What is the correct last name at birth for Brouwer-102 / ?

Question

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brouwer-102 

Argument for and against  "Brouwer"

• Brouwer simply means 'Brewer' and in this case the LNAB (anyway for all his children) is obvious (also commonly used in the Netherlands when denoting occupation with a surname) discussion only really starts in later generations when the anglicizing starts 
• However: the identity of Adam's own parents and his ancestry is unknown.  Claims that Adam is a son of either Pieter Clement Brouwer, or of Frans Sijmonsen Brouwer, are undocumented and unproven. Such claims are apparently based on nothing but a common surname. Circumstantial evidence appears to conlict 

Arument for van Ceulen

• Adam Brouwer was beleived to be in Cologne, Germany. The year was 1620. This is reported from his 1645 marriage record at the Dutch Church in New Amsterdam. The record calls Adam, "van Ceulen," which in the context of the marriage records of that time, would indicate that he was born in Cologne, now within the borders of present day Germany. He was most likely of German ancestry, and may have been called early in life by the name, Adolf

Argument for Berchoven

• At the end of his life, Adam declared that he was "Berchoven".  Some researchers have stated their opinion, that it is not important distinction.  Others argue that a man clears up things that he feels is important.   This could have been one of the most important things to him.
   
  "Berghofen" is a name of a region that was once ruled by Theodoricus de Berchoven, according to legend.  Berghofen is around the current city of Dortmund, which is in close proximity to Cologne.  So far we are unable to find  find other Brouwers from Cologne.  
• For a further explanation of “Berckhoven,” please the above referenced article, “New Insight into the Origins of Adam Brouwer.”   
  It must also be noted that this was the period in time, when the early New Netherlands families who had been accustomed to the patronymic naming system, were being pressured by the English Government to choose a “permanent” surname. This would have been an ideal time for Adam to “christen” his family with a name of his own.  Adam Brouwer came a long way.  Berckhoven was the name he gave to his achievements. He had built a property, a business, and a family he could give a name to.  It is thought that Berckhoven was a name he hoped his descendants would take for themselves, a way to separate themselves from other families named Brouwer.
   

 

Answer 1

Please add the tag for New Netherlands so that the New Netherlands project can see it.

For one thing, Van Ceulen appears after j.m. in the marriage record. That simply translates to "young man from Ceulen", not his last name. (That sure is Cologne in Dutch phonetic, isn't it.) For another, his will is signed "Adam Brewer, Berkhoon" with the comma.

My vote would be to keep the Brouwer as his LNAB since that's what he used for every New Netherlands record, his marriage and all of the baptisms of his children. Church records are superior to everything else.

Until a true baptism record can be located for Adam himself, every other name should be an aka, also known as.

Comments

Well, rather than hinge everything on the work of Carl Boyer, known hack, perhaps it should stay as it is until DNA studies give us answers, as I'm sure it will in due time.

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So since you disagree with the only known information, we should ignore it and not use any information... You do know that we have Adams dna and it points to Africa thousands of years ago. You aren't able to tell birth locatitalk about emotions on from Dna at this point. You talk about emotions. It seems you are letting them cloud your judgement. Either show proof that the known facts are wrong, or else you are just making assumptions. On one hand you say there is no proof, on the other you say that the proof is not valid. Please prove your assertions out clearly state that these are your opinion. If you use the term "known fact" there needs to be some citations

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There are actually citations in my record post above.

What I said was Boyer is a known hack; his books are often recompilations of other people's work and, in the case of his Quackenbush genealogy, does not print sources so that facts can be double checked. In fact in the arrival record he printed for Pieter Quackenbosch, the Quackenbosch name was added after the fact as he went by Bont until 1657 and in addition, there is no actual arrival record for Pieter. Do not trust Boyer.

Furthermore the Brouwer Genealogy blog, which has some incredible research, has some information about this.

http://brouwergenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/08/origins-of-adam-brouwer.html

In 2008 I authored an article titled, "New Insight into the Origins of Adam Brouwer." It was published in New Netherland Connections, volume 13, number 4 (Oct-Nov-Dec 2008), and can be found online here, and through the link, "Origins of Adam Brouwer," found in the right hand column of this page. If you search online, you will find numerous claims that Adam Brouwer was the son of either a man named Pieter Clementsz Brouwer, or a separate man named, Frans Sijmonsen Brouwer. Both claims have no basis in fact and have no documented or published records that even hint at such a possibility. They are simply wrong. The claim that Pieter Clementsz Brouwer is a father is most certainly an attempt by some "researchers" to link Adam Brouwer to some sort of "noble" or privileged family, something that Adam Brouwer was in no way a member of. "New Insight into the Origins of Adam Brouwer," takes on these assumptions by carefully considering the actual records that Adam Brouwer did leave behind. It also challenges the notion that his full name at birth was "Adam Brouwer Berckhoven," an idea that also has little basis in fact.

