52 Ancestors 2026: What the Timeline Shows – Maria Durie’s Journey

 

One of the activities that genealogist Amy Johnson Crow describes in her book 31 Days to Better Genealogy is creating a timeline for each of your ancestors. Timelines make it easier to identify patterns, gaps, and inconsistencies, as well as to determine where to look for additional information, such as death certificates, children’s marriage records, or a parent’s will and probate records. With so many ancestors in my tree, extending back eight or more generations, constructing timelines for everyone would be a Herculean task. I find it best to be strategic and prioritize those ancestors whose lives need further examination or whose lives and times are of particular interest.

One ancestor who has long intrigued me is Maria Durie (or Duryea), my 4th-great-grandmother on my paternal side. She belonged to the New York/New Jersey Huguenot and Dutch branch of my family, whose members experienced several migrations as their communities and families moved westward. Maria was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, in 1749. We have her baptism date as September 24, 1749, and because baptisms were generally performed shortly after birth, we assume she was born that month. Her parents were Samuel Durie and Wyntie Banta. Through her additional Des Marets (Demarest) and Terhune ancestors, she was connected to some of the most prominent families in the New Jersey Dutch settlements.

Maria and her family migrated to the Conewago Valley, east of Gettysburg, sometime between 1765 and 1768. It was there that she married Pieter Cossart, son of Francis Cossart and Margarette Van Nest. We know of seven sons born between 1769 and 1779: Francis, Samuel, Jacob, Peter Jr., twins Hendrick and David, and Albert. An eighth son, Reuben, appears in FamilySearch, but he has been difficult to trace.

Maria and her immediate and extended family would not remain Pennsylvania’s “Low Dutch” residents for long. The American Revolution began in 1775, and within a few years, her husband Pieter and several of her brothers had joined various militia units for short enlistments. Meanwhile, Daniel Boone had helped open a route through the Cumberland Gap and along the Wilderness Road to Kentucky’s rich bluegrass region.

Samuel Durie scouted the area near Fort Boonesborough and declared it suitable for the Low Dutch migration to Kentucky. It is unclear whether the migration itself took place in the spring of 1780 or 1781, but the Cossarts, along with many members of Maria’s extended family, made the journey and settled at White Oak Station near Hart’s Spring. Whenever the migration occurred, they were there by early 1781—a tragic year for 31-year-old Maria.

First, her brother Hendrick died in an Indian attack in February 1781. Then, in March or April, members of the Durie family who had established themselves in a cabin were attacked while gathering food. Two of Maria’s brothers-in-law, her sister Angenitie, and her brother Petrus were killed. Annie, Petrus’s wife, escaped with their three children.

But that was not the end of Maria’s sorrows. In July, her husband Pieter was killed while picking blackberries, leaving Maria with five children, ages two to seven. Two of their sons, Francis and Samuel, had remained in Pennsylvania.

What happened to Maria after that? This is where her timeline goes cold. Three different possibilities have been suggested:

1. Marriage to Cornelius Vannice (Van Nuys): A marriage record documents the marriage of “Mary Cozart” to Cornelius Vannice on November 11, 1796. However, the gravestone of Mary Vannice at the Mud Meeting House in Harrodsburg indicates that this Mary was born in 1763. The date discrepancy makes this identification problematic.
2. Migration with the Banta family in 1796: We know that some members of the Banta family, related through Maria’s mother, migrated north to Warren County, Ohio. Some histories place Maria and several of her children among those who accompanied them.
3. Living out her life with her son Hendrick and dying in 1800: This account comes from family lore recorded by family historian Joseph Arthur Cossairt. It may not conflict with the second possibility, but the documentation is sketchy. Hendrick was 22 years old in 1800 and did not marry until 1814, when he was 34. He eventually acquired a farm in Warren County and did quite well for himself.

This is where the gaps and uncertainties in a timeline become glaringly obvious, especially for ancestors who lived on the frontier, where records are often sketchy at best. We can only imagine what life was like for Maria after the losses she suffered in 1781. Those who remained in her immediate family, including her parents, Samuel and Wyntie, probably provided mutual support. She also had Banta aunts, uncles, and cousins nearby. The Low Dutch Colony had remained connected since its members’ days in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and those ties had strengthened over the decades.

