The Fulkerson Family Pages
Rachel Dircks, #5 of 9 of Dirck and Christina
Rachel Dircks was born c 1641 in New Amsterdam, New York, in Buswyck, Queens County. Rachel was the fifth of seven sisters and the fifth of the nine children of Dirck Volckertszen De Noorman and Christina Vigne. Note that Amsterdam, New York, is a small town upstate in the vicinity of Schenectady; whereas New Amsterdam was renamed New York after the English Duke of York in 1665.
Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam indicate Rachel was baptized September 8, 1641, in the presence of witnesses Abraham Isacszen Planck, Laurens Pieterszen, Adriaen Van Tienhoven, most likely by Minister Everadus Bogardus, who served there from 1633 to 1647
Minister Everardus Bogardus served the Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam from 1633 to 1647. It is likely Bogardus baptized all the children of Dirck and Christina except the last two.In 1647 Bogardus left New Amsterdam for Europe aboard The Princess, but, along with the ship and all its passengers, was lost at sea in the Bristol Channel.
Wilhelm Kieft would have been the Dutch Director-General in charge at the time of Rachel's birth. Kieft served as teh sixth Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1597 to 1647. Kieft became infamous for his attacks on the Raritan/Lenape tribes and the subsequent deterioration in relations between colonists and Native Americans that nearly resulted in the destruction of New Netherlands (see Kieft's War). With Bogardus, Kieft perished aboard The Princess, but, along with the ship and all its passengers, was lost at sea in the Bristol Channel, off the coast of Swansea, Wales, enroute to Amsterdam to defend himself against charges stemming from his attacks. Rev. Bogardus, who perished with him on the Princess, was to have testified against him.
This portrait, A Young Woman Wearing Pearls, from the 1600s Emilian School (Bolognese), depicts a woman who lived in the era of our ancestor. No doubt, as a woman of means, her wardrobe was likely much more sophisticated than that of a child grown up on the frontier in the New World of the Dutch colony in New York.