Certainly of equal interest, to the descendants of Adam Brouwer, is Adam's "Deep Ancestry," that being his origins prior to the period of readily available records. We know from the Y-DNA testing of numerous descendants that Adam Brouwer belongs in the Haplogroup known as E-V13, also referred to a E1b1b1a2. This Haplogroup is rare among European men today, and has it's largest concentration in the Balkans. An interesting theory into Adam's "Deep Ancestry," is presented by Richard Brewer, administrator of the Brewer DNA Project, and is found online at Adam Brouwer's Haplogroup, E-V13. A link can also be found at the right.

From New Insight into the Origins of Adam Brouwer

In none of these records does Adam appear with, or is, recorded with the name Berckhoven. The name Berckhoven as applied to Adam is only found for the very first time in the very last document associated with Adam. That is, his will. In his will, written 22 January 1692, Adam, for the first time, refers to himself as Adam Brouwer Berckhoven. Adam is the one who first uses the name Berckhoven. Hoffman points out that a few of Adam’s children are recorded with the Berckhoven name. This is correct; however, these records appear after Adam’s will is written, and for only a short period of a few years. On 6 February 1692, son Abraham Adams Bercko is married. On 15 September 1692, son Niclaes Berckhoven is married. Adam’s daughter Anna is married as Antje Berkove on 6 April 1693, and is called Berckhoven at her daughter Sara’s baptism on 9 April 1693. Daughter, Rachel, was married on 5 June 1698 as Rachel Berckhoven. The Berckhoven name then disappears and is not carried on by later generations. Prof. Willem Frijhoff supplies the simple, but profound, explanation for this. It is an explanation that has eluded all other Adam Brouwer family researchers to this date. Adam Brouw er was not from Berckhoven. Adam’s ancestors were not from Berckhoven. He most likely had ancestors who were brewers, as accounted for by the Brouwer surname, but they did not come from Berckhoven. Adam Brouwer was born in Cologne. That is clear from the marriage register at the New Amsterdam Dutch Church. Berckhoven (or “place of birches”) is only mentioned at the end of Adam’s life, by Adam, and therefore clearly refers to the location where Adam was at that time. That location, called Berckhoven, was the place that Adam himself created. Adam Brouwer’s beginnings were humble. He was illiterate.

That even accounts for the comma in "Whereas I, Adam Brewer, Berkhoon, inhabitant of ye Towne of Brooklandt"

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The baptism records are our bread and butter in New Netherlands.

I brought up Carl Boyer because on another part of this page, you gave Carl Boyer (Ship Passenger Lists NY & NJ 1600-1825 by Carl Boyer) as your "ultimate proof" that Adam's "true" last name was Berkhoven.

I do have knowledge of his work.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:The_Arrival_of_Pieter_Quackenbosch#.22Records.22

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Quackenbush_Name_Study#Ancestral_Lines_-_Carl_Boyer_III

Feel free to check his work in the area of your interest and judge for yourself.

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Reading your links, there is no assertion that Carl Boyer's research is incorrect.  Rather than stating that you have this experience with it, how about showing your claim that this information is incorrect, or that he is unreliable.  Please provide information so that others can decide for themselves.  You do know that the main critique about not having sources, is the same critique that I give to "New Insight into Origins" ......  Chester has made many different assumptions with zero factual basis.  I have stated many times that his information is not sourced and not cited for many of his claims.  You can copy and paste all that you want, it does not provide extra legitimacy.  I am asking you to prove that Carl Boyer is a crackpot, or whatever you want to call him.

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As with any other research, at least as it should be, I have given you more than enough information to verify that yourself. Of course you're never going to take my word for it and why should you.

At this point I think you're beyond my help though. The thread is about to fall off of the radar and I've not seen any convincing proof that his LNAB should be anything other than Brouwer. In my humble opinion the will has not been taken at face value and some folks are seeing what they want to see in his words.

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Ok.

Here's the thing though. I'm a direct descendant of Adam Brouwer with a linked line to him on the site and I get a vote. That's how it works here at Wikitree. Other descendants are free to cast their vote as well.

