Vader Genealogy
Descendants of Simon Volkertse Veeder
by Elgin
Vader
This is the house the Veeders built after they moved to Big Island (Canada) in the early 1800's. The stone above the door has 1846 carved in it. This house has been written up as a very unique early 1800's house.
Introduction
The first time I met Amy's family, her grandfather, then in his eighties, said, "There is an old man Vader buried in the cemetery on the other side of the Island (Big Island)." I didn't think too much about family history at the time. As time went on, Amy started collecting information on the Sprague family history, and has continued for over 40 years. About 20 some years ago she started researching the Vader lines and turned up lots of information. About the same time, Ruth Law started working on "The Vader Connection". Amy has continued supplying Ruth with information as she discovered it and has been able to go back to a document Johannes (John) Veeder signed on April 28, 1817. It was a document setting out a contract between John and others on the north side of Big Island with a teacher, Robert Laing, for "keeping school". The document is located in The Genealogy section of the Lennox and Addington Museum located in Napanee, Ontario. She also has a copy of a document from the Ontario Archives dated January 18, 1816, signed by Johannes Veeder (John Vader) as seen below.
Johannes (John Vader) Veeder’s signature in 1816 on a petition to The Governor of Upper Canada to have Big Island surveyed.
In 2001, I committed the Sprague family to a computer program, as it was becoming harder to keep each family separated and more difficult to look up items of interest. In the Vader family tree, published by Ruth Law, it was also becoming harder to locate a specific detail with its twenty years of updates. In an attempt to modernize the method of recording the Vader Genealogy I started the process of searching and entering material into a computer program to form a more extensive Tree.
With the aid of the Internet for searching and with many libraries now with digital access, like Schenectady Public Library, we have been able to glean a lot of information. Several people have been working on their branches of the family and have been very helpful by sending information by GEDCOM and rtf. The Library of the Latter Day Saints with their computer access has been useful although it is not a primary source of information, but a repository for information that others have supplied. One has to remember that some of the information supplied to the LDS and other genealogical libraries may not always be correct.
The historical and genealogical records of Montgomery, Herkimer, Fonda, Albany, Schenectady and other New York web sites have been very valuable in this search. Some of the individuals at these sites have been most helpful in responding with information and posting requests on their web sites. I have to thank our own Prince Edward County Archives in Picton, Ontario as we have received valuable information from them. They even had some reference books that we could not find on one of our searching trips to Fonda, Albany and other places in New York State. I have also noted that there can be erroneous entries in the local genealogical library due to submissions based entirely on supposition and hearsay.
We have been able to extend the length and accuracy of each line by submissions from Tulsa, OK, Minneapolis MN, Pleasant Valley, NY and emails and searching by others in Florida, in New York, Colorado, California and Minnesota. I spent weeks pouring over the various forms of: John Vader, Johannes Veeder, John Veeder, John Vedder, Johannis Veeder, etc., etc. It was a process that required elimination by marriage or death or some other fact before the fifty some could be whittled down to a very few John Vaders (Johannes Veeder).
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After finding the posting of the marriage of Johannes Veeder and Catharina Delang in the records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, I felt that I was on the right trail as it paralleled one found in "The Genealogies of the First Settlers of Albany" (p. 141). I also searched church records for the birth or baptism of a Johannes Veeder. I had to go through the same process of elimination of all the John (Johannes) Veeder names once again. Luckily I came upon the "Genealogies of the First Settlers of Schenectady - Veeder to Vreeland". After weeks of searching and placing the pieces of the puzzle together we found a Johannes Veeder, born and baptized and recorded in the Caughnawaga Dutch Reform Church, Fonda, New York, that fit the description only to find him married to another person later.
There was another Johannes Veeder on whom I could not find any more information. This Johannes Veeder was the son of Hendricus born Sep 20, 1767. I also noted that he was not mentioned in his father’s will made in 1796, one year before “our Johannes” was married. This could lead one to the conclusion that he had died by this time but we are not positive. The old practice of naming a child after one that has died also makes searching more difficult. I also found out there was more than one Catharina DeLong. A recent find gave us what I believe is the right Catharina DeLong, she had an older sister who came to Adolphustown a few years before with her husband Daniel Cole. This provided the reason for landing at Adolphustown.