Maria’s timeline reveals much about her journeys and the circumstances of her life. She began life as a colonial in the New Jersey region of the former New Netherland, living as part of the Low Dutch Colony. She ended her days as a Kentuckian—or perhaps as someone who had relocated from Kentucky—but always as an American. She headed west twice: first to Pennsylvania and then across the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky, where she found herself in the midst of the brutal Western Theater of the War of Independence.

Her children carried on her wandering ways, and this branch of the Cossart/Cossairt/Cassatt family eventually scattered throughout the Midwest. Two sons, Francis and Samuel, apparently remained in Pennsylvania; Jacob stayed in Kentucky; Peter settled in western Ohio; Hendrick went to Warren County, Ohio; David settled in Indiana; and Albert went to Illinois. Three sons—Peter, David, and Albert—married their Banta second cousins. Hendrick appears to have been the only son to marry outside the colony. He married Mary Nailor and adopted the Anglicized name Henry.

But Maria’s timeline also leaves many questions unanswered. We can turn to the history of late-18th-century Kentucky and the Low Dutch Colony to fill in some of the gaps, but few stories were passed down, and the information we do have is sometimes contradictory. We may never recover all the details, but we can develop a sense of what life was like for pioneer families in the bluegrass region—and use our imaginations to fill in what the records cannot tell us.

Photo:

Old Mud Meeting House, https://harrodsburghistorical.org/historical-homes-in-mercer-county/dutch-reformed-church-old-mud-meeting-house-nhr/

52 Ancestors 2025: Urban – Life in the Big Apple When It Was a Seedling

 

With so much of my family history rooted in farms across the country, it’s hard to find many city stories. My mother’s family once lived in St. Joe’s (St. Joseph), Missouri, but so far, I haven’t uncovered many memorable tales of city life from there. For this post, I decided to look farther back—to the beginnings of the most populous city in the United States: New York City, or more historically, New Amsterdam.

My earliest New Amsterdam couple, Joris and Catalyntje Rapelje, were among the founding Walloon families among the Dutch, having sailed to the New World in 1624. After a stint up the Hudson River in Fort Orange, they settled in the small community growing around Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1626. They built two houses on Pearl Street and established a farm in Breuckelen (Brooklyn), near what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Joris was a member of the first representative body in New Amsterdam, known as The Twelve Men.

Other Dutch and Huguenot families followed. Some, such as Jan Cornelissen Van Horne (arriving before 1645) and Jacques Cossart (1662), settled near where the Rapeljes built their homes—Van Horne near what is now Marketfield Street, and Cossart near the foot of Broadway. Other early settlers, like Pieter Van Nest (1649), made their homes in Brooklyn. Gerrit Van Nieuwkercke (Van Newkirk) (1659) and Albert Terhune (before 1654) also settled in Brooklyn, in the Flatbush and Flatlands areas, respectively. David Des Marets (Demarest) (1663) first settled at Oude Dorp (Old Village) on Staten Island, then sought farmland in New Harlem. We round out the New Amsterdam families with Epke Jacobse (Banta) (1659), who established a farm in Flushing.

By 1653, New Amsterdam had grown to perhaps 1,000 or so residents and was officially incorporated as a city. It might be a stretch to call this mix of farms, trading posts, and shops a true “city,” but its harbor and the Hudson River route to the interior made it a thriving trade center. Unfortunately, its success also made it an attractive target for the British, who seized the city in 1664—turning its Dutch and Huguenot settlers (and others of many nationalities) into British subjects.

As the 17th century progressed and farmland grew scarce, some settlers sought new opportunities. In 1678, led by David Des Marets, several families crossed the Hudson River to the “French Patent” on the Hackensack in Bergen County, New Jersey. Within a few years, they were joined by the Banta and Durie families. One family, the DuBois, bypassed Manhattan altogether—Louis DuBois (1660) first settled in Wiltwyck (now Kingston, New York), then helped found New Paltz, New York.

