Choosing between Veeder and Vedder in New Netherland

Question

Veeder and Vedder are among the surnames of New Netherland settlers and descendants, and to some extent the two names appear to have been used interchangeably during centuries past. I don't have much experience with either of these names (although the names appear among my distant collateral relatives in New York state). However, today I stumbled upon -- and adopted -- a batch of orphan Veeder/Vedder profiles from the 1600s that need to be sorted out, so I'm trying to learn fast.

I haven't found any G2G discussions of these names, but it appears to me that the NNS project  settled on Veeder as the LNAB for the immigrant settler Simon Volkertse Veeder and Vedder for the settler Harman Albertse Vedder, but profiles for some of these men's children and other descendants have LNABs that don't match their ancestor. A little bit of online research gives me the impression that the descendants of Simon have been pretty consistent in using Veeder, while the descendants of Harman's father Albert have rather consistently used Vedder.

Is it reasonable to conclude that the early generations in Simon's family should have a LNAB of Veeder and the early generations in Albert's/Harman's family should have a LNAB of Vedder, or has the Internet steered me wrong?

Answer 1

I worked on Harman's line, the Vedders of Albany and Schenectady, and in his line it's consistantly Vedder, from baptisms at Albany http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vedder-98 to all of the descendants http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Vedder-Descendants-41 to the census http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vedder-83 on down to today http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Severson-124

The Albany museum thought so as well:

Those mostly known as Vedder appear to be descended from Harmen Albertse who is said to have emigrated to Beverwyck by 1647 but "retired" to Schenectady and lived into the eighteenth century. His large family spread out in the region especially in Schenectady. Son Corset was married to two Albany natives.

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/v/veeder.html

Comments

Regardless of how which name was spelled which way on either line in New Netherland, Veeder seems to be the Anglised version of Vedder which (I might be wrong though) seems to me to be the original Dutch or Germanic version.

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I remember struggling a bit with this. My change note on this Veeder says (move forward from Merge Notice to NNS per more accepted name variant from bio in the match)

But his descendants (except for daughter Grietje) all have Vedder.

And the other ancestor has all Vedder descendants. So I would be inclined to keep the Vedder as it is found. I don't see any current match conflicts to justify changing anything.

But if you do, then they will need a new decision.

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I don't think we need to revisit the decisions on Symon Veeder or Harman Vedder. My concern is focused on the children and descendants of Symon Veeder. The various sources I have found generally spell their surname as Veeder, but there are some records (notably published transcripts of the record of the Albany RDC) that have the name Vedder for some of them. I found profiles for several of Symon's children (unsourced, created in a gedcom import, and mostly untouched since the gedcom import) that have the LNAB of Vedder. Some of those same children also have profiles with the LNAB Veeder that weren't linked to any parents (yes, these are match conflicts -- and if I hadn't searched thoroughly, I might have been tempted to create some additional profiles with the name Veeder, as that's the name I was initially searching for).

Regardless of what the initial Dutch name was, both the Veeder and Vedder spellings were used in 1600s New Netherland, and both have persisted through subsequent centuries. As noted, I've gotten the impression that there were two different families that adopted two different spellings (a situation complicated by the usual spelling variations in the early records). It's good to see Carrie's report on what she found in researching the descendants of Harman Vedder.

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I think that one or more of the profiles that's attached to Simon Veeder as a parent (and which I adopted) are actually members of the family of Harmen Vedder. In particular, "Cousset Vedder" might be the same person as Corset Vedder. I've not found any indication that Simon had a son by this name. (The difference in birthdate is not a disqualifier. The birthdates on the various profiles I adopted generally disagree with the estimated dates in the sources I've seen.)

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I've disattached Simon from Cousset Vedder and I've attached Harman to Cousset Vedder as his father, after (1) finding several indications that Cousset and Corset were alternative versions of this man's name and (2) finding no indication that Simon ever had a son of that name.

Answer 2

As Carrie notes, Stefan Bielinski of the New York State Museum discussed these names in a short essay "Veeder - Veder - Vedder". He said that all three of those spellings occurred in the Albany records as late as the 1790 census.

Bielinski said that over a period of 30 years he had "spoken with a number of people who claim to have their V's straight", but no one had "been able to divide all of them perfectly." He observed that the name Veeder was used in Albany city for "an essentially single but substantial household through time" (namely, the family of Simon J. Veeder, 1709-1786, his forebears and his descendants), while the names Veder and Vedder were found more in places surrounding Albany. In particular, he noted that the families "mostly known as Vedder appear to be descended from Harmen Albertse, whose large family spread out in the region especially in Schenectady," and included son Corset Vedder.

Other sources that have analyzed these New Netherland names farily extensively include Vader Genealogy (it seems that Vader is yet another spelling that evolved from these same roots) and Vedder in America, which is a subpart of the Dutch genealogy website Genealogieën van diverse families Vedder en Vedders.

I started this pursuit because I found that most of the children of the immigrant Simon Veeder had profiles with the LNAB of Vedder, which was troublesome to me because I had found these people's names in sources that consistently called them Veeder. It appears to me that this family was fairly consistent in using the name Veeder. However, daughters predominated among the chlidren of Simon's sons and paternal grandsons, so by the mid-1700s most of the living male-line descendants of Simon Veeder may have belonged to that one "substantial Albany household" that Bielinski describes. I propose that the LNABs of all of immigrant Simon's children should be changed to Veeder, and the name Veeder should be used in subsequent generations unless there is an indication that a particular person used a different spelling.

Similarly, the descendants of Harmen Vedder should be presumed to be Vedders unless there is good evidence to the contrary.

Comments

I added a Vedder / Veeder from Albany County (near Schenectady, before 1809 when Schenectady County was formed).  His daugher married his brother's son.  Although they were brothers and living in the same location, the two brothers either spelled their last name differently, or the clerk recorded the marriage of the first cousins as Vedder - Veeder for reasons of his own.

Answer 3

Based on this discussion (and supported by records), I am changing the LNABs for the children of Symon Veeder (those profiles that I adopted -- and not including profiles that have unmerged matches with profiles with the LNAB of Veeder) from Vedder to Veeder.