FOUR NEW COLONIAL GATEWAY IMMIGRANTS WITH MEDIEVAL ANCESTRY

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

My article “The Livingston Ancestry of the Duncanson Sisters of New Netherland”, is the result of nearly five years of research partially co-financed by “The Duncanson/Livingston Project”, founded by the author and including Anthony Glenn Hoskins, Joseph V.R. V.E. Laux, and John Camp—all descendants of the Duncanson sisters.

It is being serialized in THE GENEALOGIST, with part I appearing this April, part II this Fall, and part III in Spring 2014. For subscription information, please visit The American Society of Genealogists’ website: www.fasg.org

The starting point for this project was an article by Gordon L. Remington, FASG, who identified the parentage of four Duncanson women in an article published in the RECORD in 1997. The Duncanson sisters were daughters of Mr James Duncanson, Minister of Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, and his wife Helen Livingston. Mr James was the eldest son and heir of Rev. John Duncanson, Minister to James VI. Mr James’s daughter Katherine arrived in New Amsterdam (New York City) in 1639 followed by three of her older sisters. (It is conceivable that some of their other siblings also immigrated but there is no evidence of this. I did discover an elder brother—not included in Remington’s article—who almost certainly lived in England.)

Part I identifies Helen Livingston’s parentage and traces her Livingston ancestry for several generations, and includes her siblings and Livingston aunts and uncles.

Part II examines in detail Helen’s legitimate descent from Robert III, King of Scots (d. 1406). The noted Scottish genealogist Andrew B.W. MacEwen of Stockton Springs, Maine, contributed several references. His analysis of key evidence bolstered aspects of the royal descent and corrected some errors that have appeared in print over the years. From this one royal line alone the vast number of descendants of the Duncanson sisters in America can claim a broad swath of British and continental European medieval ancestry. Much of this ancestry can be traced on Leo van de Pas’s site www.genealogics.org.

Part III identifies Helen Livingston’s mother based on contemporary documents I obtained in England. I trace Helen’s maternal grandfather’s male line back through several generations of prosperous merchant burgesses of Edinburgh to the late 1400s. I also uncovered an unusually close network of servants to Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son James VI (later King of England) which included Helen’s mother, maternal grandmother and several other close relatives. The unique relationship between Helen’s mother and King James I of England is the likely reason why Helen twice received royal favor from King James and his son Charles I.

Helen’s children appear to have been plucky and resourceful like their mother—Helen’s daughter Katherine Duncanson became a successful trader after the death of her husband Hon. Alexander Glen. And Katherine and Alexander Glen’s children founded large and prosperous families near Schenectady, New York. The mansion house built on the Glen plantation named “Nova Scotia” (Scotia, New York) survives to this day as the Glen-Sanders Mansion hotel and restaurant. I stayed at the mansion for several days and finished writing the first draft of my monograph in one of the upper rooms of the restored home (now used for corporate events and weddings).

I published a notice of this project in FOUNDATIONS last year that mentioned the fact that Helen Livingston also descends from John Napier, 3rd Laird of Merchiston, and his wife Elizabeth Menteith of Rusky, senior co-heir general to the ancient Gaelic earldom of Lennox. This can be found online by subscription at www.fmg.ac.

Many talented genealogists have provided assistance: Tony Hoskins, Janet Wolfe, John Blythe Dobson, FASG, and Andrew B.W. MacEwen. My editor Col. Charles Hansen, FASG, has worked tirelessly in preparing the lengthy manuscript and shown great patience over the past two years dealing with changes, additions, and corrections.

I hope this project will promote greater interest not only in the Duncanson family but in other colonial New York families whose ancestries have not been studied in detail.

ADRIAN BENJAMIN BURKE, JD, Bar of New York
NEW YORK CITY

[pj.evans]

I will be looking forward to this; I have a niece whose grandfather is a descendant of this family.

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

I have had some requests for more info on the Glen-Sanders Mansion, and should've included a link to their website, so here it is:

http://www.glensandersmansion.com/the-inn

The current mansion house was build by Katherine Duncanson's son, using some of the ruins of the original house she and her husband Hon. Alexander Glen built, but which was destroyed by the Mohawk River changing course of the years.

