The History of the Faulkenberg Family: The Lost Van Valkenburgs

To recap, the following people were all born in Albany between 1710 and 1720, but then disappeared forever: Andries Van Valkenburg, Jochum Van Valkenburg, and Hendrick Van Valkenburg. Their father’s name was also Hendrick. The oldest ancestors of ours that Victor Faulkenburg could identify in his research appeared in Orange County, Virginia in 1735, seemingly from nowhere. They are three brothers by the names of Andrew Falkenburg, Jacob Falkenburg, and Henry Falkenburg. Records also indicate there was probably a Henry, Sr. and a Henry, Jr. So here’s the question: Are these the same Dutch American brothers from Albany (and possibly their father) using Anglicized names because Virginia (and later the Carolinas) were settled by English speaking immigrants? 

Here’s a document from Virginia with signatures from four “Falkenboroughs”. Notice there are two Henrys. (from Fortenberry Criminger)

Well, let’s start by saying this: At the very least, it’s likely that most of the second branch of the Van Valkenburg family moved away from Albany, which is where most of these old Van Valkenburg records are found. Short of some kind of major disaster, it’s hard to come up with another explanation for that whole branch of the family disappearing while they have almost 600 pages of records of the other nine branches. Now, what about the names? “Henry” is definitely the English version of “Hendrick”, and the same goes for “Andrew” and “Andries”.

A document from Virginia suggesting John/Johannes had already been born before the Van Valkenburgs moved to Virginia (from Fortenberry Criminger)

I don’t think “Jacob” is a perfect translation of “Jochum”, but they sound very similar. If you were a Jochum choosing a name to seem more English in 1735, Jacob would be a pretty reasonable choice, especially since the Jochum in question had an uncle Jacobus. And for what it’s worth, the Van Valkenburg brothers that disappeared from Albany are also on record as having younger brothers named Isaac and Johannes. On Andie Fortenberry Criminger’s website, she claims to have found records indicating that the three Falkenburg brothers in Virginia had younger brothers named Isaac and John, who were “probably not old enough to own land or appear in legal documents” in 1735, but show up as adults on legal documents not long after. That’s pretty significant, especially considering the lack of bias - Mrs. Criminger actually believes it was a different branch of the Van Valkenburg family that wound up in Virginia, a theory I will address later in this chapter.

"Hendrick Valkenburg" signed in Virginia above Isaac Falkenburgh

Maybe you’re not convinced yet, but this will help: In Victor’s research, he was able to find multiple documents where Henry Falkenburg signed as “Hendrick Valkenburg”. On one contract, someone added “signed in Dutch” below his signature. Furthermore, in 2013 Andie Fortenberry Criminger was able to track down a document from February of 1787, where Andrew Falkenburg, about 77 years old at the time, said on his oath that “he lived some time in Albany in New York Government in which time the deponent (Andrew Falkenburg) saith that certon Gentlemen viz Joist Hite, Robert McKay, Robert Green and William Duff in company Published and let for sale Sundry tracts of Land on Shenandoah river by Advertisement at three pounds p Hundred Acres.”

From Fortenberry-Criminger

The document is over an old land dispute, and it continues, “fudr sith his own improvement he maid just below the Narrow Pasag on the upper part of the land that wass called the Narrow Passag tracts and this deponent furder saith that his Brother Henry Falkenburg settled at the mouth of Elk Run and his Brother Jacob Falkenburg settled between him and his brother Henry all on the land that wass called the Narrow Passag tract, this deponent Saith that himself and his two Brothers above named Purchased the Said Narrow Paseg tract of land from Joist Hite.” Andie was even able to find another deposition of Andrew, which mentions the brothers as a group five different times, every time the order being Andrew, Jacob, and Henry. The three oldest brothers of the missing Van Valkenburg branch were Andries, Jochum, and Hendrick - in that order.

