52 Ancestors 2026: A Turning Point—Or Points

 

With so many immigrant and migrating ancestors—and so many who were called to serve their country—there have been many turning points in my family history. One story that stands out is the journey of my 9th-great-grandmother, Catalynje Trico, born in 1605. She and her husband, Joris Jansen Rapelje, were among the first group of settlers to New Amsterdam in 1624. In fact, her life is the subject of a historical novel I am currently reading, Catalynje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam by Lana Waite Holden.

In many ways, her life included several turning points. The first came in 1623, when she left her widowed mother and her hometown in Hainaut, in French Flanders—then part of the Spanish Netherlands—at about seventeen years of age. As a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant living under Roman Catholic rule, she faced the threat of persecution from the Inquisition, as did many Protestants in those lands.

After arriving in Amsterdam, she met a young man, Joris Rapelje, who was also a Protestant refugee from French Flanders and worked in the textile trade. The two married in January 1624. Yet even that decision paled beside the one they made just four days later—to board the first ship of settlers bound for New Netherland.

This Dutch migration differed from earlier Pilgrim migrations, which centered on established religious communities whose families often migrated together. The Dutch West India Company hoped to establish a colony in the New World that could serve both as a trading foothold and a supply station for ships; however, convincing Dutch citizens to leave their relatively comfortable lives in the Netherlands for the hardships of frontier life proved difficult. The early struggles of Plymouth Colony were well known and likely discouraged many potential settlers.

As a result, many of the earliest colonists were Walloon refugees—people who had already been displaced from their homelands but had not yet fully established themselves in Dutch cities like Amsterdam.

Catalynje, perhaps drawn by a sense of adventure—or perhaps by the feeling of never fully belonging in Amsterdam—decided to take the risk. She and Joris boarded the ship Eendracht ("Unity"), reaching the New World about two months later. After a brief stay near Fort Orange, they helped establish the settlement of New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan. There they farmed, gardened, and operated a small taproom that served patrons from many lands and cultures. The couple eventually had eleven children, including the first child born in the colony, Sarah, and also their fourth child, Judith, from whom I am descended. Despite the hardships of early colonial life, they became respected citizens of the young settlement.

Another remarkable aspect of this story is the Catalyntje was the only original settler who lived through the entire history of New Amsterdam—from its founding until the British takeover in 1674. Much of what historians know about the early years of New Netherland comes from depositions she gave while in her eighties. She died in 1689 and is buried in the Flatbush Reformed Dutch Cemetery.

It is fascinating to wonder what might have happened if Catalynje had chosen differently. What opportunities would a young refugee couple have found in Amsterdam? The decision to sail to the New World carried enormous risks, but it ultimately allowed them to build a life and become leading citizens in a new colony.

Her life—the hardships she endured, the many children and descendants she left behind, and her role in the earliest settlement of what would become one of the world’s greatest cities—all trace back to that pivotal decision to leave the Old World and take a chance in the New.

Photos:

Top: Catalynje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam by Lana Waite Holden

Middle: Walloon Church, taken by author

52 Ancestors 2026: A Big Decision – A Common Theme

 

Many of my ancestors made big decisions that led to major changes for their families and for the generations that followed. Their fates were intertwined with the history of our land—from a collection of colonies to a nation—as they contended with the forces that shape history. During our wars of independence and civil conflict, they had to choose sides. Many, like Peter Cossart and Christian Fast, fought for the Patriot cause during the American Revolution. Later, during the Civil War era, decisions were perhaps more personal, with some choosing to fight in the Union Army and others sympathizing with the Confederate cause.

Migration was another defining theme. My immigrant ancestors who arrived in colonial days settled close to the coast, but their descendants moved inland, becoming pioneers who walked the Wilderness Road or traveled the Oregon Trail. Even earlier, they had made the difficult decision to leave their European homelands and sail to the New World—most never seeing again those they left behind.

One common thread linking many of my ancestors was religious conviction. They chose to break with established churches and join the Reformed Protestant movement led by John Calvin (in French, Jehan Cauvin). These believers sought to emulate the early Christian church by rejecting what they saw as traditions accumulated over centuries. Viewing humanity as fundamentally sinful, they distrusted hierarchical authority—whether exercised by princes and kings or by bishops and popes. Unsurprisingly, this movement drew the ire of the established order, and these so-called “heretics” and “traitors” often faced persecution and even death.

