Let us pick a date: 1765.... Dr. James' personality was fully formed; families around them in Hackensack were taking sides. Who would he align with?
It is not hard to imagine that there were family friends and relatives in the area with whom the van Beurens had been associated for a century.
Meyers
Grevenraets
Van Horns
Van Buskirks
As I wander through the records of New Amsterdam, connections keep popping up.
One today is Laurens Andriessen van Buskirk . The Van Buskirks became fierce Loyalists.
The Earles did too.
Laurens son, Andries Van Boskerke married Anna Elizabeth Grevenraet in 1720
The couple Catherine Andriesse Meyer (Grevenraet) and Jan Dircksen Meyer are great grandparents to Dr. James vB.
All these "first families lived together on the tip of Manhattan during the short history of New Netherland.
Surnames drop out of view if one's children are all female or don;t have offspring. It is easy to ignore the ties created by marital association.
Projects stack up the bit and pieces of 'who-knew-whom'
Each prominent family member has his or her pieces to add to the jig-saw puzzle.
Jan Dircksen Meyer adds the Remonstrance/Surrender of 1665
So does Denys Isaacszen Van Hartenvelt .
~ I have to stop and resist the temptation to make unsubstantiated spot judgements.