With the help of an experienced Genealogist from New York State with an extensive library including Pearson and Leonard’s works, which deal in depth with the Veeder Family, we were able to revise the choice of “our Johannes’s” parents. Using the Dutch practice of naming siblings after parents and grandparents we have come to the conclusion that “our Johannes’s” father was Gerrit H Veeder and his mother was Hester Slingerlant. “Our Johannes’s” family seemed to closely follow the same traditions in family naming. So, until proven wrong, we will go with Gerrit and Hester as his parents. Johannes and Catharina’s daughter was named Esther after Johannes Veeder’s mother, who died when he was very young. Two of their sons, were given names of his father and his grandfather. Three other boys in the family were given names that were found in the DeLang (DeLong) family.
Johannes and his bride came to Adolphustown between June 1797 and the birth of their first child, Daniel, who was baptized in July 1799. As I mentioned before her sister and husband had settled in that area, and some Coles and Delongs are recorded as being on Big Island about the same time as Johannes and Catharina went to Big Island. It would not be a supposition to suggest that they came here because of relatives in Canada, but it was likely the main reason after the persecution they were subjected to in the USA.
Amy has also compiled a history of Big Island (unpublished) in which she has copies of Petitions, contracts, land records, lists of crown deed holders, and a variety of Sophiasburgh Township papers. As mentioned before, two of these documents have Johannes Veeder's signature where it shows his last name as being "veeder". Some of this material came from the Ontario Archives in Toronto. There also are a couple maps that show William Vader and Paul Vader on Big Island with crown deeds to the land where Johannes, their father, had settled.
To confirm the fact that John Vader (Johannes Veeder) was buried in Big Island Cemetery we have a quote from a letter written by descendents of David Vader who visited the site in the 1930's. They found a wooden marker with the last name spelled with two 'd's and because of this letter we can confirm his resting place. There are also 16 with the name DeLong buried in the same cemetery. We do not know when he died, except that it would have been before 1856 when the last 'Vader' left Big Island, that is, until Amy and I built a house on Big Island where we lived for 23 years.
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FROM: New World Immigrants
Edited by Michael Tepper Vol. 1 Page 124
Hendrik Willems, the leading baker at New Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century [icon. Manh. II: 26l] was a native of the small town of Esens in Holstein, as specified in a mention of him as a "baker in New Netherland" (2 Feb. l650, Not. H. Van Velsen), when Joost Theunissen from Norden, also a baker at New Amsterdam, but in Amsterdam at the time, hired for Hendrik the baker's apprentice Symon Volckerts from Esens, Holstein. Joost Theunissen also hired for himself an apprentice, namely, Gerrit Sybrandts from Norden. He was to serve him for three years, half of his passage money was to be paid, and a yearly salary of 200 gl. In "loose seewant."
“Re Veeder name: a manuscript in the New England Historical Genealogical Library suggests that there was once a family in France, whose name appears variously over several hundred years as Feder, Federe, and Feeder. Around 1629 two brothers, Foulque and Albert fled to Holland with their families. In Holland Foulque Feeder found his name given a Dutch spelling: Volkert Veeder. Albert found himself Albert Vedder. Foulque's son Simon Volkertse Veeder and Albert's son Harmen Albertse Vedder ended up neighbors in Schenectady, where they became patriarchs of the Veeder and Vedder families in America.” M.M.
It is most likely that the Veeder and Vedder families were French Huguenot.
The origin of the DeLong name is also French Huguenot, and variations in the spelling in the early New York State were DeLonge and DeLange. Still, today, there are DeLongs living in Holland.
The DeLongs in Prince Edward County, are descended from Arie Fransen DeLong, who was born in Amsterdam in 1650 and came to Kingston, NY in 1671. The names Arra, Simon, David, Peter and Henry were common among his descendents. They became prosperous landowners in Dutchess Co. NY, and were British supporters during the American Revolution. Some fought actively for the British and came to Canada as Loyalists. Some others were, apparently, pacifist Quakers who tried to keep a low profile after the war to retain their farms. Due to their known sympathies, however, they were ousted from their lands, some violently, and made their way northward to start new lives.
