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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The Grandsons of Adam Brouwer: Prelude

 Back in mid 2012 I posted notes, summaries, profiles, whatever you wish to call them, on Adam Brouwer and his fourteen children, all of whom had children of their own. My intention back then was then to start on the grandchildren and post notes on each of them. But then everything else got in the way including side trips exploring the other Brouwers of New Netherland (Jan Brouwer of Flatlands and Willem Brouwer of Beverwijck) and then even further afield into the Brewer families of New England and Hubert Brower the immigrant to Philadelphia, and then onto the Brewer families who originated in the colonies of the American southeast. This blog site was originally intended to focus on Adam Brouwer of Gowanus, L. I. and his descendants, and so now, it's time to do just that.

As Adam Brouwer researchers and descendants know, Adam Brouwer and his wife, Magdalena Verdon had fourteen children. [I do not count the sometimes supposed son Daniel who was baptized in the New York Reformed Dutch Church on 7 May 1678 with the parents listed as Adam Brouwer and Aeltje Van der Beek in the church register of baptisms. I don't think he was a child of either Adam or Aeltje, who is Adam's wife's half-sister]. Of the fourteen, seven were sons and seven were daughters. These fourteen children in turn were parents to, by my count, 96 known grandchildren. For now I am only going to focus on the grandsons who carry on the Brouwer surname, that is to say, the sons of Adam Brouwer's seven sons, Pieter, Matthys, Willem, Jacob, Adam, Abraham and Nicholas. What follows is a numbered outline of sorts naming and numbering them (since some given names are found more than once, I will refer to these numbers in the proposed future posts). Profiles or notes that I have on each will be published here as posts in the future as time permits. It's going to take awhile, and I don't doubt that in between there will be diversions into other subjects and the like. The goal is to get this completed by next spring.

Outline:

1. Adam Brouwer

  2. Pieter Brouwer

     9. Uldrick Brouwer

    10. Abraham Brouwer

    11. Jan Brouwer

    12. Jacob Brouwer

  3. Matthys Brouwer 

    13. Peter Brouwer

    14. Samuel Brouwer

    15. Hendrick Brouwer

    16. Johannes Brouwer

  4. Willem Brouwer

    17. Adolphus Brouwer

    18. Johannes Brouwer

    19. Samuel Brouwer

  5. Jacob Brouwer

    20. Sybrandt Brouwer

    21. Jacob Brouwer

    22. Willem Brouwer

    23. Everardus Brouwer

    24. Adam Brewer

    25. Pieter Brouwer

  6. Adam Brouwer

    26. Hendrick Brouwer

  7. Abraham Brouwer

    27. Jeury Brouwer

    28. Abraham Brouwer

  8. Nicholas Brouwer

    29. Adolphus Brouwer

    30. Jurge Brouwer

    31. Nazareth Brouwer

    32. Cornelis Brouwer

    33. Nicholas Brouwer

By my count that is 25 known grandsons of Adam Brouwer who carry the Brouwer surname forward. It would be nice to be able to profile all 96 grandchildren, and perhaps in time that can be done, but for now it's most feasible to focus on this subset of 25 grandsons. The reason for doing this is 1) narrowing the list of grandchildren down gives me more optimism that this undertaking can be accomplished and therefore more incentive to get it done, and 2) this exercise will be of benefit to the Brewer DNA Project, which as a surname focused Y-DNA project, is limited to male descendants of Adam Brouwer. The current administrator and co-administrators of the Project believe that, largely with the help of newer advanced Y-DNA tests (the BigY-700 at FamilyTreeDNA specifically) the Project is on the verge of identifying missing links in many of the lineages of those members of the Adam Brouwer Group who are still trying to identify their complete Brouwer line back to Adam Brouwer. Some traditional genealogical data and notes, made available publicly online to all who are interested, should augment the genetic genealogical data that is being accumulated by the Brewer DNA Project.