In France, Huguenots were driven from their ancestral lands, fleeing to territories controlled by Protestant princes along the Rhine or to the Dutch Republic (Netherlands), which had embraced Reformed Protestantism after separating from the Spanish crown and the Holy Roman Empire. (As an interesting side note, the familiar hymn “We Gather Together” originally celebrated the Dutch victory over Spainish forces in the Battle of Turnhout, not a Thanksgiving feast.) Likewise, French Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) sought refuge in the Dutch Republic.

In England, cracks appeared in the façade of the Church of England, accompanied by persistent fears of creeping Catholic influence promoted by certain royals. Reformed Protestants organized themselves in Congregationalist (Puritan) and Presbyterian (Scottish and Scots-Irish) forms of church governance, with authority resting in local congregations or elected elders.

What did this turmoil mean for my faithful Reformed Protestant who faced persecution by church and state? Staying put was possible, but rarely wise. Refuge in the Netherlands or German states offered safety, yet assimilation remained a risk. For many of them, the New World offered a more hopeful solution. Pilgrim Separatists established Plymouth Colony, while English Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay. There, they attempted to build what they believed was a just society—though fears of losing their special covenant led to episodes such as the expulsion of Anne Hutchinson and the Salem witch trials. 

Huguenots from France and the Spanish Netherlands found common ground with Dutch co-religionists and migrated to New Amsterdam, helping to establish a colony that was less austere but more commercially focused. The search for refuge did not end there. My Quaker ancestors settled in Pennsylvania, seeking religious freedom. Scots-Irish and German settlers also made their way to Pennsylvania, making their way into the Appalachian Mountains. 

In the young republic, some of the descendants of these immigrant ancestors participated in the fervor of the Second Great Awakening, with some even joining new movements such as the Shaker communities emerging across the nation.

Religious conviction was thus a powerful force in the colonial experience. One could argue that their suspicion of aristocratic and royal hierarchies contributed to the spirit that fueled the American Revolution, and that their reformist zeal inspired movements ranging from public education to abolitionism. I sometimes wonder whether my own attraction to nonconformity and the pursuit of higher ideals is a trait passed down through the generations since my refugee ancestors first found their way to these shores.

Picture: Anonymous (France), John Calvin, www.catharijneconvent.nl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82311289

52 Ancestors 2026: An Ancestor I Admire – A Study in Perseverance

We begin another year of the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge. I originally planned to participate only occasionally, joining in when a prompt particularly interested me, but it just so happened that the very first prompt sparked an idea.

Many of the colonial ancestors we learn about—and are often taught to revere—were people of their time. As the New World was settled, land was taken from Indigenous peoples, and slavery was an accepted practice. In telling these stories, we try to acknowledge positive contributions while also confronting the realities of the past, rather than hiding its warts away. We look to the ideals, but we also learn from the errors. With that in mind, I turn to the story of my 8th-great-grandmother, Catherine Matthyse Blanchan.

Catherine was born on October 27, 1637, to Mattheus and Magdeleine Blanshan in Armentières, Artois, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France (then part of French Flanders, sometimes described as Belgian territory). As Huguenots, the family moved in search of religious freedom, eventually settling in Mannheim. Mannheim lies in the Palatinate (Pfalz), and it was there that Catherine met and married Louis DuBois, also from French Flanders, on October 10, 1655. In 1660, they emigrated to New Amsterdam with two of their sons, Abraham and Isaac. The couple ultimately had twelve children, eight of whom lived past infancy.

The DuBois family was part of the migration into Ulster County, and in 1663 their settlement was attacked by the Esopus Indians. Catherine and three of her children—though it is unclear which ones, as they then had four children, with Jacob and Sarah having been born in the colonies—were taken captive along with other women and children. After some time in captivity, they were to be killed, but according to family tradition, they began singing Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (King James Version). Perhaps they were thinking of their own captivity. Their captors, perhaps charmed by the music, relented long enough for a rescue party, which included Catherine’s husband Louis, to locate them and secure their release.

After hearing this story, I became curious and began to dig into what song they might have been singing. As Reformed Protestants, these Huguenots were restricted in the types of music permitted in worship, though congregational singing was encouraged. Following John Calvin’s desire to emulate the practices of the early Christians, they sang only texts found in Scripture—specifically, the Psalms, often described as the songbook in the middle of the Bible. To support worship, composers set the Psalms to music, resulting in the Genevan Psalter. Some tunes were newly composed, while others may have adapted melodies already in use. From this tradition comes the well-known “Old Hundredth,” still widely used in worship today. Given this context, it is likely that the captives sang a tune from the Genevan Psalter, “Estans assis aux rives aquatiques.”

