Roelof Janszen

http://www.otal.umd.edu/~walt/gen/htmfile/3854.htm

Includes Notes for Roelof Jans:

Employed in early 1630 in Amsterdam, to be a farmer at Rensselarswyck.

More About Roelof Jans:

Date born 2: WFT Est. 1575-1605, Holland.30

Died 2: WFT Est. 1630-1691, New Amsterdam.30

More About Roelof Jans and Anneke Jans:

Marriage 1: April 18, 1623, Amsterdam, Holland.31

Marriage 2: Abt. 1625, Holland.32

Children of Roelof Jans and Anneke Jans are:

• 1. Lijntje Roelofs Jans, b. July 21, 1624, Amsterdam, Holland33, d. Bef. March 21, 1629/3033.
• 2. +Sara Roelofs Jans, b. April 05, 1627, amsterdam, Holland, Netherlands, d. October 21, 1693, Kingston, New York33.
• 3. +Trijntje Roelofs Jans, b. September 06, 1633, d. Bet. 1696 - 169933.
• 4. Fytje (Sytje) Roelofs Jans, b. 1631, Rensselaer, New Amsterdam33, d. Bef. January 29, 1662/6333.
• 5. Jan Roelofszen Jans, b. 1633, de Laets Burg Fa, NY33, d. Abt. 169033.
• 6. Annetje Roelofs Jans, b. Abt. 1636, New Amsterdam, NY33, d. Aft. August 15, 164833.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/i/e/Phyllis-J-Fields/W...

The spirit of adventure, however, was abroad. Emigrants of high and low degree were leaving old homes for new fields of enterprise and industry. Bold discoverers were revealing new wonders of the sea and land., and bringing to light the hidden mysteries of the geographical world. New maps were planned; new enterprises stimulated the curious or the avaricious. . .

Roeloff Jansen caught the spirit of unrest. He had a strong young wife, willing to brave the seas, and a little family, and there was a future to make for them; so they bade farewell to the fatherland and sailed for the Dutchman's new field of adventure and fortune, "Nieuw Nederland."

Jansen procured a position as one of the superintendents at Rensselaerswyck, on the Hudson, the great territory granted as a patroonship to Kilian van Rensselaer, the rich diamond polisher of Amsterdam.

Jansen's name was perpetuated there in that of the kill or creek called "Roeloff Jansen's Kill," which runs in the Hudson River between Red Hook and the present city of Hudson.

After a sojourn of a few years, filling the duties of his post under the patroon's agents at Rensselaerswyck, Jansen seems to have moved with his family to New Amsterdam, having obtained from Director Van Twiller, in 1636, a ground brief or patent for the farm or Bouwery of about sixty-two acres which has been for nearly two hundred years a prominent bone of contention.

Roeloff Jansen did not long enjoy his new possessions; he was called to another world about the year 1637 or 1638, leaving behind him five sturdy little children, and a buxom, attractive widow, then and now widely known as Mrs. Annetje or Anneke Jans . . . and within a year of her bereavement the subject of our monograph could boast of being the wife of one of the most prominent and remarkable characters in the early history of our city. [Domine Everardus Bogardus]

http://rootie.geeknet.com/anneke.html

Jan Roeloff was born in Maasland. His wife, Annetje Jans Webber, was born at the Hague. She died at Beaverwyck (now Albany) N.Y. They had five childen.

The Roeloffs sailed in the ship "Eendracht" for New Amsterdam in 1630 and landed with their three children at Rensselaerswyck, on the Hudson. This was the patroonship; of Killiam Van Rensselaer, a rich diamond polisher of Amsterdam. Jan Roeloff procured a position as one of Van Rensselaer's superintendents. He went to New Amsterdam after being granted 62 acres of land between what is now Warren and Christopher Streets in New York City. The grant was made in 1636. He died in 1637.

After Jan's death Annetje married the Reverend Evardous Bogardous and they had four children.

