Neeltje Claase
Neeltje Claase
Having read many family trees online, I am concerned that secondary sources and other family trees were used almost exclusively by many researchers. This has resulted in data that appears to me to be incorrect in many instances.
A point in case is the use of “Millage and Allied Dutch Families”. This appears to be a series of newspaper articles written by Marie Millage Abbott which were printed June and July 1944. A scan of the original source was located at ancestry.com but it does not state in what newspaper the articles appeared. On the second page of the scans, it states that Neeltje Claase was a wife of Jan Janse Ouderkerk. The following is the source recorded for the data at the bottom of that page:
However, if one checks the original Pearson source, it does not say that at all. The data on page 85 appears as below.
The same piece of incorrect information regarding Neeltie Clause (sic) can be found in a footnote in "Early Records of the City and County of Albany and the Colony of Rensselaerswyck, 1656-1675" translated by Jonathan Pearson.
The error was corrected in the later Pearson book, "First Settlers of Albany 1630-1800" as shown above on page 85. Church records show that Johannes Ouderkerk was the husband of Neeltje Claasz (spelling variant).
Unfortunately, once the error is made on one tree, it is often compounded by researchers who do not consult the original records.