Georges Jean Rapareillet, AKA Joris Jan Rapalje - Death

There is a section in the About which i think is quoting Stoutenburgh 1902 that he "lived the rest of his life" at Wale bocht, "where the present USMC hospital in Brooklyn standsand also included the land between Nostrand and Grand avenues."

Any NYers that can confirm that location description would match “Wallabout Bay, New York, USA”?

If so do we use the current version of the name or "Wale bocht, Nieuw Nederland"?

New Yorker here. I would have to look it up though - there's a site called "forgotten New York" that may be able to confirm a lot of the old place names.

Brooklyn "is" on Long Island. Genealogists seem to disagree on " as it was then" versus "what we call it now" due to GPS coordinates stored in the database. Personally I prefer "as it was then" only in English. If a burial location is known that could accommodate the GPS issue.

Hope this helps.

Also you need to check the date when the Dutch cleared out. 1664 could well be province of New York. Breukelen was a village "on" Long Island in what is now called the borough of Brooklyn, county of Kings, city of New York. Amazing what I remember from 3rd grade.

Now unfortunately my memory was right - 1664 is the year New Amsterdam became New York.

It will be much easier if he did die in 1662, as by then apparently he had an opulent townhouse closer to the island of the Manahattas than the Brooklyn Naval Yard.

What is now Brooklyn Heights was then the village of

Brooklyn: as "Breuckelen" in 1646, after the town now spelled "Breukelen", Netherlands

saw this today:
http://thehistorybox.com/factual_first/1600s_table_of_contents.html

"It appears that on March 18, 1662, an effort was made toward a settlement. On that date Jan Joris Rapelje, Teunis Gysbert (Bogaert), Coneils Jacobsen, Hendrick Sweers, Michael Hans (Bergen), and Jan Jans (Bergen), made a request of the Directors and Governor for "the grant of a parcel of free (unoccupied) woodland, situated in the rear of Joris Rapelje, next to the Old Bay road." This was granted to them, provided that they placed their dwellings "within one or the other concentration, which would suit them best, but not to make a hamlet." By this they obtained twenty morgens (about forty acres) apiece at Bedford. * (b.d.e.9/25/1887)"

I wonder where exactly the Old Bay Road was?

The Brooklyn Naval Yard has been repurposed as a small business incubator, including a partnership of cartographers. I believe their work is the current exhibit in fact.

I'm trying to remember where Bergen Street begins; close to the East River I think.

So the date of death is likely a "between" date (after March 18 1662 and before .....)

Any signs of a will, probate records, burial records? There's a burial in the Flatbush Cemetery ?

To quote myself (talk about an unreliable source!):

"Wikipedia gives the date as 21st Feb 1662/63 and location as Breuckelen, New Netherland."

I have been thinking about the odd presentation of the date.
I checked the Talk tab on Wikipedia but there are no notes which might explain. The reference is to http://www.longislandsurnames.com/ but following the hyperlink just hits a pay wall, as does the hyperlink in our About. So i did some "research" using the site's search filter...

There are about 50 files for Joris and of the ones i have checked his death varies between 1662 and 1665. What sources are these people quoting, i hear you ask, well the best reference file i have seen so far quotes ... wait for it ... Ancestry.com :(

If i feel depressed later i may all 50 files to see if there is a needle in that haystack.

Anyway back to Wiki, "...21st Feb 1662/63..." i am thinking this is trying to convey that there is a specific documentary reference to Joris on 21.02.1662 and that there is also a specific reference to him being dead in 1663, so i think we should us the Geni Between function for his death between those two dates.

cross posting now :)

thinking also about the location.

You have changed it in the past few days to "Breuckelen, Long Island, New Netherland".

Apart from the odd mix of Dutch and English i think that it loses a lot of meaning if a Geni user viewing the profile has no background knowledge.

I think the API location “Brooklyn, NY, USA” makes more sense as anyone with enough tech savvy to visit a Geni profile will know where Brooklyn is and then the About section can list authentic names as well as mention the likely location as specifically Wallabout / Wale bocht.

Alex - I lived in (current day) Brooklyn a number of years, and all the locations you've been talking about were in my "walk" radius. In addition it was a mandatory social studies module for History of New York. I object to the current day designation, it would be deceptive if I was visiting the actual sites mentioned. Brooklyn was it's own municipality until well into the 19th century - did you know that? How would you from a location given in modern day terms?

Also NYC under Dutch rule did not, I believe, have an official language (you could check). It was almost as multi cultural then as now. Look at the map for the villages at this end of Long Island for what the Dutch language version was for LI if you like.

And I'll give you another example from (one of my) direct ancestors in New Netherlands. He was perhaps of Danish origin and "said to have been" an original proprietor of the settlement of Newtown, which is "between" current day Long Island City, borough of Queens - also on Long Island. Newtown doesn't exist anymore - but I "certainly" want to know where it was. And Queens is not going to tell me.

"...mandatory social studies module for History of New York", for who, every American school child, or just the ones in NY state? What about the other 7 billion people on the planet?

We don't actually know where Joris died, the two contenders are Wale bocht and Breuckelen, as i understand it both of these locations are physically within the current borough of Brooklyn so why is it not an accurate statement to say that he died in Brooklyn, NY, USA?

