Bogardus/Jans Genealogy

Be VERY suspicious of anything you read concerning Anneke Jans; there is far more misinformation than good information availible.

These statements are false:

• Descendents are heirs to the trinity church property in New York
• Anneke Jans was a descendant of William of Orange.
• Anneke Jans was related to Wolfert Webber

Anneke Jans is famous in genealogical circles because of the large number (something like 30) of lawsuits over her inheritance. Thus, she leaves a bit of a paper trail which is useful to genealogists. She allegedly came from a royal family, although this allegation appears false.

After her first husband, Roelof Jansen, died Anneke Jans (aka Annetji Jans) married the Reverand Everadus Bogardus.

I am ostensibly related to Everadus Bogardus and Anneke Jans through my great great grandfather Leonard Bogardus (married Julia Keith) and his daughter (my great grandmother) Lucile Bogardus. I am looking for information which links Leonard Bogardus and Everadus Bogardus.

There is considerable confusion over her origins. She and Roeloffs were apparently both born in Norway but might have been of dutch descent. She was born in Flekkeroy and he in Marstrand. Both locations were villages located on islands of the same name. Everardus Bogardus is believed to have been of dutch ancestry; he was born in 1607, probably in Veenendal, Utrecht.

The author of Scandinavian Immigrants in New Amsterdam argues that Anneke and Roeloff were Norwegian although they were previously were thought to be sweedish and prior to that dutch. The various arguments have to do with confusion over whether the came from Maesterland or Marstrad and whether the island was part of sweeden or norway at the time. There are ALLEGED claims (actually false) that her mother married into the (french?) family which ruled the netherlands and that Her father, Wolfred Webber, was the 4th King of Holland and her grandfather William IV, King of Holland, Prince of Orange apparently was primarily responsible from holland's independence from spain.

My great grandmother on my fathers side was Lucile Bogardus (married Allison Burton Roome). Her father was Leonard Bogardus. Apparently, Leonard Bogardus was a direct descendent of Anneke Jans and Everdus Bogardus but I don't have an explicit lineage to prove it (yet). If you have information connecting them please let me know. William of Orange is also mentioned in family biographies. The paper trail would probably be pretty easy to chase in New York City.

Combining various vague references, and adding two and two together at the risk of getting 5, it would appear that there are considerable records in a book kept under glass at the old dutch church on fulton street, New York or one of the trinity churches that are part of _The_ Trinity Church. They might be the same church although I did not have a record of a trinity church on fulton street. The book might be reffered to as the Peter Bronk-Anna Bogardus Bible. 1705-19.

The trinity church has huge land holdings, a portion of which were originally the Jans/Bogardus/Roeloffs estate. What was once a family farm is now valuable manhatten real estate. These lands are now worth a fortune and the trinity church is very wealthy and has many real estate offices scattered around manhattan. The Jans estate was apparently 62 acres. Manhatten was 14,000 acres.

Columbia University also derived a portion of its wealth from a parcel of the Jans/Roeloffs/Bogards farm, according to the preface of Scandinavian Immigrants in New York 1630.

After the death of Anneke Jans, her children assigned the property to The Trinity Church. However, one of the children reportedly did not sign off on the deal so there was not a clear title. However, the individual who did not sign also neglected to sue (if he had any interest in doing so) within a reasonable time. Then apparently some of the descendents of this individual tried to sue the church (there were a couple dozen unsuccessful lawsuits). It appears that these lawsuits may have been the result of a shortage of ambulances for the lawyers to chase :-). It appears that these lawsuits were frivolous and legally devoid of merit because the passage of time effectively gave the church a clear title whether or not it originally had one. The doctines of Laches and Adverse Possesion (statute of limitations and squatters rights) will apparently be sufficient to solidify any land claim given overt physical occupation (without permission) and the passage of time. I suppose that there is always a possibility that these lawsuits were lost simply because The Trinity Church was a powerfull opponent.

