Revisions, it looks like he has the wrong parents

Willem Janse Van Couwenhoven's parents were changed to Jan Van Couwenhoven and Jacomina Van Kouwenhoven (N.N.) by George J. Homs.
Jun 6, 2011 at 7:08 AM
Geni Pro badge
Gerritt Jansz Van Couwenhoven's parents were changed to Jan Willemsen Van Couwenhoven and Annetje Van Den Coulster by Ann Vermeulen (Ramsey).
Jun 6, 2011 at 12:28 AM
Geni Pro badge
Jan Willemsen Van Couwenhoven's parents were changed to Willem Janse Van Couwenhoven and Cunera Van Lynden by Ann Vermeulen (Ramsey).
Jun 6, 2011 at 12:27 AM

George J. Homs and Private User. Can you help out here?

There have been some merges in this family. It looks like you did research on this profile or the profiles that got merged.

Jan Willemsen Van Kouwenhoven

Sorry to hear about your knee, Hatte.
I will be travelling next week so may not have much time for Geni.

We'll get this straightened out Alex Moes. It's an important family with many descendants and should be as good as we can make it. I know that George and Ann did a lot of work with others on these trees but of course over time you get merges and various influences of unsourced Internet trees.

Have a good week.

Ok, it's not much but we can prove death of Gerrit as probably early 1645 as his widow, Aeltje Cornelisse Cool, remarries in New Amsterdam:

1645 27 Aug; Elbert Elbertszen, jm van Nieukerchen; Aeltje Cornelis, wid Gerrit Wolfertszen

Every bit of data with evidence is a good addition for this time period.

Thanks for the compliments, Hatte. It's two years that I'm repeating (to myself) that I should get back to work on the New Netherland immigrants. But, it's a challenge. My mistake back then was not to MP the profiles. So, like you suggest, here's been a lot of data draft since we stabilized the trees there.
Perhaps one way to get it right again is by having a few people looking at families one by one, and ten ticking them off in the project page that lists the main families (which can expand as well, of course. I suspect Ann will be keen on working on this as well.

George J. Homs - I can help. I wasn't involved last time but since I have been researching one of my two brick walls -- my gggg grandmother in Southern New Jersey, it has come to light both from DNA testing and records that our family has strong New Netherlands connections, and lived probably first in Monmouth and then in Cumberland county in primarily Dutch communities.

I agree that we should MP and also lock fields where we are fairly sure of the data. Many Americans are interested in and descended from these families so the older profiles should be well taken care of.

I've solved the original puzzle, the two children born to Gerrit Wolfertse post-mortem were actually children of his grandson, Gerrit Jans Gerret Janse Kouvenhoven.

Probably the result of merging different generations with the same or similar names. I wonder what else is amiss? Thank you Alex Moes.