Parents of Michiel Paulusz van der Voort / Michael Paulus Vandervoort

[Harry]

One of the questions that remained open is the actual place of birth
of Michiel Pualusz van der Voort / Michael Paulus Vandervoort.
When he married Maria Rappalje in 1640 in New Amsterdam he stated that
he was from Dermont in Vlaanderen. Dermont is the local form for
Dendermonde (city in the Belgium province Vlaams Brabant). The local
parish records of Dendermonde do not list a birth of a Michiel /
Michael as son of a Paul / Paulus van der Voort.
So I started looking for his birth in the part of Vlaanderen named
'Land van Dendermonde' (Region of Dendermonde).

I found in Opwijk, a village south-east of Dendermonde, in index on
the local parish registers of the churches in the 'Land van
Dendermonde' the following baptismal record:
Michael van de Voorde, baptized in Opwijk, on 14 september 1614, as
son of Paulus van de Voorde and Judoca van Schaerbeeck.

Remark 1: I didn't saw the entree in the original record yet. So the
spelling of his surname / last name could be standardized in order to
make it easy to look up persons with all most the same name in this
index.
Remark 2: There are no other baptisms of other children of this couple
in this index, so it is possible Paulus van de Voorde and Judoca van
Schaerbeeck lived somewhere else.
Remakt 3: Judoca is the latin form of Josijntje.

Source: www.heemkringopwijk.be/parochieregisters/opwijk_mazenzele_dopen_1601-1799_M_Z.pdf

Harry van der Voort

[Jerry Vandiver]

Harry,

 

Sorry for not responding sooner. I recently moved into a new apartment and

am not fully settled. I am forwarding this to Mike Morrissey who is an avid

Vandervoort researcher. Since I only proved the direct connection to Michael

Vandervoort last year, I have not had a chance to thoroughly research him

and his children. My opinion of the baptismal you cite would be less educated

than Mike's. The names are intriguing, given the names of his children. I have

to ask Mike if early records had his name as Vandervoort. Seems to me he

is usually only found with a patronymic or as "Karman" which I understand was

an occupation name, a Carman being a "ships teamster". I had always figured

that he adopted the surname of Vandervoort at a later date. If he was known

as Vandervoort from his arrival, then I would have to say that this baptismal

is an extremely likely candidate for our ancestor. Also, I manage the Vandiver

DNA Project, which includes descendants of Michael Paulszen Vandervoort

who use the original name, the Vanderford variant and those of my line who

changed their names to Vandiver. If you are interested, I would like to send

you a link to the project.

 

Thanks much,

Jerry D. Vandiver