Anneke Jans

1605 - Abt 1663  (58 years)    Has 5 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Anneke Jans
  Birth	15 Jan 1605	Maesterland, Zuid-Holland, Nederland
  Gender	Female
  Death	Abt 23 Feb 1663	Beverwyck, New Netherland Colony
  Anneke Jans died in Beverwyck (now Albany, New York) and although in this book and others her date of death is recorded as February 23, 1663, this is actually the date when her son, Jan Roelofszen, then 30 years old, paid the church for the rental of a burial pall. She may have died a day (or days) earlier and perhaps even buried a day or more after February 23rd, but this is the closest date known regarding her death.
  Burial	27 Feb 1663	Middle Cutch Ch, Beaver St., Everwyck
  Albany, New Netherlands
  Siblings	2 Siblings
  1. Antonetta Webber,   b. 29 Jan 1602   d. Yes, date unknown   2. Martje Webber,   b. 1603, Flekkeroy, Sogne., V-Agdr, Norge d. 1677  (Age 74 years) ▻ Dirck Corneliszen,  m. 28 May 1646 ;   Govert Lookermans,  m. 11 Jul 1649 ;   Thymen Jans Lymen + 3. Anneke Jans,   b. 15 Jan 1605, Maesterland, Zuid-Holland, Nederland d. Abt 23 Feb 1663, Beverwyck, New Netherland Colony  (Age 58 years) ▻ Roeloff Jansen,  m. 18 Apr 1623 ;   Dominee Everardus Bogardus,  m. Mar 1638
  Person ID	I178400	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	4 Apr 2023

  
  

  Father	Wolfert Webber,   b. 1565, Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France d. 1630, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland (Age 65 years)
  Mother	Catherine Tryntje Jonas,   b. Abt 1566   d. 1644 (Age 78 years)
  Marriage	1600	Nederland
  Family ID	F72898	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Roeloff Jansen,   b. 1602, Mastrand, Norge d. 1637, New Amsterdam (Age 35 years)
  Marriage	18 Apr 1623	Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland
  Children	1. Lijntje Roeloffs,   c. 21 Jul 1624   d. Yes, date unknown + 2. Sarah Roeloffs,   b. 3 Dec 1626, Nederland d. Aft 7 Aug 1693, New York, New York, USA (Age 66 years)   3. Trijntje Roeloffs,   c. 24 Jun 1629   d. Yes, date unknown   4. Sytje Roeloffs,   b. Abt 1631, de Laets Burg farm, Rensselaerswyck d. Yes, date unknown   5. Jan Roeloffzen,   b. Abt 1633, de Laets Burg farm, Rensselaerswyck d. Yes, date unknown   6. Annetje Roeloffs,   b. Abt 1636, New Amsterdam d. Abt 1642 (Age 6 years)
  Family ID	F72892	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	15 Dec 2000

  
  

  Family 2	Dominee Everardus Bogardus,   b. Abt 1607, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland d. Jul 1647, Albany, Albany Co., NY (Age 40 years)
  Marriage	Mar 1638	Dutch Reformed Church, New Amsterdam, New York, USA
  Children	+ 1. William Bogardus,   c. 16 Dec 1638, Dutch Reformed Church, New Amsterdam, NY d. 1711 (Age ~ 72 years)   2. Jonas Bogardus,   c. 4 Jan 1643   d. Yes, date unknown + 3. Peter Bogardus,   c. 2 Apr 1645   d. Yes, date unknown + 4. Cornelius Bogardus,   c. 9 Sep 1640   d. 1666 (Age ~ 25 years)
  Family ID	F72134	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	20 Jul 2001

  
  

• Event Map	Click to hide
  		Marriage - 18 Apr 1623 - Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Notes

