The Fulkerson Family Pages
Founders of a New Nation
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The New Amsterdam colony spent a considerable amount of effort at record keeping, taking great care to write deeds, contracts and other agreements, as well as keeping detailed court records. New Amsterdammers were frequently found offending the law or suing one another.
Many details of Dirck's life are known to us from the legal documents of that era, where his name sometimes appears as Dirck Volckertszen of that era, translations of which appeared in the New York Historical Manuscripts (referred to as NYHM in further citations) and similar works.
More Name Complications
Dirck was identified in a 1635 document as Dirck Volgersen the Noorman.
A 1639 map listed his bouwerie (farm) as the "Bou. van Ditryck de Norman."
Several historians and three independent family records call him Volckertsen, Volkertszen, and Volkertsen. These variations all have a Dutch "-sen" or "-szen" ending.
The "ck" letter combination is also Dutch. Some legal and civil documents really throw us for a loop and called him Holgerson or Holgersen.
The records of the Dutch Reformed Church (he was a witness at several baptisms) called him Volckertszen.
Perhaps Dirck's surname actually started out as Holgerson or HOLGERSSØN, which the New Amsterdammers then transformed into the Dutch name Volckertszen? This would not have happened simply through differences in pronunciation. The Dutch had words and names that began with an "H" and which were not pronounced with a "V." (Perhaps adding insult to injury, one current genealogist insists on calling him Dirck DORKSON!) What did not help were poor spelling consistency among administrators of widely varying schooling and literacy, on top of records written in barely discernible handwriting on faded and crumbling paper documents.
Dirck seemingly settled this matter for us when he named his first son Volkert. Even that fact, however, leaves open for consideration whether Holgerson or Holgerss was an additional part of his name. The history of another immigrant illustrates this possibility, and strongly reinforces Dirck's Norwegian origin:
"Albert Andriessen, or Albert Andriessen Bradt [Bratt] was one of the earliest Norwegian settlers in New Netherland. He came from Fredrikstad, a town at the mouth of the Glommen, the largest river in Norway. In the early records he is often called Albert de Noorman (the Norwegian). After 1670 he became known as Albert Andriesz Bradt."
Source: Lorine McGinnis Schulze
http://olivetreegenealogy.com/nn/surnames/bradt.shtml
Historians have settled the matter by giving Dirck's last name as Volckertsen, or Volckertszen, except when referring to one of those documents in which his name appeared as Holgerson or Holgersen.
We will try to remain as consistent as possible to reduce confusion, so Dirck Volckertszen or Dirck De Noorman will be our name for him on this site, as often as possible.
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