A modern English translation reads:

Along the streams of Babylon, in sadness

We sat and wept, rememb’ring Zion’s gladness,

And on the willows there we hung our lyre,

For there our captors did our songs require;

While we lamented, joy and mirth they wanted.

“Sing for us one of Zion’s songs!” they taunted.

 

What became of Catherine and her children after their release? She and Louis went on to have eight more children, continuing their biblical naming pattern. In addition to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah, they had David, Solomon, Rebecca, and Rachel. Fourteen years after the conflict with the Esopus, Louis—nicknamed “Louis the Walloon”—along with some of his sons and others, received a patent and purchased land from the Esopus, founding the village of New Paltz. The village was named for a place of refuge familiar to them, and today it commemorates its Huguenot heritage through the Huguenot Street Historic District.

Catherine outlived Louis and, after his death at age seventy, married another Huguenot, Jean Cottin. Reflecting the complexities of colonial America, the DuBois household included enslaved individuals. However, at her death in 1713, Catherine’s will called for the manumission of her two enslaved people. Her family went on to include many notable descendants, among them the scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, whose lineage traces back to a Loyalist descendant of Louis and Catherine who received land in the Bahamas after the American Revolution.

Here, then, is a complicated history—and a lesson in perseverance. Through her faith under extreme stress and her actions later in life, Catherine lived a remarkable life and remains someone we can admire.

Photos:

DuBois Fort: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93550776 from Ralph Le Fevre, History of New Paltz, New York and its old families (from 1678 to 1820): including the Hugenot pioneers and others who settled in New Paltz previous to the revolution, Fort Orange Press, 1903. 

Pidoux, Pierre, Le Psautier Huguenot du XVIe Siècle, Edition Baerenreiter, 1962. https://archive.org/details/lepsautierhuguen01pido/mode/1up

52 Ancestors 2025: The Name’s the Same — Not-So-Famous Davids Through the Ages

 

In researching my paternal line, one name appears again and again: David. Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but “David” seems to be the most common name encountered in my direct line; across all the variations of the Cossart/Cossairt/Cossatt/Cassatt name, there always seemed to be a David—at least until the late 19th century. Why David? The Cossarts were Huguenots, and as Reformed Protestants they often used biblical names, though not to the extreme of their Puritan cousins. Maybe this Huguenot family identified with the underdog who became king. My immigrant ancestor, Jacques Cossart, fathered three sons in the New World: Jacques (Jacob), David, and Anthony.

The first American-born David arrived in 1671 in New York City (formerly New Amsterdam). He married Styntje Joris Van Horne, worked as a stone mason in lower Manhattan, and began acquiring land in Somerset County, New Jersey. After being wounded in the 1712 slave uprising in New York, he moved his family to New Jersey. My line descends from his son Francis, born in 1717, but David also had an older son named David (born 1704). While Francis eventually joined the wave of westward migration, David moved north into the Mohawk Valley frontier. It is said that his three sons—David (of course), Jacob, and Francis—served the Patriot cause in the American Revolution.

Francis and his wife, Margaret Van Nest, later migrated with other Dutch and Huguenot families to the Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania, where he became a prominent figure and a committed Patriot. Like many frontier families, they were farmers, and their migrations mirrored their pursuit of new farmland. Francis’s son Pieter, born in 1746, continued the family pattern of moving into new territory. He and his wife, Maria Durie, eventually settled in newly opened Kentucky, where Pieter died during the frontier violence of the Revolutionary era. Meanwhile, David (born 1743) remained in the East, where his descendants became part of prominent Pittsburgh and later Philadelphia society.

We have already met Hendrick/Henry Cossairt and his twin brother David, born in 1778, who first put down roots in Kentucky and later moved into the Midwest—Henry to Ohio, David to Indiana. Henry’s son William Peter continued the line, but Henry, unsurprisingly, also had a son named David (born 1837). Records for this David—who altered the spelling of his last name to Cossatt—are scarce (future research opportunity?), but it appears he moved to Illinois before dying in Indiana.

From William Peter we move to his son David Cassatt, the Civil War veteran featured in several earlier posts. This David seems to have broken the longstanding naming pattern—he named his sons Orville, Virgil, and Bascom. (There was also a son George, who died in infancy.)

And two generations later, there’s me.

So much passes down through the generations: genes, traits, customs, and stories. This post is more about names—how they endure through family tradition or serve as tributes to ancestors who might otherwise be forgotten. As genealogists, we sift through records to uncover the pieces of our “who we are” and “where we come from” stories. Sometimes a simple name is the clue that connects them all.

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.