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Though i am not descended from Adam Brouwer, i am descended from many New Netherland families. I have lived much of my life in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where i still live. I studied history at university, read, write and speak fluent dutch, and have been researching my own genealogy since 1998, when i first found my family of origin. I only write the above in order to justify my opinion on the generalities regarding the above discussion. The name Brouwer is definitely a Dutch trade name, meaning ''Brewer''. Many trade names, as well as place names and patronymics eventually became fixed surnames. Whatever patronymic Adam was called by in the Netherlands before emigrating to New Netherland, in the new world he seems to have used his profession ''Brouwer'' as a surname, as did many other Dutchmen, esp. after the British took over the Dutch Colony in 1664. Which is why it would be futile to expect to find family of Adam called Brouwer in Cologne, as the name is Dutch and it was assumed as a fixed surname only in the new world. Any relatives of Adam Brouwer around Cologne would have eventually adopted other surnames, and probably much later in time. The fact that Adam Brouwer's descendants in America used the name Brouwer as their surname, gives credence to Adam himself having adopted that epithet as his own surname. "Van Ceulen" is not Adam Brouwer's surname (though it could have become such, had he wanted to, as this name does exist nowadays in the Netherlands as a surname: ''Van Keulen''). In Adam's marriage record, ''van Ceulen'' simply denotes a place with which he was associated (j[onge] m[an] van Ceulen - that is, young man from Cologne. Just as his bride was characterised as ''j[onge] d[ame] van Nieuw Nederland" (young lady from New Netherland). And New Netherland was certainly not her surname. That Adam Brouwer named his eldest son Pieter, if he truly is the eldest, is a strong case for concluding that Adam's father was called Pieter. But that the children of Adam's son Pieter all have the patronymnic Pieterse is logical, (their father was called Pieter, and Pieterse means ''Peter's son''); but it has nothing to do with a possible surname of Adam Brouwer. The children of Pieter's brothers would have other patronymics. In the case of the Brouwers, Pieterse did not become their surname. Berckhoven is a Dutch place name, meaning ''Birch courtyards''; (Holland is full of such place names). But in his will he is Adam Brouwer. If his surname had been Berckhoven, Brouwer would have been superfluous. The comma, though, really makes it clear that Brouwer is his surname, whilst Berckhoven is the place where he lived at the time. Lastly, it would be unwise to claim that Adam Brouwer was German in the modern sense of the word. The Dutch called their language ''Nederduits'' (Low-German) up till the middle of the nineteenth century, and the reformed church called itself ''Nederduitse Kerk''. Before the Reformation, Keulen (Cologne) was the ecclesiastical Metropolitan See for much of northern Netherlands up till mid-16th century, and the Netherlands belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, till after the 80 years war. ''Van Keulen'' could just as well mean ''from the [Dutch or German] region customarily under Cologne's prince-bishop's rule''. All in all, it seems to me, that Carrie Quackenbusch is absolutely correct on all of the questions raised.

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People have less reason to make misrepresentations on birth records and in Bibles than on anything else. The only time in which church records might be spurious is when someone has a forged baptismal record, as was commonplace for Jews attempting to hide their ancestry from the Nazis, Arrow Cross, etc. Catholic priests get excused for this noble, life-saving deceit. But this has nothing to do with Adam Brouwer.

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The German spelling would be "Brauer". In any event, the distinction between German and Dutch nationality came rather late. Language is no hint, as Low German spoken in northern Germany was long identical with Dutch. (High German is standard German).

Answer 2

If you can edit the tags on the original post, we should also have new_netherland, and van_ceulen needs an underscore to keep the parts together.

this G2G should be good to hash out the theories and arguments and sources, rather than crowding the profile with competing ideas.

Then the arguments etc. from this G2G need to be orderly arranged in a separate shared  free-space page that will be comprehensible and easy to follow the sourced chain of arugment throughout history.

The first task for that is to decide an appropriate name for the page. I suggest: options

• Adam Brouwer Identity
• Adam Brouwer Lineage
• Adam Brouwer Family
• Adam Brouwer Origins
• Brouwer Berkhoven Controversy

It is important to decide a good name first, before creating such a page, because that name survives forever as the page name to link to. So we can kick around some ideas about it here.

Comments

Steven I'm thinking Brouwer Berkhoven Controversy would work.

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I am not sure if the existing orphaned page Adam Brouwer Berkhoven's Mystery Father would be useful or not, as a good name for the specific purpose outlined above, but that page is well-categorized under Family Mysteries.

So we can probably adapt it for something relevant?

The issue really needs a family expert like Paul or perhaps Carrie to assess if the father is really a mystery, or if there is a preponderance of weight, or of myth, leaning one way or the other.

So I don't want to use that page if the title is just not quite right for what we had in mind. Any other thoughts?

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Just to bring this forward to completion, Paul Lee, with my editing input, has now built an excellent and easy to read free-space page for this, Adam Brouwer's Origins. It is fully-sourced, and it should serve as the proof document on which to base and justify each of the data fields in the profile.

I am going to link the document at the head of the bio, so that it will serve as the go-to reference proof for each of the profile's data fields, in any future discussions. The data fields need to all be changed and maintained  to conform to what Paul has proven there.

That proof document should now be our answer for all questions about why any conflicting data or myth or supposition about Adam Brouwer has been discounted, per the tidy and complete source trail that Paul has compiled there.

It will also allow us to keep Adam's profile bio terse, since all arguable statements can now be simply referenced in a footnote to the appropriate section in Paul's document. The specific contrary points will no longer all need to be countered and sourced and footnoted directly in the bio. They can simply be pointed to the document section for the full explanation and source trail to be studied which proves the point.

Any further need for clarity and revision can be discussed as needed in G2G and Comments, as always, and so thus bring it to consensus on any needed updates.