Arent A. Bradt, 'de Noorman'

Arent Andriesse Bradt

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/b/aranbradt4181.html

Arent Andriesse Bradt probably was born before 1620 in Fredrikstad, Norway. [SIC: before 1620 Friedrichstadt, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany]. He probably came to America with his older brother Albert Andriesse in 1637.

Arent settled in Rensselaerswyck with his brother's family on the Normanskill where he worked for Albert Andriesse as a tobacco planter. After a decade, he ran his own sawmill, perhaps did some trading, and may have kept a tavern. He spent time at the downriver settlement of Esopus (where one of his children was born), and travelled to Manhattan and Long Island on business.

During the late 1640s, he married Catalina De Vos of Rensselaerswyck. The last of their six children was born in 1661.

Arent relocated to Beverwyck and was among the first proprietors when houselots were partitioned in 1652. The next year he took the oath that gave him full municipal rights. He also had a lot on the river north of the village. In 1658, he leased an island in the Hudson and paid rent in wheat in oats.

In 1662, he was among the first patentees of Schenectady. Failing to reach his fiftieth birthday, Arent Andriesse Bradt died in 1663. His children married the children of Schenectady's leading families and established strong Bradt presence on the Mohawk as well!

Sources: The life of Arent Andriesse Bradt is CAP biography 4181. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. It relies heavily on Peter R. Christoph's A Norwegian Family in Colonial America (1994), 186-90. See also, the "Bradt Book", 2-3. A profile included in the published Van Rensselaer papers has fueled much of the subsequent interpretation, 840. We acknowledge some apprehension and uncertainty regarding external sources and profiles of Albany's earliest residents.

Bradt Family:

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/b/bradt.html

The Bradts were a large and successful Norwegian-ancestry family of New Netherland. The Bradts of early Albany are descended from brothers known as Albert and Arent Andriesse who came to America in 1637. The family settled in Rensselaerswyck and within a generation established households in Albany, Schenectady, and throughout what became Albany County in 1683.

Raising a large family around his mill on the Normanskill, the Bradts prospered in farming, husbandry (chiefly sawing), and found some success in the fur trade as well. By the time of his death in 1686, Albert Andriesse had joined his grown sons as residents of the new city of Albany. Younger brother Arent was among the pioneers of the village of Schenectady.

In 1679, four Bradt households were listed on the Albany census including that of Albert's son, Storm Van Der Zee, who was born during the family's Atlantic crossing four decades earlier. The Vanderzees are his descendants but trace their ancestry to the original Bradt emigre. By 1697, seven Bradt (and Vanderzee) family homes can be clearly identified on the city census.

Barent Bradt raised four sons (Anthony, Daniel, Dirck, and Johannes) who found success in late seventeenth century Albany.

Over the next generations, the family grew and spread throughout the region. A census of householders taken in 1756 showed the home of city treasurer Barent Bradt among six Bradt-named household. Four of those were the homes of city tradesmen. In 1790, six Bradt houses were only the most visible part of numerous Albany and Albany area homes that were anchored by Bradt-born wives and mothers. At that time, fifteen more Bradt-named households were configured in surrounding Watervliet.

In 1815, twelve Bradt-named households appeared in the city directory.

Sources: Profiles of members of this mainline early Albany family are derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. A family reconstitution was performed on the Bradt family by project intern Rashann Duvall in 1997. Although derivative of previous works, the best online resource on the family appears under the Olive Tree. More family based resources are available online.

Today, the Bradt Family Society (http://www.bradtfamilysocie.pages.qpg.com/index.html) is keenly interested in the family's history and has sponsored and promoted many valuable products and programs. In my long association with this group, the work and energy of two excellent personages deserve special mention. In the beginning, Ken Bradt was a driving force in mobilizing family heritage resources and of sustaining the excitement for many years. Also, there at the beginning, Cynthia Brott Biasca's monumental family-based enquiries have given us Descendants of Albert and Arent Andriessen Bradt (http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/fhg.html#bfh), and have set up a structure for future learning that can be built-on today.

Follow this link (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+site:ww...) to more information on the Bradt family on this website. Our purpose is to place this large and important regional family in its Albany city-based context!

Bradt in the index.

Albert and Arent were pioneer settlers of the area. Albert was not really a resident of the city of Albany. However, Arent was an original settler of Beverwyck - although he lived there but a short time. Both have been assigned project data base numbers. The Bradt brothers and their children are the subjects of a seminal work sponsored by the Bradt Family Society. Written by Peter R. Christoph, it is titled A Norwegian Family in Colonial America. It was published in 1994 and is available from Higginson Book Company.

Norway's most competent genealogist Tore Vigerust says that there is no evidence that the Andries Bradt had anything to do with Norway: http://da2.uib.no/cgi-win/WebDebatt.exe?slag=listinnlegg&debatt=bru...

Another important discussion thread about Andries Bratt who was Dutch/German:

http://da2.uib.no/cgi-win/WebDebatt.exe?slag=listinnlegg&debatt=bru...

The participants are leading genealogists.

They say that Andries Bradt who has thousands of descendants in the US is extremely unlikely to have any connection to Norway and the Norwegian Bratt-families.

The idea of a connection comes from this book: Scandinavian immigrants in New York 1630-1671 by John O. Evjen published 1916 - it seems to be pure guesswork ... The one reference to FamilySearch is (rightly) mocked as silly - anyone can post anything there and it should never be used as a source, only as ideas of where to search further.

Tore Hermundsson Vigerust, Oslo gamleby, 7.4.2009 00:19 (9) "De som hevder at Albert og Arent kom fra Fredrikstad / Norge har bevisbyrden. For min del vil jeg mene at når en ung mann gifter seg i byen Stade og oppgir å komme fra Fridrichstadt, skal byen identifiseres med den av samme navn som ligger litt nord for Stade. I samme område, så og si."

Translated: "Those who claim that Albert and Arents came from Fredrikstad in Norway must prove this (they have the burden of proof). In my opinion when a young man gets married in the town Stade (in Holland) and says he's form Fridrichstadt, then the city (of his birth) should be identified with the city just north of Stade. In the same area, so to speak." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrichstadt

Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown

GEDCOM Source

@R-1349453278@ Ancestry Family Trees Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.

GEDCOM Source

Ancestry Family Tree http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=28047488&pid...