The history on their website is a bit off, being based on old works that contained some speculation and legend, but while I was staying at the Inn I promised them a copy of my monograph as their guests will surely be interested in learning more about the founding wife of the old plantation.

I was given a private tour of the mansion house which is in excellent condition, and during the building of additional wings of hotel rooms they found buried artifacts dating back to the 17th century including pottery, leather shoes, and other household implements.

ADRIAN BENJAMIN BURKE, ESQ.
NEW YORK CITY

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

Part II of my monograph, "The Livingston Ancestry of the Duncanson Sisters of New Netherland" detailing the sisters' descent from Robert III of Scotland comes out in this month's The Genealogist. I am aware that some people--even in Scotland--have already received their copies so anyone subscribing (including myself) should be getting their issues soon.

Part III, tracing the sisters' descent from Elizabeth Menteith of Rusky, de jure Countess of Lennox, and Helen Little, Royal Wet Nurse to King James VI of Scotland is due out in April 2014 and will conclude my monograph.

Adrian Benjamin Burke, Esq., New York City

If anyone wishes to subscribe to TG, please see the newly updated website <http://fasg.org/the-genealogist/>.

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

Part III of my article should be arriving in homes shortly. In this final installment I identify the wife of Mr Henry Livingston, minister of St. Ninian's, Agnes Gray, as a daughter of Alexander Gray, burgess of Edinburgh, and Helen Little, royal wet nurse to James VI/I. The ancestries of both Alexander and Helen are traced back to the 1400s and include the Napier of Merchiston and Menteith of Rusky families.

For subscription and back order information see The Genealogist page at www.fasg.org

Adrian Benjamin Burke

[cpca...@gmail.com]

Dear Adrian,

Thank you so very much for all you have done to discover and bring to light this exciting information about the Duncanson Sisters. I have just ordered my copy of the Genealogist and perhaps it will contain the answer to my question. I am very interested to know what prompted these sisters to immigrate to New Amsterdam in the first place..Surely with their royal connections, they would have been able to marry well in Scotland. Did they sail from Scotland or from Amsterdam, Holland?

I am grateful to you for my royal roots. The process of discovering them, however, was the best part of the journey.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Jane TenBroeck Wilner

[peter...@yahoo.ca]

Since I see you are connected to the TenBroecks you are a Loockermans descendant. I highly recommend you and others related to the Loockermans read Willem Frijhoff's article "Govert Loockermans And His Relatives" https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/7114/5506/8078/Loockermans_narrative_and_genealogy_revised_version_January_7_2016.pdf In particular he, with help from myself, straightened out the confusion between Pieter Loockermans The Elder and Pieter Loockermans The Younger. Many people, including myself initially, thought that they were father and son. In reality they were uncle (The Elder) and nephew (The Younger). The Elder was married to once of the Duncanson sisters.

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

Thank you Jan for your letter. I agree with Peter, be careful with the Loockermans those early generations are tricky and I have not tried to untangle them all.

My article will answer your questions. Although the Sisters were of royal descent and had cousins who were no doubt wealthy -- those people then as often today did not hand out money to all their distant relatives. The sisters were most likely orphans when they married in Amsterdam and then came to America. Their father died in 1624 and after his widow Helen Livingston tried desperately to find money to support her family. The sisters were very lucky indeed to marry the merchants they did and not end up penniless spinsters as many women in their predicament surely did. Reformation ministers tended not to be wealthy although their grandfather Rev. John Duncanson did appear to make money acting as a kind of private banker lending money at interest -- he even lent money to their great grandfather Henry Livingston of Falkirk and his second wife Margaret Forrester -- all this detailed in my article.

Adrian

[operation...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 2:30:52 PM UTC-7, adrianben...@gmail.com wrote:
> My article “The Livingston Ancestry of the Duncanson Sisters of New Netherland”, is the result of nearly five years of research partially co-financed by “The Duncanson/Livingston Project”, founded by the author and including Anthony Glenn Hoskins, Joseph V.R. V.E. Laux, and John Camp—all descendants of the Duncanson sisters.
>

Wow, how exciting to come across this. I grew up hearing often about all of my Dutch family and ancestors in Kinderhook (I am a Pieter Van Alen/ Maria Teller descendant) but was not aware of the Scottish connection until my DNA results came back and I had to start looking for the link. It appears the surprises are multiplying.

