The Virgin Islands at War

Painting of the Bombardment of Copenhagen

As regular readers probably know, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately going through the latest Ancestry.com St Croix collection (St Croix Death Records).  There a dozens of collections of records, comprising hundreds of documents.  One of these is a 32-image collection entitled “Free Male Inhabitants 1807”.  This sounds useful (who can’t use a list of Inhabitants from any particular year), but while it isn’t exactly what it seems, the document is actually much more interesting than that.

While Ancestry’s name of the collection certainly appears to be an accurate description (the people listed are free, male, live on St Croix, and it was for the year 1807), this isn’t a document of a census or a complete listing of free people.  The list is only adult males, children aren’t recorded.  Also it doesn’t appear to be comprehensive.  It appears that there are names missing from this document.  As a quick check, I looked at some burgherbriefs issued in 1806 and early 1807, figuring that those people would likely still be on island.  A Charles Ferdinand Wass, born in London, received his brief in December 1806 yet does not appear in the “List of Inhabitants” a year later.  Neither does an Alexander Instant, born in Scotland.  I also couldn't find Stephen Wheeler, born in North America, yet he received his brief in July 1807.

How useful is a “List of Inhabitants” that doesn’t show all the “Inhabitants”?   Well, not very, until you notice what the list really is.  To do that, I need to digress and discuss a bit of Virgin Island history that isn’t as well known as it should be.  It is a time when world events reached across the Atlantic to the little Danish islands and brought significant changes, affecting our families and their lives forever.

St Croix Death Records on Ancestry.com

When I began searching for my family there were very few records available online for St Croix. 

The best online collection was the St Croix census.  There were indexes at the Danish Demographic Database (http://www.ddd.dda.dk/ddd_en.htm) and VISHA (http://stx.visharoots.org/db.html) and images on Ancestry.com. 

There were a few church records on FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/) and the copy of NARA’s Colored People records M-1883 on Fold3 (which has since been posted to Ancestry.com). 

That was about it.

New Book-“Island Boy” by Arnold van Beverhoudt Jr

 

Genealogists tend to live in the past.  A very distant past.  Few of them take the time, or have the interest, to document their own lives.  After all, our lives are recent.  There is no mystery.  Besides, our lives aren’t interesting unless we are movers and shakers, captains of industry or politicians. Somehow we feel that the life of anyone from the 18th century, no matter how dull,  is far more interesting than our own. 

Well, one day, the 2013 will be “long ago” and our descendants (avid genealogists, of course) will be building their family history.  Of course, they will have all of our wonderful research to build on, but it will suddenly end with us.  How will they find out about us?  Can you think of a better gift to leave them than a detailed account of our lives?  About when and where we lived? What we liked and disliked, our hopes and dreams?  About how we were affected by the events of our times?  What would you give to find such an account of one of your ancestors?

Hester Franklin–Record of a Freed Slave in 1832

My grandfather’s mother was named Hester Franklin van Beverhoudt.She was the last of the van Beverhoudts in my family line.  I always thought her middle name, Franklin, was rather odd for a girl until I discovered that it was a critical link to another woman, her grandmother, Hester Franklin.  In fact, it was the name that offers the best evidence that Hester van  Beverhoudt’s mother, Adelaide Robson, was actually the daughter of Hester Franklin.

I have not located a birth or baptismal record for Hester Franklin.  From later records, she was born about 1804-1805 in St Croix.  I have found no documents of her early life.  The first time she is mentioned in the records is in the 1832 Free Colored Register.  The Register was an accounting of all free colored people on the Danish West India islands.  These documents are extremely valuable as they predate the earliest surviving census by 10 years.  Hester is listed in the Register of Free Colored Women for St Croix, Christiansted Jurisdiction. 

Where My People Went–The 1880 St Thomas Census

A couple of weeks ago I posted that the 1880 census of St Thomas and St John was available online from the Danish Archives (http://200inparadise.blogspot.com/2013/02/new-online-records-st-croix-and-st.html).  I mentioned that the census was not indexed so it requires a page-by-page read.  Quite an undertaking. This weekend I finally got around to going through the set.  While I had a particular family I was looking for, I also managed to answer a number of genealogical questions regarding families that disappeared from St Croix.  It seems many of them moved to St Thomas and were enumerated there.

Ancestral Homes: 45 Fisher St

If there’s one home that I can consider the “Ancestral Home”, it has to be the home of Johannes van Beverhoudt and Amey McNobney.  According to the St Croix Matricals, my family held that home from 1803 until 1924.  That is a total of 121 years.

