Family Information
This
particular branch of the Verhoeven family is a union between the Kuykendall
family (maternal branch) of the USA and the Verhoeven Family (paternal branch)
of Europe. What makes us a little
different from so many other families is not that the family is the result of a
cross-Atlantic marriage but because the two main family lines (Verhoeven and
Kuykendall) originated in The Netherlands within 50 kilometers of each other
some 400 years ago. The Verhoevens
stayed put in the United Provinces while the Kuykendalls emigrated to the New
World in the early part of the 1600s to become one of the first families to
settle and prosper there.
The
Verhoeven branch of the family tree is pretty European.
On the paternal side the family is, essentially, 100% Dutch (with a small
helping of Flemish blood early on) while on the maternal side of the tree it is
50% Danish and 50% Sudeten German.
The
Kuykendall family is uniquely American, having intermarried over the past 11
generations with individuals whose families originated from many northern
European countries. The family name
is purely American and does not exist in The Netherlands.
Back in the early 1600s family names were extremely rare and individuals
took on their father’s name as their second name (patronymics) and family
identifier. In short, Jacob’s son
Luur would be known as Luur Jacobszen while his son Jacob would be known as
Jacob Luurszen and so on. The
“zsen” or “sen” addition to the father’s first name (i.e. Jacob) meant
as much as “son of Jacob” so that Luur Jacobzsen was Luur son of Jacob.
When
the initial immigrants arrived in the New World they, like so many other Dutch
families at the time, took on either their trade or geographic origin as their
family name. In the Kuykendall case
they started off as van Wageningen and van Kuykendall, indicating that they were
from – van – the city of Wageningen or Cuyk (Cuyk ‘n daal meaning Cuyk in
the – Maas - valley).
Why
the brothers left Cuyk for the new world is not recorded but given the location
of Cuyk – on the Maas River – and the political situation at the start of
the 1600s (the 80 years war was raging across Europe and around Cuyk) we can
well imagine that they left to avoid the war and find opportunity elsewhere.
Today
the family tree and all the branches and roots stretch into pretty much all the
European countries, across North America and into a couple of ex-colonial areas.
While there have been no really famous people on either side of the tree
there have also not been any really notorious ones.
Like all families there were a couple of illegitimate births here and
there and a couple of scandals.
The
only individuals of historical significance were the van Coppenolle brothers
(Jan and Frans) who were beheaded on the Friday Market in Gent on June 16, 1492
for leading the rebellion against Maximillian I, Holy Roman Emperor.
The families of the executed were banished from the Empire and sent north
to the United Provinces in exile. This
is where the Flemish root of the family came from.
For
more details on the various families please take a look at the family histories
below. Given that there are some
42,000 + individuals and thousands of family names I have only provided
histories of the more interesting ones and the main lines.
The families are listed in alphabetical order.
Family
Histories
The Bijl Family
The Bijl family is mainly
found in the area south of Rotterdam
The
Grimm Family
The Grimm family originated
in and around the town Eger in what is now often referred to as the Sudetenland.
The Sudetenland is a “modern” term for the German settlement area of
the Bohemian Lands (Bohemia, Moravia, Austrian Silesia) which was used only
sporadically before 1918. The area
had originally been settled by Germanic tribes back in Roman times.
Over the next several centuries Germanic and Slavic tribes regularly
occupy and abandon the area as a result of both migration and wars.
Records show that from around 845 the Bohemian and German nobility
maintain close ties and that the area of Boehmen (Bohemia), Maehren (Moravia)
and Silesia are inhabited primarily by Germans.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the German ethnic group
in Bohemian Lands had grown to about 3.5 million individuals.
The Bohemian Lands were, until 1918, part of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy. In 1918 the Sudetenland
was given to Czechoslovakia as part of the peace agreement and remained so until
1938. After the "Münchner
Abkommen" (The Munich Agreement) of 1938, Sudetenland became the official
name for the Reichsgau Sudetenland. At
the end of WWII Sudetenland was again reintegrated into Czechoslovakia and its
German ethnic group was expelled (Vertreibung) by the Slavic population at great
loss of civilian life.
The direct Grimm ancestors
in our family tree did not, fortunately, have to endure the “Vertreibung” as
they had left earlier to seek employment outside of the area.
Large parts of the family did however remain behind and suffered terribly
during this horrific event.
As mentioned earlier, the
Grimm family root is in the Sudentenland area and
The Jelsgaard/Jensen
Family
This is a very Danish family
with no links –as far as we can tell so far – to families outside of the
Kingdom. The family is of peasant
stock
The Koppenol Family
This families claim to fame
is the execution (beheading) of two of their ancestors (Jan and Frans van
Coppenolle) on June 16, 1492 on the Friday Market in Gent for leading a
rebellion against Maximillian I, Holy Roman Emperor. The brothers were originally from
The Kruidenier Family
The Kruideniers
The Kuykendall Family
The first records we have of
the Kuykendall family
The Verhoeven Family
As indicated above, this
branch of the Verhoeven family trances it’s paternal roots in an unbroken line
back to 16th century Netherlands while the maternal line is 50/50
Danish (Jelsgaard/Jensen) and German (Grimm).
Over the past 500 years
The family or