Tulips in the Rain

Went to the store today and took my little Canon Elph and got these pink tulips covered with rain drops. It was a bit of a light rain earlier, then it quit then it started up in earnest.

I've had a fun afternoon as I, through a series of circumstances that become such a windy road that I am not entirely sure how I got there, delved into some of my genealogy and learned a LOT of new things. There is a book, The Maiden Families of Virginia and Allied Families 1623-1991 written by Sarah Finch Maiden Rollins. This book is really well done and I can't believe I haven't looked at it before. It is available to look at on-line which is just wonderful. However one is not allowed to copy and paste, so if I wanted to add any of her wonderful information, I had to type it in myself to my program. Which I did. All afternoon. I did have the names of these "tree top" relatives, but that's about all I had. I did not have the in depth information that brings out the person behind the name. They are called "tree top" because, they are, indeed, at the tippy top of my family tree.

And now I know that Guillaume Vigne and his wife, Adrienne Cuevelier were Walloons, settling in the new world to seek out a better life. Then I found out that Walloons were French speaking Belgians, living in the south, who embraced the Protestant religions and were persecuted by the Spanish who had a hold on the Netherlands. So, off they went. They were not Dutch, but ended up in New Amsterdam in about 1623 or possibly earlier and ended up living along side Dutch and living in Dutch style homes. They had a farm on Maidens Lane which is located between present day Wall Street and Pearl Street in New York City. Can you imagine a farm where those monolith buildings now stand?

Their daughter married Dirck Volchertson, who was a Norwegian and his name is probably a Dutch corruption of Holdersen. They married and had a mess of kids and he lived a long life, ending up in Bushwick, Long Island where he had quite a bit of property. He had cherry trees and then that gave way to grain fields and the area became known as Green Point. Greenpoint is on the map, in Brooklyn, New York. Dirck was called the Noorman, and where he lived, in a lovely little valley, was called Noorman Kill for a while. Kill means stream. Noorman is for Northman as he was Norwegian. There is a street in Greenpoint not far from where his property was located that is Norman Street, the only reminder of this early settler.

That's only two of the people I got to know today. People who risked it all to try it in the New World. There were few Europeans there then and the streams and rivers were full of fish and the forests were full of deer and other wildlife. It was a far cry from the city it would become almost 400 years later. Well, except for the wild life. ;)

See ya
(I wonder how many Blippers might be related to me? You never know.)