If you’ve read all this and seen the DNA results from the last chapter, and you’re still not convinced that the three brothers who Victor Faulkenburg identified as our oldest known ancestors are the family who disappeared from Albany, I’ll probably never be able to convince you. I’ll add this though: The Helms family believes the Falkenburgs and their own ancestors migrated together to Virginia and then eventually to North Carolina, which is where a woman named Mary Falkenburg (sometimes printed Falkenborough) married George Helms. The Helms genealogy website says there is some old story of the Helms brothers travelling down from Bethlehem, but they don’t know which one. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania wasn’t founded until after this move would have occured. There is a Bethlehem, New York in Albany County however. It wasn’t incorporated as a town until after this move either, but the Albany area had already been settled. It’s definitely possible that the name was in use before the town was officially incorporated.

All things considered, it seems very likely that Andries, Jochum, and Hendrick Van Valkenburg of Albany bought land in Virginia and eventually changed their names to Andrew, Jacob, and Henry Falkenburg. But why change their names? I’ll put it this way: When I was in fourth grade, there was a teacher at my school named Mrs. Jimenez. This is obviously the Spanish surname universally pronounced “he-MEN-ess” - but our town had almost 10,000 people, and almost none of them were Hispanic. So, everyone in town pronounced her name “GYM-in-ezz”.

A choice was made there. Either the family proactively decided to start using the English-sounding pronunciation in our town to fit in more, or it was just easier for all the English speakers to say “GYM-in-ezz”, and at some point they got tired of correcting everybody. My guess is the first generation in town decided to stop correcting people, and the next generation grew up speaking mostly English and hearing everyone say “GYM-in-ezz” without being corrected. When the Van Valkenburg family left a community where everyone spoke Dutch and moved to an area where just about no one did, the situation probably wasn’t so different.

This is the part where Andie Fortenberry Criminger’s version differs from mine. She agrees that Andrew, Jacob, and Henry Falkenburg descended from the Van Valkenburg couple who migrated from the Netherlands to New York and then to Albany. She also agrees that her family and ours descended from these same Falkenburg brothers. The difference between our two versions has to do with a man named Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg, an Indian interpreter well known in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. He appears in the 1671 census of a Swedish settlement on the Delaware side of the Delaware River. It’s probably not a coincidence that this census taken by the Swedes is the first record of our family name being spelled with an “F” in the Americas and that Sweden has a city by the name of Falkenberg on its west coast.

Even though there’s no sign of a Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg that would have been born in this generation on the Van Valkenburg family tree, Andie believes that he is a son of Annetje Jacobs and Lambert Van Valkenburg, our ancestors who migrated from the Netherlands. And actually, I think she’s right. While I can’t explain why there’s no record of his birth, the combination of the name ending in “Jacobs Falkenberg” and the timing of his appearance in Delaware makes too much sense for him not to be their son. Maybe he was born in the Netherlands just before the Van Valkenburgs migrated. I can’t be sure.

However, the Fortenberrys’ version is that the three Falkenburg brothers who bought land in Virginia are the sons of this interpreter, and I do not agree. To me, their names are too similar to the known branch of the Van Valkenburg family that disappeared right around this time. Plus, Andie Fortenberry Criminger herself was the one who found the document saying Andrew, Jacob, and Henry left Albany to buy land in Virginia. She also discovered that the three of them had younger brothers whose names are the English versions of Johannes and Isaac. I won’t say it’s impossible that the interpreter spent some time back in Albany after having kids in Delaware, but it seems like a much bigger leap than my version.

Plus, there are documents from 1759 of Henry Falkenburg (sometimes printed Falkenborough), Sr. leaving land to his grandsons. Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg of the Swedish settlement in Delaware would have been born about 115 years before then. And though this man’s marriage to a woman from the Swedish settlement could explain the 1% of Scandinavian blood in my uncle’s DNA profile, that 1% could also come from any ancestor of ours that far back - or multiple ancestors back in Europe.