The following was provided by a genealogist, “In memory of E.E”.
“I have based my premise upon the Dutch custom of naming children. It does seem to have been observed in the Veeder family. For instance, in your case, I think the names Esther/Hester, William and Gerrit are VERY strong evidence pointing DIRECTLY to John's family. How else do YOU explain those names? It is true that the custom started to disappear after 1800 as intermarriages changed things.
However, any who think the Dutch influence in NYS ended with the British occupation in 1664, are not aware of the way it was. Example: There is an 83 yr old man whose ancestors came over in 1635. Yet, his grandparents, direct descendants of those ancestors, still spoke Dutch in the home until they died - which must have been sometime well after 1900 since he still remembered it. An early Dutch custom was to name all the sons after the father thus: John Johannes, Martin Johannes, Robert Johannes, James Johannes, etc. On the other hand, the Germans followed a different custom: John John, John Martin, John Robert, John James, etc. When Germans wrote the records, they usually called these fellows John, Martin, Robert and James. However, when the English or Dutch recorded the same Palatines, they tended to call them ALL John, and you think the Dutch custom is hard to follow.
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Another fact people tend to ignore: There were many circuit preachers in early NYS. They would perform rites at a number of churches, but kept the records in the manse where they lived, so just because a baby appeared to be baptized in Watervliet, for instance, it doesn't necessarily mean he was baptized in Watervliet. To be sure, one has to determine who the minister was at the time, and where he lived. Some of these circuit riders traveled hundreds of miles and seldom recorded where they had performed services on any given date while all their records are in their home church books. Some of them even forgot what they had done, for instance, one minister wrote something like: "I married John Smith's daughter to someone or other." Also because of travel time, people couldn't attend churches much more than 10 miles from home. Therefore among rural populations, some churches were established with only 8 or 10 families as members. Obviously they couldn't financially support a building so Dutch Reformed, English and Lutheran congregations often went in together and shared the church. However, some soon discovered that they still didn't have money to pay a minister, so they only hired men who spoke English, Dutch and German, and could deliver 3 sermons in different languages each week. The best records in those cases are the ones in the pastor's native language. Other congregations solved the money problem by having the circuit preacher come every 6-12 weeks, or even once or twice a year.
Dutch genealogy is NOT as it first appears!!!!
I think that all of this Gerrit's kids, except one whose baptism wasn't found, were baptized in Schenectady. I know Gerrit H is on the 1766 Schenectady tax list, taxed £1. Next on the list were a Van Sice and an Ogden, then Wilhelmus Veder £15, Klaas ab de Graef £19, and then Ariantje Veder £2. This would be Gerrit’s second marriage, the marriage to Annatje De Graff. (I am still working on locating where Gerrit H lived with his first wife, Hester Slingerland.)
If Pearson were correct, that Klaas (Nicholas) De Graff would have been Gerrit Helmers' father-in-law at the time of the tax list. I suspect that this Wilhelmus (Helmers) Veder was Gerrit's father, living next to Gerrit's father-in-law. I do not know which Ariantje this might be. Gerrit H Veder was also in Capt Andries Truex's Town of Schenectady Militia Company.“
As a closing comment:
For years people have wondered why Johannes and Catharina’s marriage was recorded by Pearson in brackets and stuck it in with information on Johannes Veeder and his wife, Catharina Winne. (The Genealogies of the First Settlers of Albany - page 141). We don't know where the daughter of Catharina Winne, Ann, was born in 1799 or where it was recorded [it was NOT in Albany Reformed Dutch Church] so we don't know how her parents were listed. If, as suspected, Pearson found them shown only as John & Catharina Veeder, he put the info in brackets because he didn't know which Catharina was the mother of Ann, and wanted others to be aware of both possibilities. In his intro to the volume, he points out the difficulty in sorting out such cases. We know that Ann belonged to the older couple as “our Johannes” Veeder and his wife, Catharina Delong had a son, Daniel, born in the same year, and baptized in July1799, in Canada West. Further, I was not able to track the Johannes Veeder that married Catharina Winne beyond their seven children, another area for further searching.
Elgin A Vader
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