During my trip to St Croix, one of the things I wanted to do was to see if I could locate the houses (or house sites) of as many ancestral homes as I could.  I believe I located not only the site, but also remnants of what may be the actual house my ancestors occupied for so long.

Using an old Public Works map, I located the approximate area of the homestead. Of course, there are very few house numbers listed in Christiansted, so the map is the best tool for finding addresses. The map is very old and the numbers are hard to read, so I had to estimate the locations.

When I walked to the location on the map, I didn’t see a 200-year old house.  I saw a brand new building. With a sign out front.  The site is the new location of the Women’s Coalition of St Croix. This was actually a stroke of luck, because looking at their page on LinkedIn, I found the address for the Coalition listed as 45 Fisher St.  They moved to this location in late 2011. It seems I found the correct location.  Only the house was gone. 

Pulling a Thread to Unravel Genealogical Tangles

Sometimes pulling a single thread can unravel a multitude of genealogical problems. I had the fortune of finding such a thread in my own research recently. By finding a record of a family member, I was able to answer nagging questions I have had for some time about mystery persons in census returns, add needed strength to the identification of my 4^th great grandmother, and connect with a new line of cousins from St Croix. To tell the story, I’ll begin with each of the questions I had uncovered and then show how, by researching non-family members in censuses over an 80 year period and 3 generations led to adding branches I didn’t know existed in my own tree.

Ancestral Homes–11 A Company St

11 A Company Street, Christiansted St Croix

One of the main projects I had planned for my visit to St Croix was to walk around Christiansted and locate my ancestors homes.  I figured that the structures themselves were probably gone, but at least I could find where they were located, to get a sense of the place. 

Since the records of St Croix are sufficiently voluminous and detailed, I have collected over 170 house numbers of relatives in town.  To keep the project small, I reduced this to just the addresses of my direct line and still was left with 28, scattered all over town.  During my trip, we walked until our feet gave out, but were able to document many of them.  I still have some left for a future trip.  It is interesting to look at the history of the house, and see how much we can glean from our genealogical records.

Timeline Pedigree

Some time ago I ran across a novel approach for displaying ancestor timelines on the ProGenealogists blog.  In their November 10, 2011 post Timeline Pedigree Charts, they describe a way to build a timeline in Excel that gives a visual representation of the pedigree chart with a little timeline thrown in.  While it takes a little planning it’s well worth it and really helps put your ancestors in context.

Tracing Your Sources

Trace your Sources?  I’ve heard about tracing your ancestors, but how do you trace “sources”? 

While researching my family I worked with many sources of information.  Sometimes, the sources are freely available, other times they can be quite tough to find.  In addition to primary original sources, such as certificates and registers, there are loads of secondary sources as well as derivatives and transcriptions.  A good researcher makes use of all of them in their research, giving each source the credibility it deserves.  It also allows careful researchers to verify your research for themselves.  Sometimes, derivative sources point to primary sources but other times they simply point to more derivatives.  Then you need to trace them back, step by step.  I had to do this recently myself.

The First van Beverhoudts in the Danish West Indies

The van Beverhoudts were among the earliest families in the Danish West Indies.  They were Dutch planters that settled the island and made it their home.  This post discusses the earliest known Beverhoudts to live there and some of my oldest ancestors from the islands.

The Danish West India company established their first post on St. Thomas, in what was to become the Danish West Indies, in 1657.  The Danish West India and Guinea Company, chartered in 1671 by King Christian V of Denmark, established control over St Thomas by 1672 and controlled the island until 1754.  This period was described in the landmark book, “The Danish West Indies under Company Rule (1671-1754)” by Waldemar Westergaard in 1917.  The book is public domain and can be found online and is very interesting reading.  It is the standard reference for the earliest days of the Danish West Indies.  On page 38, Westergaard describes the earliest colonists on St Thomas [emphasis mine]:

The new masters had scarcely begun settlement, before  colonists of various sorts began to seep in. The greater number  of them belonged to the Dutch nation, and were seeking the  protection of a state that they supposed to be on friendly terms  with the English, who were harrying the Dutch wherever they  dared. Some of these, as John von Beverhoudt, became planters of distinction and even founded influential families; others, like Carl Baggaert, an absconder from Middelburg, became trouble makers who soured the life of the governor and those in authority with him. Although French, Germans, English, and Jews were among these early settlers, Dutch became the prevailing language from the beginning.

