Charity Van Horn: A Note on Dutch Records

Charity Van Horn: A NOTE ON DUTCH RECORDS Mary Ann Nicholson Genealogical confusion may result when Dutch baptismal names are anglicized. The will of John Van Dike, drawn in New Jersey in 1775, makes provision for his wife, Gerritie, by her Dutch name. Her own will, drawn in 1787, names her Charity Van Dike.' The original baptism records of the Bensalem and Neshaminy Dutch Reformed Church of Bucks County, Pennsylvania were written in Dutch. Among those children recorded as baptized on 21 May 1710 was "Geertje — De Fader Cristian van hooren, Den Maeder Willemtje Van Dyck." The child's maternal grandparents were witnesses! The name Geertje is often anglicized as Gertrude or little Gertie.3 Geertje Van Horn was the first daughter of Christian and Willemtje and was named for her paternal grandmother, Geertje Dircks (Claessen). As Guertrie Van Hoorn, she is recorded as marrying, on 29 July 1742, Andries Buskirk in the Presbyterian Church of Churchvile, Pennsylvania.' The bride and groom were related through their paternal great-grandmother's first and second marriages. Geertje appears to have died before her father's will was drawn in June 1751; neither she nor any offspring by her marriage are mentioned in that document. The ninth child of Christian and Willemtje Van Horn was named Gerritie/Gerrefie, but called Charity. Her birth and baptism dates have been given as 9 November 1723 and 6 June 1724, respectively. She married, before February 1748, Godfrey Van DeurenlVan Dearen, son of Reverend Johannes Bernardus Van Duehren and his wife, Maria/Mary Schuts. In his will of June 1751, Christian Van Horn names his living children by order of sex and age, beginning with his sons and ending with Charity Van Duren, the youngest of his daugh5 ters. Several historians have confused the Dutch spellings of the two daughters, Geertje and Gerritje, and have claimed that Geertje, bap- 66 THE PENNSYLVANIA GENEALOGICAL MAGAZINE May sized in 1710, was the same as Charity, wife of Godfrey Van Deuren. 6 While others give two daughters the same name— Geertje—and then anglicize the second to Charity, W.W.H. Davis omits mention of any child born to the Van Horns between 1721 and 1728. 7 If Charity Van Horn had indeed been born in 1710, she would have been at least a dozen years her husband's senior. Godfrey Van Deuren was the eldest child of his parents, who were married in August 1721.8 Jane Van Deuren, daughter of Godfrey and Charity, was born in July 1764.9 If Charity had been baptized in 1710, her daughter would have arrived in her fifty-fifth year! ENDNOTES New Jersey Archives, 1st ser., 34:541; 36:238. 2 Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania 5, no. 1 (1912):27. Donna R. Irish, comp. Penniyivania German Marriages (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1982), 39. M.A. De L. Van Horn, ed. Our Ancestors, A Genealogical and Biographical Magazine 1, no. 1 ( July 188442. 3 Audrey E. Germaine, Math Treat (Sacrernento, Calif.: Privately printed, 1982), Book 2:15,77. 4 Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd sen, 9:498,509. 5 Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Will Book 2:236. 6 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 84 (1954): 202-3. See also A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Hiaorical Society 6 (1932): 47; and Raymond M. Tingley, Some Ancestral Lines (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing Company, 1935), 411. 7 William W.H. Davis, History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania (1905; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Pubiishing Company,. 1975), 3:95. New Jersey Archives, list ser., 32:334; see also, Yearbook of the Holland Society of New York (1903), 14. 9 Horsham Friends Monthly Meeting Records at Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College Library, Swarthmore } Pennsylvania. See also, Agnes Longstreth Taylor, Longstreth 1,amily Records (Philadelphia: Press of Ferris & Leach, 1909), 7L