A marriage record, 1640

 

Amsterdam Archives. 11 Nov 1640.

The image above comes from the wonderful Archief Amsterdam website, showing the marriage record between my 10th-great-grandparents Lodewyck Cornelius Post and Agniet Bonen (sometimes spelled Agnietje). Lodewyck and Agniet later made their way to New Amsterdam, and their daughter Lysbeth Post married Jacob Du Trieux in 1674. I'm descended from Lysbeth and Jacob.

In 2016, genealogist and author Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy published a book on Lodewyck and Agniet, and a copy arrived yesterday as I was returning from LA. The book is short, but contains a lot of great detail from available Dutch records and early New Netherland records. According to Lorine's translation, Lodewyck was a chest maker from Naarden in North Holland, and Agniet was from Meurs (Moers, a German town on the west bank of the Rhine River, across from Duisburg, and not far from southern Holland).

There's more to dive into on the records for Lodewyck and Agniet, and a timely companion to read in parallel with Russell Shorto's The Island at the Center of the World. I am reading this now, updated as a 20th anniversary edition for 2025.