The preface of Scandinavian Immigrants (page ix) states:

Less ambitious but far more scholarly than the endeavors in [p.ix] "Danske i Amerika" are two articles by Mr. Totsrein Jahr, in "Symra" (V., 2, 1909; IX, 1, 1913), a magazine in Norwegian, published at Decorah, Iowa. They are chiefly based upon the "Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts" published in Albany, 1908. Mr. Jahr's articles in "Symra" tell in some forty pages about the Norwegian immigrants who came to Rensselaerswyck. He dwells especially on the family of Bratt and of Anneke Jans, devoting some twenty-five pages to the latter. He makes good use of the well-known Anneke Jans literature, but offers nothing new to scholars beyond the claim and this is important that Anneke Jans and her husband Roelof Jansen were Norwegians. Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, the editor of the "Bowier Manuscripts," had called attention to the fact that Anneke and her husband did not come from Holland, as it had been supposed, but from Marstrand, "an island of the coast of Sweden." It would then appear that they were Swedes. Mr. Jahr, however, called attention to the fact that Marstrand was a Norwegian town, founded by the Norwegian king Haakon Haakonsson about the year 1230, and that it became a Swedish possession in 1658. And hence Anneke and her husband were, in all probability, Norwegians.

Scandinavian Immigrants quotes John Fiske describing (in The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, II, p32) the litigation as "one of the most pertinacious case of litigation known to modern history.

Scandinavian immigrants mentions Tyrn Jonas, aka Kathrine Jonas, as Anneke Jans mother. This appears to conflict with her royal ancestry. "Biographical Sketch of Anneke Jans" also supports this.

It is not unusual to see names reversed. Roeloff Jansen and Jan Roeloffsen are the same person. John Roeloffsen is also likely to be the same person. There was also apparently a typographical errors where he was referred to as Boeloffsen in one families records. Reverend Bogardus, Dominie Bogardus, and Evaradus Bogardus all refer to the same person ("Reverend" and "Dominie" are both religious titles). Anneke Jans maiden name was apparantly Anneke Webber, at least according to the House of Orange version of her ancestry. Jans and Jansen are interchangeable. In some cultures, one is used for men and the other for women; in others they do not consider gender or may use them interchangably. The last name of an offspring may be derived from either the first name or last name of the parent. "Van" in a name usually preceeds the location of origin. Anneke Jans mother aquired a "middle" name of Roeloffs from her daughters stated intention to marry Roeloff Jansen.

Everardus Bogardus drowned aboard a ship on 27 sept 1647.

Anneke's mother was a midwife who worked for the east india company and appears to have immigrated before Anneke. Anneke was apparently illiterate because there are references to her signing documents with an "X".

• A page by Rolland D. Everitt (GED2HTML) lists Aneke Jans, Everadus Bogardus, Roelof Jansen, and one generation either side or so.
• SURNAMEWEB has no listing for Bogardus but has an entry for Jans which currently only has a link to Rolland Everitt's Page.
• www.ancestry.com ($7/mo) has a far amount of information on Anneke Jans and her husbands in its databases, particularly Scandinavian immigrants. A picture of Dominie Evardus Bogardus house (presumably before he married Anneke) and his signature are included. Her will is included. I have terminated my business relationship with ancestry.com with extreme prejudice and have removed the hyperlink from this page because of their criminal actions. After my subscription to ancestry.com lapsed (because of the expiration date on the credit card), I chose to terminate the subscription because I had not used the service in months. I believe I even responded to their email to that effect. Months later, I received three calls which disturbed me in the privacy of my home (not to mention the privacy of my bed!!!!!) in two days trying to telemarket me into resubscribing. Naturally, I told the first caller that they were not to call me again under any circumstances. One of the reasons I had not used their service in months is that it was intolerably slow after they instituted a combined search which searched all databases simultaneously (without that feature, their service was even more of a pain because you had to search hundreds of databases for each surname to find out if they had anything (they usually didn't)).
• Keirstead Pedigree which includes information allegedly linking Anneke Jans and William of Orange.
• Biographical Sketch of Anneke Jans refutes the royal ancestry. This appears to be a well researched document excerpted from The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, April 1973.
• A recent (1997?) lawsuit returned an indictment of fraud against descendants of Anneke Jans.

As a result of this particular Web page, I have received correspondence from one person who apparently had serious mental problems. Besides wasting a lot of my time, this woman was spreading misinformation via net; fortunately, she appears to have fallen off of the Net for the time being.

Anneke Jans and Everadus Bogardus Descendants Organization

Anneke Jans and Everardus Bogardus Descendants Organization
1121 Linholf Road
Wilmington, OH 45177-2917

This organization does not, unfortunately, have a web presence. Amazon lists the book as out of print. He is apparently working on a new addition which will span 7 generations. I don't know if the old one is availible.