Surname Saturday

 VandenEynden

This is my first time joining many of you for Surname Saturday. Hopefully I can give anyone out there with Dutch roots some websites to visit that will help with your research. VandenEynden was my maiden name. (Then I got married and became a Jones!) After a while, though, I kind of missed that unique last name. My 2nd Great-Grandfather,  Petrus Josephus (Joseph Peter), came to the USA from the Netherlands, along with his brothers, Picter (Peter), and Petrus Marinus (Morris). I've narrowed the area they immigrated from down to the Noord-Brabant region, I just don't know what city or province yet. But I'm working on it! They all settled in St Bernard, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.


There's a bit of a brick wall I have to get through with Josephus. He was born in 1850 and died 1878. He had two children, one was my Great-Grandfather "Joe" (James) who had built a big business selling wallpaper. The other son was listed in the Census as Karl, but I think that's just how his name sounded, because his name was Charles. Joseph, my 2nd Great-Grandfather died the year that his son "Joe" was born. He was too young to die. This is that Brick Wall I was speaking of. Did he make it to America before he died? Did he know that his children made it safely? Was anyone there with him? I want to find out these things, but it would be devastating to me if he died before he was able to see America.

My Grandpa's name was James Joseph VandenEynden. He was the only boy born out of 5 children. Everyone called him "Jim". He was also born in St Bernard, Ohio. When he married my Grandma, Norma Anderson, they ended up moving to Dayton, Ohio. My Grandma grew up there in Dayton, and my Dad was living there, so I think it just made sense for them to move. Many years later, they would move again to Florida, to be close to us, again.

There was a group of family members who did a huge study on the VandenEynden name and where they came from. When they were done they drew up a very large family tree, with leaves on which each person's name was written. The names on the tree date back to 1674 with Johannes. This study was done back in the 1980's. According to the information they gathered, the Ohio VandenEynden's are descendents of Marcellus and Maria (Karhaegen) VandenEynden, from Sint-Oedenrode, Holland. They found that the boys immigrated to avoid conscription in Holland (what we now call The Netherlands). I would love to show a photo of that Family Tree, but it's too big to show here where anyone could read it well.

While I know that it had to have taken a lot of work to get a Family Tree project like that finished, I believe there are many new things to be discovered, especially with the existence of the internet now. Also, I belong to the Ohio GEN Society, and several other GEN societies. The Ohio GEN Society is amazing! It has so much info and so many links to info that has been transcribed. If I couldn't find something, then there would be someone there to direct me or they would just go get the info for me! Ohio must be a state that realizes the importance of making sure their archive records are digitalized. 

However, I realize that, in order to make any progress with my research on this surname, I have to understand the Dutch customs as well as rules and regulations, and the changes that the country has gone through over the years. That is why I am taking a Dutch Genealogy Course, from the "Dutch Ancestry Coach" website . I have to admit, that in the first week of this class, I learned so much! I learned how my surname was put together  (I'll explain this in another post) and what it meant (it actually means something!) as well as the regions where my surname was more prevalent. This could give me clues as to where my ancestors lived before they immigrated to America. So far, I highly recommend this course to anyone with Dutch roots!

I'm hoping that over the next few weeks, I will learn some things about my surname that could help break down those brick walls. I'll keep you posted!