Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay
Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Friday, May 16, 2014

Brouwer Genealogy Database Update

As of this morning the Brouwer Genealogy Database website has been updated. The site now contains data on over 45,000 individuals.

In addition the Brewer Families of New England website has also been updated. The later includes a new Search feature that I had hoped to also include with the update to the Brouwer Genealogy Database but was unable to do so. On the Brewer of New England site the Search feature can be found on the menu bar just below the title bar. Give it a try, it's a pretty nice feature. Try a search for, say, "John Brewer." The new Search feature is very efficient at helping to identify the exact John Brewer who you might be looking for. I was able to include the Search with the New England Brewers site because the entire site is relatively small. However, when I attempted the same with the Brouwer Genealogy Database site, the file that is created (by Second Site) to conduct the search, is over 5mb in size. It's this size only because of the large amount of data that is included on the Brouwer Genealogy Database. I use RootsWeb's Free Pages to host the Brouwer Genealogy Database website and their limit on the size of any one individual file is 1mb. Therefore, the file that is needed to run the Search feature cannot be uploaded. It's too large and that's too bad. I can use it home on the edition I have on my own computer, and it really is useful for finding a specific person, especially when that person has a common name, like John Brewer. So, with the Brouwer Genealogy Database, the best method for locating an individual will still have to involve using either the Master Index or Surname Index pages.

The Adam Brouwer DNA Page has been updated to include the new haplogroup identifications as used by Family Tree DNA. I did not have the opportunity to do this with the Jan Brouwer DNA Page. That will have to be done with a future update.We do have one new addition to the Adam Brouwer Group. Kit #303393 (at the bottom of the table) belongs to an participant who matches the other known descendants of Adam Brouwer on 34 of 37 markers (in five cases) and 33 of 37 markers (in eleven cases). He also has three Y-STR values that are unique to him. The participant does not have the surname Brouwer (Brower, Brewer, Bruer, etc.), however and without going into detail, he is aware that he was adopted, and it is hopeful that this testing will eventually help lead him to his genetic paternal ancestry. (Note: we currently do not know his ancestry back to Adam Brouwer, and in fact we can not say with absolute certainty that he is a descendant of Adam Brouwer, based on what is known as of now).

Also, the Internet Archive "Way Back Machine" has picked up the Brouwer Genealogy Database. Actually they had done so back in 2009, I was just unaware of it until recently. Enter the url - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brouwergenealogydata/index.htm in the Way Back Machine field and you will be taken to a page which will give you a calendar with the dates on which Internet Archive took a "snapshot" of the site. It was last saved on October 25, 2013, and had first been saved on May 24, 2009. In total there are nine views of past editions. Hopefully they will continue taking periodic snapshots, so that when the day comes that the RootsWeb Free Pages site disappears, there will still be an archived, last version available for future Brouwer researchers to use.

Francis Guy (1760-1820) Winter Scene in Brooklyn (ca. 1819-20) (From Google Art Project via Brooklyn Museum)
BGB 416

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