The Grandsons of Adam Brouwer: Introduction, (1) Adam Brouwer, Sources, Genetic Genealogy

 Note: Whenever individuals in the direct male line of descendants of Adam Brouwer of Gowanus, L. I. are mentioned in this series of posts, they will be referred to with a number preceding their name. This number identifies each individual found on the outline chart found in the Prelude post to this series published on September 24, 2022. 

Before engaging the 25 known individual grandsons of (1) Adam Brouwer we will first very briefly review their direct known ancestors, i.e. their parents and grandparents. More details on these individuals can be found within the posts of this website and elsewhere. The purpose of this review is to summarize the important facts, dates and places concerning Adam Brouwer and his sons; to introduce any material found over the previous ten years since the original profiles were published; and to consider records found that may pertain to Adam Brouwer's sons, or may pertain to others of the same name. We also want to provide a perspective on place and time, i.e. when and where did these ancestors live.

(1) Adam Brouwer was most certainly born during the decade of 1610 to 1620. An exact date or record of his birth or of a baptism has yet to be discovered or identified. The identity of his parents is not known. After serving as a soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil he came to New Amsterdam where he married Magdalena Verdon, daughter of Jacob Verdon and Maria Thomase Badie, on 21 March 1645 as recorded by the Reformed Dutch Church at New Amsterdam. The marriage record states that he was born in Köln, which is present day Cologne in Germany. At the time that Adam Brouwer was born Cologne was an independent city within the Holy Roman Empire. Adam Brouwer and Magdalena Verdon had fourteen children born between the years 1646 and 1672. Their eldest son (2) Pieter Brouwer was 25 years old when their youngest son (8) Nicholas Brouwer was born. Soon after his marriage Adam Brouwer settled at Gowanus, Long Island, directly across the East River from New Amsterdam. He built and operated a grist mill, and remained there is entire life. Having said that, the 1678 list of "Estates of the Inhabitants of Newtowne, Long Island," includes an "Adam Bruer," with one head and two cows. As suggested by William J. Hoffman in "Brouwer Beginnings," it is possible that Adam owned property at Newtown, but did not live there. Adam's son (6) Adam Brouwer would have only been age 16 in 1678. In August 1670 he was granted a pass to travel aboard the ship Fort Albany, owned by Jacque Cousseau, bound for England and Amsterdam. Adam Brouwer died between 22 January 1692 (the date of his will) and 21 March 1692 (the date his will was proved) presumably at Gowanus. There is no extant record of his death nor of a burial in the records of the Reformed Dutch Church at either New York (formerly New Amsterdam) or in the records of the Brooklyn or Flatbush churches. Like most individuals during this time, he was likely buried on his own property at some certain location set aside for burials. It is likely that he was somewhere between the ages of 72 and 82 when he died. Magdalena Verdon, who according to her marriage record was born in New Netherland (perhaps around 1627), outlived her husband. The last known record of her is dated 22 Jan 1699 when she was a witness/sponsor at the baptism of her granddaughter Engeltje Pieterse Hendricksen, daughter of her daughter Rachel Brouwer and her husband Pieter Hendrickszen. Adam and Magdalena's lives spanned the bulk of the years of the 1600s and during the majority of that time they were found at Gowanus, Long Island.

(1) Adam Brouwer's seven sons, (2) Pieter, (3) Matthys, (4) Willem, (5) Jacob, (6) Adam, (7) Abraham and (8) Nicholas were born between the years 1646 and 1672. All lived into adulthood, married, and left children. There are records of baptisms, recorded by the New Amsterdam/New York Reformed Dutch Church for five of the seven sons. Baptism records have not been found for the sons (5) Jacob and (7) Abraham. They may have been baptized at the RDC in Brooklyn whose surviving records are incomplete. Jacob and Abraham, along with their five brothers, are mentioned as sons in their father's 1692 will. There are no surviving records of death or burial for any of (1) Adam Brouwer's seven sons. No wills or other records of estate settlements have been found for any of the seven sons. Collectively, their 25 sons were born between the years of about 1673 and 1707. Assuming an age of 18 for reaching adulthood, they would have come of age between 1691 and 1725. Most would have died during the colonial period, but at least two, (25) Pieter and (27) Jeury are known to have lived into the years of the American Revolutionary War. 

Sources: The earliest published account of Adam Brouwer and his sons is credited to Teunis G. Bergen and is found in Register in Alphabetical Order, of the Earliest Settlers of Kings County, Long Island, N. Y., From It's First Settlement by Europeans to 1700 and published in 1881 (pages 51-55). This early account is chock-full of errors and rather than spend time on them here I will refer readers to the post of April 23, 2012. It is flawed enough that I would recommend avoiding T. G. Bergen's account of Adam Brouwer's family altogether. The highly regarded genealogist William J. Hoffman published "Brouwer Beginnings," in a series of pieces in The American Genealogist in 1947 and 1948 (volumes 23, no. 4 thru 24, no. 3). Hoffman's account remains the most complete and accurate reference for the first three generations of Adam Brouwer's descendants and will be mentioned frequently when we cover Adam Brouwer's grandsons individually. With that in mind, it must still be mentioned that there are errors, including errors of omission in Hoffman's work and we'll point them out when warranted. Please see the post of May 22, 2012 for more on Hoffman's other articles featuring Adam Brouwer's descendants. I have used numerous other sources and as they can be found mentioned within the pages of this website and in more detail on the Brouwer Genealogy Database website, I will largely not take the time to repeat them in this series of posts. The exceptions will be when some new information is introduced. So, please consult the Brouwer Genealogy Database if you desire detailed citations. 

Genetic genealogy: To date there are 59 direct male descendants of (1) Adam Brouwer who have participated in Y-DNA testing with the Brewer DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA. Thirty-two of the participants have taken advanced Y-DNA tests in the form of either FTDNA's original Big Y test or the newer Big Y-700 test. Twenty-four of the participants have joined in for further analysis of their Y-DNA test results with the independent company YFull. Adam Brouwer's descendants, and therefore Adam Brouwer himself, can be identified on the larger Y-Tree by the SNP E-Y19643. All of the individuals found on this page of the much larger Y-Tree are genetic descendants of Adam Brouwer. Participants joining the Brewer DNA Project who take the basic STR marker Y-DNA test and receive a predicted haplogroup of E-M35 from FTDNA's analysis, can assume that they are descendants of Adam Brouwer only if their various STR marker values match with those of the known descendants of Adam Brouwer who have already been tested. A predicted haplogroup of E-M35 does not in itself identify the tested individual as a certain descendant of Adam Brouwer. In fact the Project has two members who are identified by E-M35, but are not descendants of Adam Brouwer. The reason being, their STR marker values do not match up with those of the known descendants of Adam Brouwer. Those interested in augmenting their traditional genealogical research with genetic genealogy are encouraged to contact and join the Brewer DNA Project. Those who have already joined and taken the basic Y-DNA STR marker test are encouraged to upgrade to the BigY-700 test.

Transcription of Adam Brouwer's Will

Profile of Adam Brouwer on the BGD website. Includes complete source citations.

Brief posts reviewing each of (1) Adam Brouwer's seven sons will follow.

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