Special Thanks:
Special Thanks:

    A lot of people have helped me with this website and have contributed in no small part to its success. They have shared with me not only their time, expertise, knowledge and precious source material so that this place could be more than just a recitation of facts and dates, but also something of themselves as well. I have been enriched more than I can say by knowing you all.

    Some of these folks are shyer than others so I will not trespass on their good graces by presuming to lay bare their tremendous contributions to this project. To say that I am eternally grateful is wholly inadequate.

    I'd especially like to thank Deb and Larry Boden [email protected] for more things than I can say. They know why. They are very special friends indeed.

    A very special thanks goes to Tracy Wynkoop [email protected] without whom all of us would be poorer indeed. His website started it all and his vision has kept many of us focused for some time.

    I'd like to thank my very good friend Koen Wijnkoop [email protected] of Luxembourg for his tremendous contributions to Wijnkoop family research in the Netherlands. He sent me a copy of the March 20, 1651 notarial acte which he retrieved at the Gemeente Archief in Amsterdam on his first visit there in 1998. In addition he has done his best to keep me on the straight and narrow on questions of family history. Our exchanges on the Wynkoop Family Mailing list have kept both of us up many long nights. The mailing list certainly has not been boring as a result.

    I want to thank Gert van Winkoop [email protected] for long E-mails regarding the Wijnkoops and van Winkoops of Gelderland as well as his generous help in deciphering, (without actually having seen the original document!), some very obscure and illegible words in Judge Henry Wynkoop's family bible record.

    An enormous vote of thanks goes to Richard Lewis [email protected] who has shared with me his family history and an enormous number of family photographs which appear in the Wynkoop Family Portrait Gallery. The portrait gallery would be a much poorer place without his enormous contributions.

    I'd like to thank Gerard E. Wynkoop [email protected] for all his help and many contributions. He's given me quite a lot of his time and expertise and shared with me his enthusiasm for the chase. Several of the articles, as well as additional listings for the Wynkoop Bibliography are here as a result of his generosity.

    My humblest thanks go to Dr. Charles Gehring [email protected] of the New Netherland Project at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Dr. Gehring gave me the microfilm number that allowed Koen and I to retrieve Cornelis Evertsz. Wijnkoop's March 20, 1651 notarial acte from the Gemeente Archief in the first place. He and his talented staff, including Janny Venema, have graciously given of their time to help me with other Wynkoop family research questions over the past year or so and have led me to sources of information that I might otherwise have overlooked. The New Netherland Project is responsible for translating and publishing the remaining body of work relating to Dutch Colonial History in America. Without their efforts over the past several decades many families of Dutch descent, including the Wynkoops, would know a great deal less about their family history than they do today.

    Thanks to Mark Major, [email protected], Treasurer of the Historical Society of Schuylkill County, Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Mark has provided me with invaluable help in tracking down background information on the Wynkoops of Pottsville, as well as giving generously of his time in compiling an inventory of the Historical Society's Wynkoop holdings. Mark is a true soldier in the historical trenches.

    Thanks also to Charles Hill [email protected] of Lotus, California. Charlie very graciously shared with me photographs of Ned Wynkoop's presentation sword, which is a part of his personal collection. It's taken me quite some time to find a place to get them posted and he's borne it all with patience and fortitude. He also set me on Archimedes Burr Wynkoop's track when he sent me a copy of one of Archimedes' letters. Archimedes was last heard of in California and Chas. is the man responsible in large measure for piqueing my interest in the man and his mystery.

    Thanks also to Ann Darrow [email protected] of the Waukegon Historical Society in Waukegan, Illinois. Ann very generously shared with me the fruits of her research regarding Archimedes Burr Wynkoop and Tobias Wynkoop, both residents of Lake County, Illinois. She's done some extensive research on these two Wynkoops in particular and was able to find images of Archimedes' wife, Elizabeth Slocum, which you will find posted in the Wynkoop Family Portrait gallery. Her generosity of spirit has enriched this website enormously.

    I want to thank Byron Strom [email protected] for sharing with me some of Silas Soule's letters from the period when he and Maj. Edward Wanshaer Wynkoop served together in the Colorado cavalry and participated in many of the same events that led up to the infamous Sand Creek massacre. I feel privileged to have read these. He was a remarkable man, full of courage, fortitude and humor. The world lost someone special when he was assassinated on the streets of Denver following his testimony at the Sand Creek Massacre inquiry.

    A special thanks to Karen Van Buren, [email protected], of Van Buren Properties in Old Kinderhook, New York. Karen answered an E-mail from a complete stranger and went out of her way to research the Wynkoop-Van Schaack homestead that Brooke Wynkoop [email protected] had first opened my eyes to. I'm extremely grateful for her help.

    I'd like to thank Pam Sedor [email protected] of the Radnor Memorial Library. Pam has handled all of my Inter-Library Loan requests over the past several years with patience and aplomb. Without her my labors in the field of family history and genealogy would be poor indeed. Any success I've had in opening new windows on the past is due in large part to Pam's unceasing efforts on my behalf.

    Thanks also to Nathaniel A. Thomas, M.L.S. [email protected] of the Pottsville Free Public Library Reference Department. Nathaniel has taken the time to answer many of my Wynkoop family reference questions promptly and thoroughly and has led me to several previously unsuspected sources of information. His professionalism and dedication, not to mention patience, is beyond reproach.

