The Fulkerson Family Pages
The Vigne Family, Ancestry of Christine, Walloon Wife of Dirck de Noorman
Christine is recorded in genealogies as having been born in 1610, 1612, or as late as 1615, but all genealogies claim she was born in the community of Saint-Waast (named for St. Vedastus) of Valenciennes.
Heritage of Christine Vigne
The Vigne family began their journey to the New World from their home in Valenciennes, France. Based on baptismal records, genealogists have concluded with certainty the Vignes were a family of Protestant Walloons.
In addition to Christine, her parents Guillame and Adrienne Vigne had two other daughters, Maria and Rachel.
Most genealogists have reported Guillaume and Adrienne Vigne, along with daughters Christine, Maria, and Rachel, came to the New Netherland colony aboard the Nieu Nederlandt, commanded by Cornelis Jacobsen Mey, sailing from Texel, an island off the northern coast of Holland, lying almost due north of Amsterdam. These Walloons arrived at the mouth of the Hudson River in May of 1623.
The original Company plan was to send only five or six men to set up a fur trading post on Manhattan Island. The addition of the Walloon families may have been a late change to the plans.
Perhaps the Walloon families volunteered when they heard of the colonization plans. There was no land available to them to settle in Holland - the Dutch had run out of land and had just started to reclaim land from the sea.
But another story in Transactions of the Albany Institute #12 says the Nieu Nederlandt definitely arrived by May of 1623, having sailed out of Texel, not Amsterdam, as reported in the Rapalje story, citing documentation of Jesse de Forest's approval to emigrate in 1622.
All three daughters are believed to have been born prior to the family's voyage to New Amsterdam. Christine and Maria, the oldest and second-oldest, were probably born about 1610 and 1613, respectively.
Baptismal records for daughters of the Vignes are often referenced as being at the Walloon Church in Leiden, Netherlands, today an almost three-hour drive from Valenciennes. Other Vigne children who were baptized at the church but who do not appear in New Amsterdam records were Sara, Abraham, and possibly a first Rachel, who may have died in infancy. The youngest surviving daughter, Rachel, was baptized on March 16, 1623.
The Vignes sailed to America on the Nieu Nederlandt in April of 1624, and began their farm - one of the first six on Manhattan Island - by 1625. Christine was aged between ten and fourteen years old when she arrived in the colony.
Speculation has been Christine's grandfather, Guillaume's father, may have been the Reverend Jean de la Vigne b. 1560 (husband of Jeanne de la Vigne b. 1560), a minister born in Valenciennes who was the Walloon Domine from 1585-1622 in Amsterdam, Holland.
In 1610, Jean de la Vigne would have been fifty years old. Had Jean lived in Valenciennes, at age 8 he would likely have witnessed the public execution of eighty-four Huegenots in the town square there. As a young boy, Christine's father Guillaume may have heard stories of this event from his father.
Christine's father Guillame de la Vigne is believed by some genealogies to have been born abt 1580 in Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Manche, in Lower Normandy, France. This is likely a mistake, since most other genealogists place Guilluame as having been born somewhere in Valenciennes, today a four hours' drive by car from Saint-Vaast- la-Hougue. It is understandable for there to be confusion as to Guillame's birthplace, because many areas in this part of France had been named in some manifestation of the moniker of the area's revered Catholic saint, Saint Waast (a.k.a. St. Vaast, St. Vedast, and St. Vedastus).
The name Vigne means vine in French, implying an association with vineyards. Vigne is pronounced VIN-YEH , with neither syllable accented. A cuvelier was a barrel-maker. Based on name meanings, seems the families may have been in some way involved in wine making, and that Guillame and Adrienne would have made an apt match.
Christine's mother, Adrienne (Cuvellier) Vigne is thought to have been born in Valenciennes, in northern France near the current border with Belgium, about 1586-1590.
Records of some of our cousins indicate Guillaume and Adrienne were married in France in 1608. At the time of their marriage in 1608 or 1610, Guillame would have been 28 to 30 years old, and Adrienne would have been between 18 and 22.
Guillame or Ghislain or Wilhelm--What Was Christine's Father's Name?
Guillame or Ghislain is indicated on some geneaologies to have been a son of Jean de la Vigne and Jeanne de la Vigne.
There has been debate as to whether Christine's father's name actually was Guillaume Vigne--some geneaologies list his name as having been Ghislain de la Vigne. Other genealogies list Christine's father's name as having been William. It is unknown whether Ghislain and Guillame may have been two separate people, perhaps brothers. Guillame (Ghislain) may have been named after the Frankish Saint Ghislain, who died October 9, 680 AD, and whose name and legend were well-known and beloved in the Valencienne region.