Fact and Fiction

"Anneke Jans in Fact and Fiction" by George Olin Zabriskie, F. A S. G in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 104, Number 2, April 1973:

"Roelof Janszen was born in Marstrand, a village on an island of the same name, now in Goteburg Och Bohus, Sweden, and about 18 miles northwest of the city of Goteburg. Marstrand was in Bohusland, a historic section of Norway ceded to Sweden in 1658...

At Renssalaerswyck Roelof farmed the de Laets Burg farm on the east bank of the Hudson near Mill Creek (Normans Kill) in the present city of Rensselaer. While living there Roelof was appointed a schepen (magistrate) by van Rennselaer, but he and the others so appointed were not sworn in and never served. In April 1634 Roelof was replaced as farmer by Gerrit Theuniszen de Reux under uncertain circumstances. He and his man had served most, if not all of their regular period of employment and did not 'desert' van Rensselaer as claimed by some writers. Roelof had not been successful as a farmer and was in debt to van Rensselaer when replaced. In 1637 van Rensselaer said that he had cancelled the debt 'long ago'.

When Roelof left the farm at Rensselaerswyck, he, his family and his mother-in-law moved down-river to New Amsterdam, where he became an employee of the West India Company. Roelof probably farmed on one of the company bouweries and likely continued to do so until his death in 1636. He did not go to Brazil during this two year period as has been suggested."

• Roeloff's alternate name was Jan Roeloff Roeloffson.
• Roeloff's birth and death information is available at https://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&d...

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GEDCOM Note

According to "Gotham", he was an Indian trader and agricultural foreman at Fort Orange (Albany). They then moved to Manhattan.

From "Biographical Sketch of Anneke Jans":

"At Rensselaerswyck Roelof farmed the de Laets Burg farm on the east bank of the Hudson, near Mill Creek [Normans Kill] in the present city of Rensselaer. While living there Roelof was appointed a schepen [magistrate] by van Rensselaer, but he and the others so appointed were not sworn in and never served. In April 1634, Roelof was replaced as farmer by Gerrit Theunisz. de Reux under uncertain circumstances. He and his men had served most, if not all, of their regular period of employment and did not desert van Rensselaer as claimed by most writers. Roelof had not been a successful farmer and was in debt to van Rensselaer when replaced. In 1637 van Rensselaer said that he had canceled the debt long ago (VRBM pssim).

When Roelof left the farm in Rensselaerswyck apparently he, his family, and his mother-in-law moved down river to New Amsterdam, where he became an employee of the West India Company. Roelof probably farmed one of the company bouweries, and likely continued to do so until his death in 1636. He did not go to Brazil during this two year period, as has been suggested."

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From Scandinavian Immigrants In New York 1630 - 1674. by John O. Evjen:

"Roelof Jansen arrived at New Amsterdam by "de Eendracht," May 24, 1630.21' The ship sailed from the Texel, March 21,1630. He was to work in the colony of Rensselaerswyck for $72 a year.2111 He was accompanied by his wife Anneke (Anetje) jans, his daughters Sarah, (Katrina) and Fytje.220 Until quite recently it has been believed that Roelof Jansen and his family were Dutch. In the "Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts," (p. 56f. note) it is shown by A. T. F. van Laer, Archivist of New York State, that they were not from "Maasterland," but from "Masterland" or "Maesterland," meaning Marstrand, which is on a small island off the coast of Sweden, near G6teborg (Gothenburg). The editor and translator of "Bowier Manuscripts" concludes therefore that jansen's family probably were Swedes. But why not Norwegians? Marstrand belonged to Norway prior to 1658, and it is significant that Claes Claesen and Jacob Goyversen, both from Flekker6, Norway, sailed with Roelof and work'ed with him on "de Lacts Burg." There were on July 20, 1632, only three men on this farm: Jansen, Claesen, Goyversen, three Norwegians."