The Cossarts later moved to Somerset, New Jersey, and as Bergen County became more crowded, another migration followed. In 1768, a group of now-mixed Dutch and Huguenot families from New Jersey founded the “Low Dutch” Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania. For generations after that, my ancestors lived rural lives, far removed from the bustling city that grew where their ancestors first arrived. Urban life wouldn’t return to my family story until the 20th century—and even then, in another part of New York State.

Pictures:

New Amsterdam in 1650: https://digital.onb.ac.at/rep/osd/?11105439

Overlay: https://silencesofnyhistory.org/items/show/212#lg=1&slide=0

References:

Murray, Joan England, The Bantas Of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky: Their Ancestors And Descendants, Heritage Books, 2010.

Major, David C. and Major, John S., A Huguenot on the Hackensack: David Demarest and His Legacy, Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 2007

52 Ancestors 2025: Cemetery – Low Dutch Cemetery

 

For a genealogist, cemeteries are like gold mines—so much information literally carved in stone. Of course, mistakes can happen, and tombstones cannot be edited, but they often provide valuable clues about families and their communities. With so many burial grounds scattered across the country, how does one choose a single cemetery to focus on?

For me, the choice was the Low Dutch Cemetery not too far from Frederick, Maryland, just east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This cemetery offers a snapshot of the Conewago Colony, a community formed by Dutch and Huguenot families who had first settled in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. As New Amsterdam (later New York) grew during the 1600s and early 1700s, farmland on Manhattan and Brooklyn became scarce. These families pushed westward and became some of the earliest European settlers in northern and central New Jersey.

The Conewago Colony was established in 1768 when some of these New Jersey settlers migrated farther west into what was then York County, Pennsylvania. The British victory in the French and Indian War had opened new lands beyond the original Atlantic colonies, particularly along rivers feeding into the coast.

Looking through the gravestone records posted on Find-A-Grave, I traced several family origins. These Dutch/Huguenot surnames appear frequently in the Low Dutch Cemetery, along with their original spellings and the New Jersey counties from which they emigrated:

• Brinkerhoff – Bergen County

• Bercaw (originally Broucard; also Brocaw) – Somerset County

• Cassatt (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Monfort – Hunterdon County

• Van Duyn – Hunterdon County

• Van Orsdel – Somerset County

Although these families lived in different counties in New Jersey, they clearly stayed connected. Intermarriages were common, keeping ties strong across county lines.

The history of the Conewago Colony also notes that many families later moved to Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia), before continuing west along the Wilderness Road into Kentucky. The records of the 1780 migrations highlight several surnames:

• Banta – Bergen County

• Cosart (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Duree (Durie) – Bergen County

• Voris (Voorhees) – Somerset County

These families left Pennsylvania only about twelve years after first settling there. Once again, they came from both Bergen and Somerset Counties, with some families—such as the Bantas, Durees, and Vorises—sending many more migrants than others. A few Bantas appear in the Southern Low Dutch Cemetery, while the Demarees are found in both Pennsylvania and Kentucky groups. Interestingly, Pieter Cossart and his family (my line) were the only Cossarts to migrate; the rest remained behind. His migration makes sense when we consider his wife, Marie Durie—her father (Samuel Durie), many of her siblings, and her mother (Wyntie Banya Durie, of the Banta family) also joined the migration to Kentucky. The stories of the Cossarts, Duries, and Bantas reflect the broader patterns of the Revolutionary era and early nationhood, when settlers moved westward as new lands became available (often while Native peoples were being displaced).

As for the Northern Low Dutch Cemetery itself, the church once located nearby is long gone, but its records have survived. Last year, after visiting the Gettysburg battlefield, my grandchildren and I toured the cemetery. Though it was heavily overgrown, we were able to locate the grave of Francis Cossart, Patriot (pictured).

The Conewago Colony no longer exists as a distinct community, but its legacy lives on through its cemeteries, its records, and its many descendants who blended into the broader population of the region.