Thomas Clements and Geertrury Koens 1766
I spent today deciphering the marriage record of my fifth-great-grandparents Thomas Clements and Geertruy Koens, and just may have found Geertruy's parents in the process. Having spent most of my research time on Irish Catholic Church registers, those of the church Thomas and Geertruy belonged to, the Dutch Reformed, are not familiar to me. At least these were not written in Dutch. The above entry reads, "1766 Ap. 12 Reg; Thomas Clemens Y.M. from Philipsburg and Geertruy Koens Y.D. bo. in the Kloof; both liv. in the Kloof; Rec'd Certif. to the Kloof after the 3d proclamation".
What the Kloof was I had no idea, and a Google search didn't do much to enlighten me. Online dictionaries defined it as a ravine. Geertruy was born and lived in a ravine? And what was meant by the 3d proclamation? Was that a church thing like Vatican Two? No idea what YM and YD were either. On Ancestry I found a tree that gave Geertruy's birthplace as Woonatig de Kloot, but Google found that as confusing as I did. It did have "Kloot" in it though, so I ran a search for woonatig alone and found it just means "residence", it's not a place name.
Also at Ancestry I found a hint asserting Geertruy was born at Poughquag and her father was Johan Jurgen Kuhns. It had his 1739 marriage record from the Lutheran church in New York City. Johan was from, "the Kloot", of Bachway it said! He married Anna Margaretha Bucken after three "publ", publications? Could those be marriage banns? Could the Kloot in Geertruy's marriage record be the same as the Kloot of Bachway? Checking Google again, this time for Bachway, I discovered that place is called Poughquag today. Things seemed to be falling into place. I don't ever take online family trees as gospel, but the thoroughly researched book, "Palatine Immigration to Ireland and US", by Hank Z. Jones had the same information.
After poking around the net for a while, I came across the Dutch genealogy site of genealogist Yvette Hoitink which explained much of what was puzzling me. The letters YM and YD were abbreviations for jonge man and jonge dochter, Single man and single woman. In this case the letter J functioned like the letter Y, not uncommon in that time and place. The site confirmed the three proclamations were indeed marriage banns. Typically, three of them were issued with the wedding soon following. According to Yvette, the banns were so important that some churches recorded the banns and not the marriage.
I always flip to the front and/or back pages of record books to check for any notes, and in this case I found in the church register front, "pages 15 to 361 marriage banns". Excitedly I turned to page 15 and began searching, but it soon became apparent the banns were mixed in with the marriages or else someone had gone back and later added "married" to most of the entries. Some said the marriage had not actually taken place. I was unable to find records of both marriage and banns for my ancestors.
What the Kloof was I had no idea, and a Google search didn't do much to enlighten me. Online dictionaries defined it as a ravine. Geertruy was born and lived in a ravine? And what was meant by the 3d proclamation? Was that a church thing like Vatican Two? No idea what YM and YD were either. On Ancestry I found a tree that gave Geertruy's birthplace as Woonatig de Kloot, but Google found that as confusing as I did. It did have "Kloot" in it though, so I ran a search for woonatig alone and found it just means "residence", it's not a place name.
Also at Ancestry I found a hint asserting Geertruy was born at Poughquag and her father was Johan Jurgen Kuhns. It had his 1739 marriage record from the Lutheran church in New York City. Johan was from, "the Kloot", of Bachway it said! He married Anna Margaretha Bucken after three "publ", publications? Could those be marriage banns? Could the Kloot in Geertruy's marriage record be the same as the Kloot of Bachway? Checking Google again, this time for Bachway, I discovered that place is called Poughquag today. Things seemed to be falling into place. I don't ever take online family trees as gospel, but the thoroughly researched book, "Palatine Immigration to Ireland and US", by Hank Z. Jones had the same information.
After poking around the net for a while, I came across the Dutch genealogy site of genealogist Yvette Hoitink which explained much of what was puzzling me. The letters YM and YD were abbreviations for jonge man and jonge dochter, Single man and single woman. In this case the letter J functioned like the letter Y, not uncommon in that time and place. The site confirmed the three proclamations were indeed marriage banns. Typically, three of them were issued with the wedding soon following. According to Yvette, the banns were so important that some churches recorded the banns and not the marriage.
I always flip to the front and/or back pages of record books to check for any notes, and in this case I found in the church register front, "pages 15 to 361 marriage banns". Excitedly I turned to page 15 and began searching, but it soon became apparent the banns were mixed in with the marriages or else someone had gone back and later added "married" to most of the entries. Some said the marriage had not actually taken place. I was unable to find records of both marriage and banns for my ancestors.
Johan Jurgan Kuhns and Anna Margaretha Bucken 1739
I'm glad I took the time to take a good look at this and determine exactly what the records contained, now I'm sure Geertruy was born in America, that this was a first marriage for her and for Thomas, and there is a good chance her father was Johan. Hank Z. Jones thinks so...