  From the Amsterdam (Holland) Reformed Oude Kerk marriage intentions of April 1, 1623, it is recorded that Roeloff Janssoon, born in Maesterland (Marstrand, on the island of the same name, Goteburg Och Bohus, Sweden-- but in Bohuslan, Norway until 1658), a seaman, aged 21 years, having no parents (to grant parental permission), assisted by Jan Gerritsz., his nephew, residing three and a half years at the St. Tunis gate, on the one part; and Anna Jans, born in Vleckere, Norway (Flekkeroy, on the island of the same name, Vest Agder, Norway), aged 18 years, assisted by Trijn Roeloffs, her mother, residing at the same place, of the second part. The marriage record of Roelof Janz (hereafter cited as Jansen) and Anna Jans was dated April 18, 1623 in the records of the Amsterdam Reformed Niew Kerk. It has been concluded by some that the give name of the father of Anneke Jans was therefore Johan, Jan or Johannes. The first three children of Roelof Jansen and his wife Anneke Jans are recorded as being baptized in the Amsterdam Lutheran Church as follows: Lijntje, baptized July 21, 1624, witnesses: Annetgen Jans, Stijntgen Barents; Sara, baptized April 5, 1627, witnesses: Assueris Jansen, Stijntje Barents; and Trijntje, baptized June 24, 1629, witnesses Cornelis Sijverts, Trijntgen Siewerts. The 62 acres of land which Anneke inherited from her first husband, Roelof Jansen, acquired the name "Domine's Bouwerie". Combined in English days with the "Company's Bouwerie" and granted to Trinity Church in 1705 by the Colonial Governor, Lord Cornbury, as a representative of Queen Anne of England, this questionable conveyance of ownership of the original property of Anneke Jans became the basis for repeated and hotly contested lawsuits initiated by her descendants to claim their apparent legitimate part-ownership. As recently as the 1920's, when the property was then considered to be worth "billions", some descendants were still attempting to obtain a favourable settlement from the courts, having been denied restitution in preceeding generations. Nationwide "Anneke Jans Bogardus Heirs Association" chapters were established to help finance the legal costs involved, and questionable lawyers obtained millions of dollars from gullible, presumed descendants, on the basis of undocumented or dubious genealogical evidence. Of course, none of the lawsuits were ever settled in favour of the descendant "heirs". In reviewing the facts again today, however, one could conclude that the heirs of Anneke Jans were treated unfairly, but it is also plainly clear that no such lawsuit should ever be initiated again because of the finality of the court judgements that were previously rendered. ************************************************ Born in the Kings'mansion,Holland. The family settled in N.Y.,which was called New Amsterdam at the time & became wealthy land owners on Manhattan Island & Staten Island. The family was reported to have founded the famous & historic Trinity Church in Manhatten.At the turn of the 20 th century,the Church & other landholdings were supposed to be given over to the descendants of Anneke Jans Webber,The State of N.Y. did not honor the old deed.A family member Lillian May Kellogg Thompson in the early 1900's researched the info this comes from.This is also from papers & Diaries. ************************************************ from “Stubborn for Liberty, the Dutch in New York” by Alice P. Kenney chapter entitled “Recovering the Dutch Tradition” p.243-245. Transcribed by Cheri Branca. Edited and tagged by Rolland Everitt. .....Also centered on a woman, interestingly enough, was a cause celebre which made a wide public aware of the Dutch. Anneke Janse, her husband Roelof, their two small daughters, and Anneke’s sister and their mother, a midwife, all apparently from Norway, were among the first settlers of Rensselaerswyck in 1630. But Roelof, a seaman, did not prosper as a farmer, and his women folk disposed of quantities of household goods -- quite possibly in the Indian trade -- so the family left the Patroon’s service in 1634 before the completion of their contract. But Roelof died in 1636, soon after they settled on a farm in Manhattan, and in 1638 Anneke married Domine Everardus Bogardus. Soon after this marriage she became involved in a colorful incident in which some of her husband’s political opponents caused her to be arrested for indecent exposure in the streets of New Amsterdam. Anneke’s defense was that while passing the blacksmith shop -- the seventeenth century equivalent of a gas station as a male gathering place -- she merely tidily lifted her skirts to keep them out of the filth which had accumulated in the street. This defense was accepted, and the incident illustrates one use to which sensation-starved frontier colonists put their courts and also the the earthy humor and broad practical joking which was often a feature of Dutch civic controversy. Thereafter Anneke became the mother of four Bogardus children, in addition to her five by Roelof Janse. After her second husband’s death at sea, she went to Fort Orange to live with her married daughter and “make a living” -- presumably at the fur trade, since this was the principal occupation of the town. At her death in 1663 she left a modest estate, of which part, which descended to her four surviving children by Roelof Janse, was the 62 acre farm on Manhattan Island which she had inherited from him. It was this farm which, over two centuries later, made Anneke famous. After a number of transfers, the land became the property of Trinity Church, and, with the rise in property values on lower Manhattan, immensely valuable. But in one of these transfers, one of Anneke’s minor grandchildren had inadvertently been omitted from the deed. His descendants discovered this fact about 1750, and between then and 1847 sued repeatedly and unsuccessfully to break the church’s title to the land. In spite of these legal defeats, the myth would not die; another suit was instituted in 1909, and in the next quarter century the cause attracted much publicity. Lawyers, genealogists, and promoters who scented an opportunity to make a fast buck thereupon started searching for all the living descendants of Anneke Janse, who turned out to be more numerous even than descendants of the passengers on the Mayflower. Finally, the Legislature passed a special act quieting the title and forbidding any further suits, on the grounds that similar irregularities would have called most titles dating from the seventeenth century into question. It also became clear that if the heirs had won, there would be so many of them that the share of each, even in the vast wealth in dispute, would have been less than the contributions many of them were induced to make toward the expenses of litigation. In the course of this litigation, there grew up an even more astonishing legend about Anneke’s origins. All the evidence now available indicates that she and her husband were both ordinary people, born in Norway (though perhaps descended from Dutchmen in the Baltic trade). The legend, however, made Anneke out to be the granddaughter of William the Silent who had displeased that prince by her insistence on marrying a commoner; nevertheless, he placed her share of his fortune in trust for her descendants in the seventh generation. This fortune was reputed to have accumulated to the sum of 100 million dollars in the early twentieth century. It is difficult to see how this story gained credence in the face of its glaring inconsistencies, but this mythic fortune was as glittering as the other, and only very recently has a patient genealogist finally dispelled the last shreds of it. According to this myth, Anneke’s father, a son of William the Silent by a secret marriage, was named Wolfert Webber, and a New Netherlander of this name (from whom Irving doubtless derived his character) was her brother. It has now been proven, however that this Wolfert Webber and his father of the same name, a respectable Amsterdam wine merchant, had no connection with either William the Silent or Anneke Janse.