    Thanks to Lorine McGinnis Schulze [email protected] for her many hours of help and insight into the problems of researching the history of the early Dutch-American families of the Hudson River Valley. Lorine is the person who uncovered the possible existence of the 1651 notarial acte mentioned here earlier. I've called this the Wynkoop Holy Grail elsewhere, and to me it will always be so. Just for this one find alone she deserves my most heartfelt thanks, but she has also given unstintingly of her time and knowledge in helping me pursue Cornelius Wynkoop down the dusty corridors of time.

    I'd like to thank Jesse T. Wallace [email protected] for his help in tracking down Maria van Langedyck's family and putting my feet on the right path. He shared with me Cy Johnson's research notes from the late 1970s. Without these and Cy's hard work and dedication I probably would never have found Maria's parents in New Amsterdam, where they were hiding in plain sight. Jesse very kindly took time out of his very busy schedule to dig these records out and share them with me.

    Special thanks also go to Donna Ristenbatt [email protected] who helped me track down Maria van Langedyck's brothers and sisters and compile a family line for them and their descendants. Together we sorted out many knotty problems, especially for the Masten families, Maria's nieces and nephews.

    Dorothy A. Koenig [email protected] also deserves special thanks. It was she who pointed out to me that Cornelis' 1651 notarial acte was probably an official record of some sort in the first place. She also gave me special impetus by telling me some things were probably not meant to be found. Dr. Gehring came up with the microfilm number two days later. Dorothy is a fount of knowledge about the early days of New Netherland and publishes a well-respected quarterly magazine on the subject, "New Netherland Connections."

    Thanks also to thank Robert E. Wynkoop [email protected] for the articles on Ned Wynkoop that he's sent me over the past year or so and the many references he's found in local newspapers. Bob is descended from one of Ned's sons, Harman H. Wynkoop and maintains a lively interest in anything to do with the Wynkoop family. He's piqued my interest in his grandfather and his exploits during the Spanish-American War and has helped me put together a genealogy chart for his family line which continues to grow as we speak.

    Also deserving of thanks is Howard Swain [email protected] who is always there for me whenever I have a particularly thorny problem to solve. Howard has given me invaluable assistance in solving a variety of research questions. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated his help and sense of humor.

    Robert Protzmann [email protected] has given freely of his time and expertise whenever I need clarification on a difficult research question. Bob sent me copies of the Castello Plan Map and Key which pinpointed Jan Jansen van Langedyck's residence in New York City in the late 1600s. He knows more than almost anybody I know about early Dutch Silversmiths, an interest we share as a result of my interest in Benjamin Wynkoop and his descendants.

    I'd like to thank Robert M. Wynkoop [email protected] who finally managed to pinpoint a dimly remembered family story from my family's past and bring it sharply into focus. I refer to the infamous Wynekoop murder case from 1933. My dad always talked about "Great Aunt Alice" in vivid terms, so I assumed she was a member of my father's family. (It turns out she's a fifth cousin by marriage.) Bob's mention of this incident and a chance remark about the African-American Wynkoops, a subject I'd been researching quietly on the side, rekindled my interest and has since led to uncovering a fair amount of material on both subjects.

    Thanks also to Tom Wilbur [email protected] who shared with me the results of his research into the Ohio Wynkoops and pointed out a particularly large mistake in Richard Wynkoop's 1904 edition of Wynkoop Genealogy, which could have led a researcher seriously astray and wasted months of research time. Tom has done extensive research on William M. Wynkoop's family and is always looking for more information.

    I'd also like to thank Gene Fossey [email protected] who sent me important information on the birthplace of Cornelius Evertsz. Wynkoop as well as the name of another researcher who had also been digging into the Wynkoop family past. This information is what eventually led me to the "Wynkoop Holy Grail" in the first place. Gene also sent me a copy of book excerpt that I had never seen before.

    Thanks also to Sharon Orahood Lyell [email protected] who shared with me copies of her precious family photographs and details of her family line. She has very graciously consented to my posting them here in the family portrait gallery.

    My heartfelt thanks go to Harry Macy, Editor of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record for his permission to reprint William J. Hoffman's articles on the Wynkoop Coat of Arms. These are seminal articles on early Wynkoop history in the Netherlands. This website would be poorer without them.

    I'd especially like to thank my father, Raymond Wynkoop, who passed away in 1981, for instilling in me a life long interest in the Wynkoop family. He may be gone, but his influence lives on and can be found in everything I do. I miss you Dad.

    I'd also like to thank my brother, Geoff, [email protected] for finding Tracy's website in the first place and setting my feet on this family history quest. I'd also like to thank him for loaning me his E-mail address for so long! Life would have been next to impossible without it. Thanks, Geoff.

    Last, but certainly not least of all, I'd like to thank my son, John [email protected]. My life would be so much poorer without you.

    I'd like to apologize if I've left anyone out. I've been helped by so many people down the line. I couldn't have done it without you.

    Many thanks to each and everyone of you. May you all find what you are looking for.

    Chris

Created February 5, 1999; Revised July 6, 2006
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Copyright © 1999, 2001-2006 by Christopher H. Wynkoop, All Rights Reserved

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