The first three spellings of Guillaume's name in those church records appear to give a soft-G pronunciation, as though his original French name were 'Ghislain' (zheez-len). Adherents of this theory say he was named after the Catholic Saint Ghislain (who was from the region of Valenciennes), but totally overlook the fact that the Vignes were Protestant and had fled from Catholic persecution. Of course, the culture of the area might have continued a veneration of the saint, in spite of all the conflict between the denominations, so there's no way to know for certain.
The later spellings -- possibly written after the church got to know him better -- indicate his given name was pronounced with a hard G. Further, two posthumous legal documents (from 1639 and 1658) used a hard G to spell his name as 'Gulyn.'
Perhaps his French Walloon name was Guillaume, and his nearest corresponding Dutch name was something like Guillain. Other known spellings of that Dutch name included Guiliam, Guiliame, Guillam, Guillaum, Guilliam, Guilliaem, Guilliame and Guillian. [SOURCE: Dictionary of Flemish First Names with Translation in Latin & French] Another spelling of his name, 'Guleyn,' has appeared in genealogical records since 1856, but is not known to have originated in the 1600s. Historian John H. Innes surmised in his 1902 "New Amsterdam And Its People" that Guillaume's acquaintances simply called him the more familiar 'Willem.'
Guillume died April 30, 1632 in New Amsterdam. His two oldest daughters had already married by that time, Christina to Dirck Volckertszen, and Maria to Jan Roos. Guillame left his widow Adrienne with two minor children.
In that same year, 1664, Sarah Rapalje, born 9 June 1625 (the first child born in New Netherland), located in the area and became one of Dirck's neighbors. Some generations beyond the establishment of the household of Dirck and Christine, the Rapalje family would become associated with the Fulkerson line with the marriage between Aeltje Rapalje and Joseph Volckerts in New Jersey.
Sarah Rapalje's husband, Teunis Guysbert Bogart, under the new British administration, patented some adjoining land that had been owned by Sarah's first husband Hans Hansen Bergen.
The name Willcocks may refer to William Cock, who, along with Dirck's wife, testified in a case of slander noted in settlement records.
NYHM: "Richard Nicolls, Esq. Whereas there was a patent or groundbrief heretofore granted by the Dutch Governor William Kieft unto Hans Hansen, bearing date the 30th day of March, 1647, for a certain parcel of land lying and being in the West Riding of Yorkshire upon Long Island, within the Kill then commonly called Jorse Rapalye's Kill,
whose bounds did stretch along by the said Jorse Rapalye's House northeast and by east unto the Plantation then appertaining to Lambert Huberts
Died Feb. 21, 1663
Bushwick Junction
Queens County
New York, USA
Today the wine-making traditions of the Valenciennes region continue at the Fulkerson Winery in the Fingerlakes Region of New York.
Why Did the Vignes Come to New Netherlands?
It is possible that Adrienne and Guillaume may have had advance information about the New Netherlands region, according to the "New Netherlands Connections" published by Dorothy A. Koenig:
"Nancy Fulkerson Hill wrote to the Algemeen Rijksarchief in the Hague [to find] whatever documents exist in The Netherlands about the ship Tijger [Tiger] known to be in New Netherland waters in 1614 under the command of Adriaen Block...[they referred her] to notarial documents held by the Gemeentearchief in Amsterdam."
"Pim Nieuwenhuis investigated these notarial documents only to discover that they had already been translated into English and published in 1959 by the City of Amsterdam Press under the title, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson by Simon Hart ..."
On page 22 Dr. Hart asks rhetorically, Who were the merchants in the [Van Tweenhuysen Company] which sent Adriaen Block on his voyages? Besides Arnout Vogels and Francoys Pelgrom, there were Leonard, Paulus and Steffan Pelgrom -- brothers of Francoys ... [The] four Pelgrom brothers were children of Gheeraert Pelgrom ...[whose] first wife Anthonia van Dijcke died...[and who]... remarried to Susanna Cuvelier. From this marriage Paulus and Steffan Pelgrom were born..."
If Adrienne Cuvelier was related to Susanna Cuvelier, she and Guillaume could have had first-hand information about the DWIC's New Netherland settlement plans through her relatives.
How Did They Travel?
The Vignes are believed to have sailed from Holland in April of 1624 on the Nieuw Nederlandt [or possibly on the Eendracht, which means "Unity"].
Some of the other colonists, including Joris Janszen Rapaelje, were also from Valenciennes.
The Vignes had three daughters, Christina, Maria and Rachel, when they sailed to America. Most of the 30 families must have had children, as the total number of new colonists was about 120.
Upon reaching the Hudson River in mid-May, they found a French ship that was trying to claim the territory for the king of France. With the help of a smaller Dutch ship that arrived from the West Indies, they not-politely aimed their cannons and escorted the French ship out to sea. Cornelis May, captain of the Nieuw Nederlandt, became the first Director of the New Netherlands colony.
