De Camp Genealogy: Laurent De Camp of New Utrecht, N.Y., 1664, and his descendants

By George Austin Morrison

"De Camp Genealogy: Laurent De Camp of New Utrecht, N.Y., 1664, and his descendants" by George Austin Morrison. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Aug 21, 2022
• ISBN: 4064066421205

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George Austin Morrison

De Camp Genealogy: Laurent De Camp of New Utrecht, N.Y., 1664, and his descendants

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066421205

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

THE DE CAMP FAMILY.

ADDENDA.

INDEX TO GIVEN NAMES.

INDEX TO SURNAMES.

ALBANY, N. Y.:

JOEL MUNSELL’S SONS, PUBLISHERS,

1900.

PREFACE.

Table of Contents

New York, May 22d, 1900

In compiling the genealogical history of Laurent De Camp, an early Huguenot emigrant to the New Netherlands, and his descendants, I have been actuated not only by the desire to perpetuate the memory of the first American ancestor of an old New Jersey family, but also to preserve for future generations manuscript records rapidly disintegrating and in many cases inaccessible to the general public. The early French and Dutch church records in New York and New Jersey have, with few exceptions, remained unprinted and have been so carelessly kept that the writings have almost faded away. To add to my difficulty the puzzling method adopted by the ignorant Dutch clerks of entering the French name De Camp in its Dutch equivalents Van Camp and Van Campen has necessitated a long and thorough search against each name in order that no important fact concerning the De Camp family, so erroneously recorded, might be overlooked. Throughout this search I have found no evidence to prove the De Camp and Van Campen families identical or even related in any degree. I have further had to struggle against a curious apathy among the present De Camps concerning their origin and in several cases an absolute refusal to furnish the slightest information about their immediate generation.

The result of six years’ labor is contained in these pages, and I trust the data collected may prove of value to those interested in the subject, and spur them on to further research.

Some mistakes will doubtless be found throughout the work, but all criticism and correction will be warmly welcomed and any additional information gratefully received.

George Austin Morrison, Jr.

691 Fifth avenue, New York, N. Y.

THE DE CAMP FAMILY.

Table of Contents

When the Catholic party, headed by Catherine di Medici, culminated years of cruel persecution with the massacre of the French Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 24th August, 1572, a number of the surviving Huguenots fled for safety to the Netherlands and England. In many cases the name of illustrious families disappear forever from the records of France only to reappear in and flourish under the protection and religious toleration of the Dutch and English nations. Between the years 1572 and 1620 the names of many of the French refugees underwent a change suitable to the environment and in some cases became so Dutch in character that it is extremely difficult to trace them back to the original French. The curious custom so prevalent in the Netherlands of using no surname and designating as Laurence, the son of John, (Laurens Jansen) if such was the father’s Christian name, renders the task of the genealogist still more complicated, and when added to the fact that localities and towns of the same derivative designation exist both in France and Holland (as the hamlet of Camps in France and the villages of Campen in the Netherlands and Denmark), it is small wonder that the greatest confusion prevails as to the ancestral source of many early New Amsterdam families. As early as 1650 the names of De Camp, Van Kamp and Van Campen appear on the church and State records of New Amsterdam and the surrounding towns. It was long supposed that these three families were closely related, if not identical, but a critical examination of the records not only of the parents and children, but also of the baptismal sponsors, carries the conviction that the De Camp and the Van Campen families were of different origin and nationality. Almost all the original De Camp settlers who can positively be identified and traced as such were recorded in the Dutch church records of New Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Flatbush, New Utrecht, and Staten Island, under the names Van Kamp and Van Campen by the clerks of the above several parishes. It is only after the year 1710 that the name begins to be written correctly as De Camp or D’Camp on the church records.

At first it was theorized that some of the early Van Campen settlers were originally members of the De Camp family, basing the presumption upon the repeated recording of the name of De Camp in its Dutch equivalent, but upon classifying and comparing the names of the several sponsors at the baptism of the De Camp and Van Campen children, the strongest evidence is found to sustain the statement that the two families were nowise related by blood or marriage, the one being of French and the other of Dutch origin. As a matter of general interest, however, and for the sake of more complete