Anna May Brower

I have done further research on Anna May Brouwer, which has resulted in better clarification of her lineage and her name. In some forms the name Anna, Ann, Hannah, Jan, Jannetje are interchangeable. These permutations all constitute the same person. This is the reason some of the old Dutch and English documents don't refer to her as Anna. It was shown as Jan in one instance. Her birth date information may further be clouded, because often the dates filed are for the Christening Date, not the Birth Date. In this case, she was Christened, according to old records on March 11, 1732. Her Birth Date, could then line up with May 9, 1731. She may well have been nick named Anna because her Aunt Jannetje was Christened on January 29, 1718. This would have helped avoid confusion within the immediate family. Her Grandparent's were having children as early as 1707 and as late as 1726. Anna May's parents started having children, possibly from 1724 and ending in ca. 1744. When a family has 11 or 12 children, the ages of said children could easily span 20 years. A long time for one woman to handle, bless them. It was common, in such situations that later children would not survive to adult status. If it's troublesome to be a mother now once you achieve a certain age, imagine what it would have been for parents/children in the early 1700s. I'm glad I've arrived at this point in my research, because there have been some rather staunch postings on the Internet to debunk Anna/Jan/Jannetje her tie into the Higbee clan, linking the Higbees and others to their famous ancestor Anneke Weber Jans (Janson/Roeloffson) Bogardus, Anneke's maiden name, so to speak, was Weber, her first husband was Jans Roeloffson, secondly she married Reverend Everardus