You are probably right about Nuiew Nederland not having an official language but i think that attributing that to multiculturalism is revisionist thinking. The colony was a commercial settlement under control off the WIC which operated under Dutch law so if anything Dutch was the "official language".

The English invaded on August 27, 1664 so Dutch still seems the most appropriate language for 1662/1663 if you want to use an archaic nomenclature.

Similarly you've used "Spanish Netherlands" for his birth location, which assumes the average Geni user visiting the profile has previous historical understanding oof European politics.

What is the justification for English in this case?

Walon = Bas Payis espagnols
French = Pays-Bas espagnols
Dutch = Spaanse Nederlanden
Spanish = Países Bajos españoles

Any of which makes more sense than English if we want accurate historical place names instead of "Valenciennes, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France".

- So your concern is that someone know where it is today? The burial location covers it.

- We "do" have a good idea where he likely died; he had removed from his property at Whale's Bay to a townhouse in what is now:

Location: Brooklyn Heights
City: New York
County: Kings
State: New York
Country: USA

But that's not what it was "then." Then in was the village of Breuckelen, New Netherland Colony.

Long Island is a geographic designation, not a municipality marker, should probably be removed.

We are hoping to have different language modules so I use English rather than get it wrong in a different language.

Alex - it's not archaic, it's anachronistic to use the current locations for historic places. The modern location can go in the overview. But if we're record based as close to primary as we can get then the location reflects that record. In an ideal world we'll have more screens to cover these difficulties, meanwhile make do and clarify in overview.

For example, all the records I've obtained so far on my Eastern European ancestors show "as it was then." The modern counties didn't exist.

I think my preference is for name which is meaningful and relevant for a modern reader.

You mention now Whale's Bay, are you translating Wale bocht and capitalising it? I Googled it but the only match is in Antarctica.

isn't it now Wallabout a "Neighborhoods in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn" why would that be wrong to use instead of a made up name?

I am similarly confused by all the web sites out there which record that the settlers arrived on a ship called the Unity! The WIC had no ship by that name so why do so many insist on translating the ship's actual name Eendracht? Offer a translation sure but why replace the entire name as if it never existed?

I feel like i have gone in a circle but i shall try one last comment.
I would prefer an accurate old name but it would be meaningless to most people unless they have background info. If i look now at your East European ancestors the place names will have no value at all unless i spend time researching them, which i would if i was interested but wont because i am not and so they will remain meaningless.
A modern name will be less accurate but it will give a modern user a good starting point for further reading instead of putting that same user behind the 8 ball from the start.

PS: whale's in the harbour even this year!
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/07/humpback_whale_spotted...
So i think pretty safe to assume Joris could sit on his front porch and watch whales swimming in front of his house

What is so difficult about "Russia"' as a country name when that it what the area was called in English on the records I have?

I told you; we are expecting / hoping for multi language screens, so that will be addressed.

I also told you. I have New Netherland colony ancestry. I am interested in seeing the names " as they were then" - not what the modern names are, that's GPS & covered in the burial site.

He did not die at Walloon's Bay, named for the " Walloon" residents, not for the whales, who were in fact a bit further north and more out to sea then the shallow waters around the island. Although on a clear day you can in fact see pretty far from the tips of Brooklyn - doubt they spotted any whales though. Maybe off the villages of Amagansett and Montauk on the other end of Long Island, now the county of Suffolk, but that county did not exist in 1662-1664. And neither did the neighborhood we now call
Brooklyn Heights (they have a bridge for sale I hear ....),

NB - Whale's Bay was me being cheeky. Mike had already clarified the naming as being from the Walloon settlement. Which is an archaic term I think and may be only applicable to those who settled in America, I'm not sure. You'd have to check EuRoLux history.

Whether the place is named for whales or Walloons doesn't change the validity of the points i was making, not sure where i got the whale connection from, and where then is this "Whale Bay" you mention?

Fair enough, i missed the joke completely.
Mike stated the name was for the Walloons (it's an accurate term not restricted to America) and i _mistakenly_ corrected him, no one picked me up on it until just now so i had continued with the assumption.

Russia is not complicated at all but your post "...records I've obtained so far on my Eastern European ancestors show "as it was then." The modern counties didn't exist." implied something more complex than "Russia", which by the by obviously does exist and anyone viewing those profiles will assume your ancestors are from that country rather than one of the modern countries that didn't exist... which by definition cannot be in "Russia" as it is currently defined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#mediaviewer/File:Russian_Federa...

We don't know exactly where in Russia, Alex. What we thought we knew was wrong (or rather, is now proven to have not been his birth location).

The article i posted described a whale in Raritan Bay which is south not "a bit further north and more out to sea", it does look like it would be deeper water.

You're really going to have trouble trying to argue with someone who got a 99 in third grade social studies for the history of the city of New York on this. :)

You're right, I should probably update ggf's profile to the more accurate "somewhere in the Pale."

Sorry but you seem to be moving the goal posts :)

If a hypothetical profile states the persons birth place as Russia then any hypothetical Geni user (aside from the manager) will view that profile and assume the person was born (somewhere) within the present boundaries of the nation named Russia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia

No one is going to look at this hypothetical profile and think "this person might have been born in a modern country that didn't exist back then", they will assume he was born in present day Russia.

Well first i need to see your grade paper and then i'll need to see your teacher's qualifications because Google Maps is pretty bloody clear on the fact that Raritan Bay is south and west of Brooklyn.