Who, exactly Westergaard was referring to as "John von Beverhoudt" is unknown (there were several Johannes van Beverhoudts), but it is known that the Beverhoudts were among the earliest families on St Thomas.

Obituary: Joan Marilyn van Beverhoudt Thorne

One of my regular readers, Rachel, sent me this obituary from the Virgin Islands Daily News.  It is the obituary of Joan Marilyn van Beverhoudt Thorne, who is my 4th cousin once removed.

Joan Marilyn van Beverhoudt Thorne

Former North Carolina resident Joan Marilyn van Beverhoudt Thorne, 74, died June 11, 2012.

Per her wishes, there will be no service held.

"Joanie" was born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, on June 24, 1937. Joan lived, worked and raised her family in Farmville, N.C., before deciding to move back to Montrose, Colo., in 2005. She was residing in Colorado at the time of her passing.

Like her father before her, Joan's love of plants and flowers showed in every plot of land that she touched. She also loved spending time with family, especially her grandchildren.

Joan was preceded in death by her parents, Arnold Edward van Beverhoudt (aka Chief) and Henrietta Olga Creque van Beverhoudt; ex-husband, Leonard F. Thorne; and granddaughter Brandy Nichole Smith.

Joan is survived by her children, Pamela Stewart, Leonard A. Thorne, Elaine Stewart and Emily Andrews; sisters, Marion Miller and Jacquelyn Templin; brothers, Arnold van Beverhoudt Jr. and Steven van Beverhoudt; grandchildren, Adam Stewart, Tiffany Stewart, Corey Stewart, Natalee Stewart, Allen Smith, Arthur Jacob Thorne and Ashley Nicole Andrews; and four great-grandchildren.

You are at peace and free of all that kept you here.

- Obituary written by the family.

Joan’s half-brother Arnold Jr. is a regular reader of this blog. Please accept the heartfelt condolences from “200 Years” and our whole community.

Christiansted Cemetery-Like the Good Old Days

My grandparents, Ludvig Conrad (1894-1972) and Olga Conrad nee Lagonterie (1899-1986), are buried in the Cemetery in Christiansted.  Their grave is in the Danish Consulate’s Historic Danish Cemeteries list for the Danish Cemetery in Christiansted.  They are located in Grave #131. The consulate has a photo of the tombstone on their website. In 2000, I visited St Croix with my wife and my son.  Although this was long before I developed any interest in genealogy, I nevertheless visited the cemetery to pay my respects to my grandparents. 

The cemetery was clearly unkept, with grass growing untrimmed and weeds unchecked.  In fact, it took considerable searching to locate the grave.  My wife was astounded at the sad state of the cemetery.  We lamented the obvious decay that the cemetery had suffered over the last few decades.

The van Beverhoudts Take Manhattan

Bloomingdale, to be specific.

Regular readers may know that the van Beverhoudt line is my longest family line in the Virgin Islands.  While no one is sure when exactly they arrived, my 7th great grandfather, Claudius (Claudi) van Beverhoudt is recorded in the St Thomas landlister as residing on St. Thomas in 1693.  Descendants of Claudi are still living there today (and one of them is a regular blog reader!).  This is an unbroken string of van Beverhoudts in the Virgin Islands for 318 years!  So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Claudius’ son, my 6th great grandfather, Johannes van Beverhoudt, Claudizoon, and his entire family, shows up in the records of the Colony of New York around 1750.  In fact Johannes and his sons (including my 5th great grandfather, Claudius) were naturalized citizens of the Colony of New York.

St Croix Census–The Missing Ancestry.com Images

Regular readers will know that I have been spending much of my free time at NARA Archives II in College Park, MD, going through microfilms of their Virgin Islands records, the Selected Records of the Danish West Indies 1672-1917.  Since Fold3 has the 11 roll set of M-1883,Essential Records Concerning Slavery and Emancipation online, I have been devoting my time to photographing M-1884, Records with Genealogical Value.  These records have been keeping me busy as a proverbial bee.  Since I haven’t really spent much time discussing what I found, I thought I’d start by showing you where the missing Ancestry.com images are.

Dutch West Indies Anthroponomastics: Who’s Your (Grand) Daddy?

Now there’s a word you don’t see every day.  The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology (ODLT) says:

anthroponomastics

Definition - The branch of onomastics that studies anthroponyms, i.e, the personal names of human beings.

Etymology - The word derives from the Greek anthropos, human being + Greek onomastikos, of or belonging to naming (from onoma, name).

