Dutch Settlers Society members trace their history back to 1664 and before
The Enterprise — Elizabeth Floyd Mair
Bicultural: Ellen Zunon, left, and Marjory Case, center, of the Dutch Settlers Society, both have 17th-century ancestors who bridged languages and cultures and interpreted between Native Americans and Dutch traders. Joan Wemple Burns, right, is a past president of the society, which fosters knowledge of and celebrates the early history of the Dutch in Albany.
GUILDERLAND — Ancestors of several members of the Dutch Settlers Society acted as interpreters, in the 17th Century, between Dutch traders or missionaries and Native Americans.
Ellen Zunon’s ancestor, Cornelis Van Slijck, came to Albany in 1634 from the Netherlands. He married a Mohawk woman, and at least two of their children served as interpreters and, after the colony was taken over by the English, were paid a salary by the colonial government.
Marjory Case of Loudonville said that her ancestor, Aernout Viele, interpreted between the government and the Native Americans. His stepfather, Jan Peeck, for whom Peekskill is named, took him into the woods outside of the Dutch settlement and taught him how to interact with the natives and taught him their language.
The society puts out a yearbook every two or three years, with articles written by members and by guest writers and historians.
Full members in the society must be able to trace their Dutch lineage in Albany back before 1664. The group has about 200 full members. Anyone else interested in history and genealogy is welcome to become an associate member, said past president Joan Wemple Burns, adding that there are now about 25 associate members.
At a recent meeting at the Guilderland Public Library, members of the society’s yearbook committee talked about how they became involved with the society, and about their ancestors.
Aernout Viele, who was born in 1640 in New Amsterdam, must have been very adaptable, said Case, because he was able to communicate successfully with more than one tribe, after he came to the Albany area.
At one point, Shoshone from the Ohio Valley stayed in the Albany area and, when they went back to the Ohio Valley, Aernout Viele and four other men went with them, Case said. The other three men returned within a year, but Viele stayed for an additional year.
Love of history: Novelist Gloria Waldron Hukle, left, has written a series of novels informed by her knowledge of area history. At a recent meeting at the Guilderland Public Library, she shares her ideas with other members of the yearbook committee about additional colleges and historical organizations that might like to receive the next yearbook. With her are, from left, Katherine Trimarco, yearbook editor John Wemple, and Gerald C. Boileau.
“And when he came back, he brought 1,000 Shoshone Indians with him as allies of the Dutch,” Case said.
Ellen Zunon, who lives in Guilderland, said that her father and his sisters were all members of the society.
Two of her aunts did a great deal of research, in the 1950s and 1960s, long before the advent of the internet, into family history, often by visiting churches to look through old records and going to cemeteries where Van Slicjks were buried, Zunon said, adding that they often took her and her sister with them.
“So I’ve been hearing about this stuff since I was a little kid,” she said.
Her aunts’ genealogical research was thoroughgoing, which has left Zunon free to research topics other than who the family’s ancestors were.
Zunon hopes to learn more about images her family has of some of its ancestors, including a daguerreotype from the mid- to late 1840s of David Van Slijck, who was born in 1787 — ”the first,” she said, “in our line to be born after American independence.”
Zunon and John Wemple were, until recently, neighbors in Guilderland, and have learned that their ancestors were neighbors as well, on an island that is now part of the mainland in Schenectady, lying partially beneath Schenectady County Community College. Zunon calls it Van Slijck Island, and Wemple calls it Wemple Island.
The Dutch Settlers Society expects to bring out the next issue of its yearbook in the spring of 2019, said the chairman of the yearbook committee, John Wemple.