Wendy Hanson Hoffman

[hoove...@yahoo.com]

“The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec or the United States,” by Gary Boyd Roberts, (Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 2018) includes a Duncanson descent for Jacqueline Lee (Bouvier) Kennedy Onassis.

Katherine/Catalin Duncanson = Sander (Alexander) Leendertsz Glen
Johannes Sanderse (John Alexander) Glen = Anna Peeck
Jacob Sandese (Alexander) Glen = Anne Hanson
Jacob Glen = Rebecca Miller
Martha Glen = Thomas Maslin
Michael Miller Maslin = Eliza Sarah Mohler
Caroline Maslin = Robert Ewing
Caroline Maslin Ewing = John Vernou Bouvier
John Vernou Bouvier, II = Maude Frances Sergeant
John Vernou Bouvier, III = Janet Norton Lee
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, m. (1) John Fitzgerald Kennedy, m. (2) Aristotle
Socrates Onassis

[jmb...@albion.edu]

I was under the impression that the identity of Jacob Glen(n) (husband of Anna/Anne Hanson) with Jacob Sanderse Glen (son of Johannes Sanderse Glen and Annatie/Anna Peeck) was still uncertain — does GBR give new sources for this connection in RD900?
Jim+

[hoove...@yahoo.com]

In volume 2, page 915, he lists Alexander Bannerman, ed., Executive Papers (2016): 9-19, (plus a specially printed extended monograph issued in early 2017; more will appear in #14: 9-18 (a full AT of Mrs. Onassis, the former First Lady, plus John Sanders, [Centennial Address Relating to the] Early History of Schenectady and Its First Settlers (1879), pp. 29-38, with some coverage of the Baltimore Glens.

I'm sorry if what I posted this morning is actually false.

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

sábado, 12 de Maio de 2018 às 18:30:57 UTC+1, hoove...@yahoo.com escreveu:
> In volume 2, page 915, he lists Alexander Bannerman, ed., Executive Papers (2016): 9-19, (plus a specially printed extended monograph issued in early 2017; more will appear in #14: 9-18 (a full AT of Mrs. Onassis, the former First Lady, plus John Sanders, [Centennial Address Relating to the] Early History of Schenectady and Its First Settlers (1879), pp. 29-38, with some coverage of the Baltimore Glens.
>
> I'm sorry if what I posted this morning is actually false.

I don't think it's false, it seems plausible to me.

[jmb...@albion.edu]

Most definitely plausible, and I think very probable. I just hadn’t seen the conclusive evidence that two similarly-named individuals in the same area (Jacob Glenn and Jacob Sanderse Glen) were the same person. And no, I can’t really speak specifically to this data, as it’s not anything I have personally researched. I just know that I made a note in my files that this connection hadn’t been proven yet (2015). Not trying to make any claims here, just curious.
Jim+

[duff...@gmail.com]

I contacted the Baronial Order of the Magna Charta https://www.magnacharta.com/ and they were not aware that the Duncancson sisters may be gateway ancestors.

Has anyone dealt with them or another society like this to see if they can be listed as gateway ancestors?

[joe...@gmail.com]

In general, you need to apply for membership..part of your application is the detailed proof validating you meet the membership requirements.
If someone is accepted to membership using a particular gateway ancestor, it will be added to their list. The rigor required varies *greatly by organization. The royal bastards for instance require detailed contemporary primary sources for every generation

[Becky PKO]

In researching something entirely different in my family tree, I landed on the Pieter Loockermans connection, who married Mary Duncanson, who would be my 10x Great Grandmother. Your work has provided answers to so many questions in our family - namely, who on earth was Scottish in our family (we have long records of the English in our family in upstate New York).

Much gratitude.
Thank you, thank you!

-Rebekah

[Adrian Benjamin Moreira da Silva-Burke]

You're most welcome.

ABB