It is a special branch of onomastics, the study of names.  So what does this have to do with Genealogy?  Well, in my tree: lots. In fact, I have found several distinct naming patterns and structures in my tree, resulting from the real melting-pot that was the West Indies.

Should it be 300 Years in Paradise??

Last week I posted the story of my oldest known family group, Claudius and Guertrude van Beverhoudt.  I was pretty thrilled to have found evidence that took them back to 1754 in St Thomas.  Unlike many families in the United States or Europe, there isn’t a compiled genealogy of my family that I have ever found.  In fact, I haven’t located many compiled genealogies for VI families.  The closest I have found is the work of Svend Holsoe, which I have commented on before. I have been assembling the puzzle of the van Beverhoudts (and my other lines) piece by piece and making slow progress.  This week, I busted through the brick wall big time, and got linked to a rich set of published genealogical information that instantly doubled the size of my family tree and stepped me back two more generations on St Thomas, possibly to the 1600’s.

While searching the internet, I came across Claudius van Beverhoudt and Guertruy Magens on Robert Gordon Clarke’s website  Early New Netherland Settlers. This site is devoted to compiling genealogies of the families who settled the New Netherlands between 1623 and 1664. Many of these families appear in the West Indies as well as the New Netherlands, including many Dutch settlers in St Eustatius, Saba, and St Thomas. 

According to the data on this site, Claudius van Beverhoudt’s father was Johannes van Beverhoudt Claudizoon (1711-1751) and his grandparents were Claude (or Glaudi) van Beverhoudt (c. 1670-1713) and Elizabeth de Windt (d. bef 1720).  Elizabeth connects me with a rich source of genealogical information.

Unlike many sites, Clarke includes source data.  Most of the data for my family comes from a single basic source, a series of journals. In the 1980’s Henry B. Hoff and R. Kenneth Barta wrote a series of articles for a New York genealogical journal called “The Genealogist”  tracing the de Windt families of the West indies and their connections to the Dutch colonies in the New Netherlands.  The de Windts were a prominent family on both St Croix and St Thomas for a long time, producing many offspring in the Caribbean and in New York.

Since I am one to check sources, I contacted the National Association of Genealogists and ordered reprints of The Genealogist, Vols 1-10 (The set is available right now for $40 post-paid).  Once they arrive, I will go through them to confirm the data and see what additional sources are cited.  As I understand it, Hoff and Barta are highly respected genealogists, so their work should be of highest quality.

I have already found other surprises in the data that will have to wait for confirmation before I go “on the record”, but it has been very exciting to finally get tied to a family with significant research already done.  It is also extremely helpful in sorting out all the van Beverhoudts I have run across in my research.

My Family Comes to St Croix in 1773

One of the goals I had in pursuing my St Croix family was to determine when they arrived on the island.  Census documents only take us back to 1841 and other sources are needed to go further.  One key source I found early on was the St Croix Slave and Head Tax registers on Ancestry.com.  These aren’t indexed, but are browsable.  Of course, there are thousands so it is slow going.  The original documents are located in the Rigsarkivet in Copenhagen, the national archive of Denmark.  Around 1994 the documents were photographed (probably to microfilm) and later digitized.  The digitization is 2-bit black and white (not 16-bit greyscale) so they are often very hard to read.  Many are of usable quality though and they offer a wealth of information to the genealogist.

Robson Family Genealogy

One of the most valuable resources to a Virgin Islands researcher is the labor of love by Svend Holsoe: the Virgin Islands Families website (www.vifamilies.org).  Dr. Holsoe is compiling genealogies of the families of the islands, from their first appearance until they leave.  I have found great help on several of my island surnames, but one surname, Robson, was missing.  The first Robson, Joseph, is my 3rd great grandfather. 

The name was missing, that is, until last month.  So far he’s documented the Robson information from the 1846 census of Estate Fountain.  Since the Robsons are my direct ancestors, I’ve done a fair bit of research on them and I figured I’d compile my research, in his format, and contribute my work to his page.  Well, compiling (and footnoting) is even harder than researching! Once I was done, I thought I’d post it here as well.

Solving a Puzzle–Who is M. M. Colbiørnsen?

Sometimes in genealogy we work long and hard to find someone we’re looking for.  These are often called “brick walls”.  People who we just can’t seem to locate.  Other times we have the inverse problem.  Seeing a person and having no idea who they are.  Well, when you find out who they are (or even if you think you have) it’s just as exhilarating as breaking through a brick wall.  I managed to solve just such a puzzle in my own family that dates back to my very beginnings last summer.  My mystery woman was named Mary Colbiørnsen.