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Origins · Dutch Heritage
From Aten to Van Dyke: Four Generations Who Built New Amsterdam
1615–1668
Before there was New York, there was New Amsterdam. Before the Van Dyke name appeared in American records, there were the Atens—Dutch settlers who arrived in the earliest days of the colony, when Manhattan was still wilderness and fort walls were being raised against an uncertain frontier.
The story of this family’s name transformation—from Aten to Auten to Van Dyke—mirrors the larger transformation of Dutch New Netherland into English New York. It’s a story of adaptation, of language changing hands, of patronymic traditions giving way to fixed surnames in a new world.
1615–1700 · Netherlands → USA
The patriarch. Born in the Netherlands around 1615, Adriaen arrived in New Amsterdam circa 1651 from Doesburg, Holland. He settled at Flatbush on Long Island, where he served as constable in 1665. His name appears on rate sheets throughout the 1670s-1690s, marking him as a property owner and established colonist.
Adriaen’s name tells a story: “Hendrickse” means “son of Hendrick”—a patronymic in the Dutch tradition, not a fixed surname. His children would carry the pattern forward: Jan Adriansz (“Jan, son of Adriaen”), continuing a naming system that would eventually give way to permanent family names.
1641–1708 · Netherlands → USA
Born in the Netherlands in 1641, Geertje represents the Dutch women who crossed the Atlantic to build families in the New World. Her patronymic “Harmens” marks her as the daughter of Harmen, following the same tradition that shaped Adriaen’s name.
She died in 1708 in what was by then English-controlled New York, having witnessed the 1664 conquest and the transformation of her Dutch colony into an English possession. Yet Dutch language, Dutch Reformed churches, and Dutch customs persisted for generations.
1668–1750 · Netherlands → USA
The youngest of the Dutch immigrants in this line, Margaret was born in 1668—just four years after the English conquest. She may have been born in the Netherlands and brought to the colony as an infant, or born in New Netherland itself during those final years of Dutch control.
Her surname “van Veghte” carries the topographic marker “van” (from/of), indicating ancestral origin from a place called Veghte. Unlike patronymics, this type of name was more stable across generations—a hint of the surname system that would eventually dominate.
These three Dutch immigrants—spanning 1615 to 1668—all connect to Lenore Arnett Young’s family tree, creating a rich tapestry of Dutch colonial heritage that flowed through her ancestors and into the 20th century.
Their arrival dates—1615, 1641, 1668—mark the full span of Dutch New Netherland, from early settlement through the English conquest and beyond.
In 17th-century Netherlands, most people didn’t have fixed surnames. Instead, they used patronymics—names derived from their father’s first name. Each generation created new “surnames” based on the pattern:
Hendrick → son Adriaen Hendrickse (“son of Hendrick”)
Adriaen → son Jan Adriansz (“son of Adriaen”)
After the English conquest of 1664, Dutch names began to shift. Our lineage shows the transformation clearly:
By 1709, the family had adopted “VanDyke” as a fixed surname. The shift from patronymic (Hendrickse, Adriansz) to geographic surname (Van Dyke—“from the dike”) reflects both English influence and the Dutch practice of adopting place-based names.
“Van Dyke” is a topographic surname meaning “from the dike.” In the Netherlands—famous for its elaborate system of dikes to hold back the sea—this was an extremely common type of surname. It marked a family’s geographic origin, likely from a settlement near a particular dike or water control system.
The name has been spelled many ways over the centuries: VanDyke, Van Dyke, Vandyke, Van Dyck, VanDyck. The family line from Adriaen Aten eventually settled on various spellings, with “Van Dyke” (two words) becoming standard by the 19th century in the Oklahoma branch.
In 1624, the Dutch West India Company established New Netherland as a commercial venture focused on the fur trade. Thirty families were sponsored to move from the Netherlands to Manhattan, where Fort Amsterdam was being constructed at the southern tip of the island. The settlement grew slowly but steadily, attracting Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, and other European settlers seeking economic opportunity.
Adriaen Hendrickse Aten arrived in New Amsterdam around 1651, during the directorship of Petrus Stuyvesant. By this time, the colony had grown to several thousand inhabitants spread across Manhattan, Long Island, and the Hudson River valley. Adriaen settled at Flatbush (Midwout in Dutch), one of the six original towns of Brooklyn.
As constable in 1665—just one year after the English conquest—Adriaen represented law and order in a community navigating dramatic political change. The English promised to preserve Dutch property rights and religious freedom, and for the most part, they kept that promise. Dutch settlers like Adriaen continued farming, trading, and raising families in what was now an English colony.
In August 1664, four English warships arrived in New Amsterdam’s harbor. Director Stuyvesant wanted to fight, but the colonists—vastly outnumbered and facing English militia support from Long Island—pressured him to surrender. On September 6, 1664, Articles of Capitulation were signed, transferring New Netherland to English control. The colony was renamed New York in honor of the Duke of York, brother to King Charles II.
The Articles guaranteed Dutch colonists could keep their property, practice their religion (Dutch Reformed Church), and maintain their inheritance customs. For families like the Atens, daily life continued much as before—though the language of government and commerce began its slow shift from Dutch to English.
The Dutch colonial period lasted only forty years (1624–1664), but its influence on New York proved permanent:
By 1709, the family that began as “Aten” had become “Van Dyke.” Hendrick VanDyke, born in 1709, carried a name that would pass through seven more generations to reach Benjamin Franklin Van Dyke (1862–1943) of Oklahoma Territory.
Benjamin’s daughter, Ethel Claire Van Dyke (1888–1974), married Charles Wesley Arnett, and their daughter Lenore Arnett Young (1918–2018) carried the Dutch heritage forward into the 21st century—a line stretching from New Amsterdam in 1651 to modern Oklahoma, spanning nearly 400 years.
The transformation from Aten → Auten → VanDyke represents typical anglicization patterns in Dutch-American families. Records show the family used various spellings over time: Aten, Aaten, Eaton, Auten, VanDyke, Van Dyke, Vandyke, Van Dyck, VanDyck. This research includes all known variations to ensure complete lineage tracing.
The father of Hendrick VanDyke (b. 1709) is not recorded in available genealogical databases. The transition from “Auten” to “VanDyke” likely occurred with this generation, but the exact individual who made the change remains unidentified. Further research in New York colonial records may reveal this connection.
All three connected Dutch immigrants—Adriaen, Geertje, and Margaret—settled in the Long Island/Brooklyn area of New Netherland, creating a concentrated Dutch community that maintained its language and customs well into the 18th century despite English political control.