Finally, I urge all current members of the Adam Brouwer Group at the Brewer DNA Project, to upgrade their tests to the advanced BigY-700 test. This is especially helpful for those who know with certainty their ancestral paternal line back to Adam Brouwer. Your results and matches may help those who are still seeking their connection find their way back to Adam. Please contact the administrators at the Brewer DNA Project with any questions. And of course, the Project always welcomes new members.

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"Tracing A Branch of the Brewer Families of Colonial Virginia to North Carolina and Beyond"

 David V. Brewer, a co-administrator of the Brewer DNA Project and responsible for the "Lanier-Brewer" Group has just published online his latest book of research focused on the Brewer families descended from or closely related to George Brewer of Brunswick County, Virginia. And so, in David's words as posted to the Brewer DNA Project's Activity Feed on September 5th:

"I’ve now completed a book entitled Tracing A Branch of the Brewer Families of Colonial Virginia to North Carolina and Beyond, which follows the historical path of a numerous branch of Brewers who migrated from England to Virginia in the 17th Century. That branch is identified as Haplogroup I-Y15300, subclade I-Y21524. We currently have 10 members in the Brewer DNA Project who are confirmed for this subclade through BigY/700 testing. We also have several other members who haven’t tested at the Big Y level yet probably are members of this extended family group. 

 For the most part, the book covers the period between the late 17th Century and mid-19th Century, which constitutes the primary “brick wall” era for many people with roots in the Colonial and Early American South. The record evidence suggests to me that the most recent common ancestor for those tested in subclade I-Y21524 probably was born in England or Virginia in the latter 1600’s. Specifically, the book concludes that this group probably descends from a family that lived in Surry/Sussex Counties, Virginia between the late 1600’s and early 1750’s, through men named Thomas Brewer and John Brewer and their possible father, another John Brewer. It’s sometimes asserted that the above mentioned Thomas Brewer might have been a direct descendant of John Brewer I, the so-called Ancient Planter of Jamestown, through his probable descendant Thomas Brewer of Nansemond County, Virginia. The book concludes that available record evidence doesn’t support that hypothesis but further concludes that the two lines nevertheless might be related. 

 The book follows the path of the members of subclade I-Y21524 from southside Virginia to Edgecombe and Halifax Counties, North Carolina, from there to Rowan and Surry Counties, North Carolina, and from there to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, with respect to one sub-branch, from Rowan and Surry Counties to Indiana (some via Tennessee) and from there to other midwestern states, with respect to a second sub-branch, and from Halifax County to Tennessee, then to Mississippi and later Texas, as to a third sub-branch. By the mid-19th Century, this family group had dispersed throughout the Midwest and Southern states, following a similar path to that of many Colonial Virginia families. 

The book also covers in detail several other distinct branches of the Brewer families of the Colonial and Early American South, including among others the descendants of John Brewer I of Jamestown, John Brewer I’s probable descendant Thomas Brewer of Nansemond County, William Brewer of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Nicholas Brewer of Prince George County, Virginia, John Brewer of Southampton County, Virginia, Robert Brewer of Nansemond County, Virginia, the John Brewer family of Nansemond County, Virginia, the Moses Brewer families of Halifax and Wayne Counties, North Carolina, the Joseph Brewer family of Granville/Bute/Warren Counties, North Carolina, and the Sackfield Brewer and Sackford Brewster lines in Virginia. In addition, the book considers several men that have not been broadly discussed, including one or more (possibly overlapping) men named John Brewer who, in the early 1700’s, owned land on Assamoosick Swamp, Virginia, in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, and in Prince George County, Virginia, another John Brewer from Halifax County, North Carolina, and William, John, and Robert Brewer of Martin County, North Carolina. 

 My approach was to start with the most reliable available record evidence, which almost always is found in more recent generations. This requires a reverse chronological approach. When I hit a logjam, I tried to remember four things: (1) many records have been lost or destroyed, especially from the pre-Civil War South where we are focused, but that doesn't mean that more finds won't be unearthed in the future, especially with improved digital access to old records; (2) many of our ancestors didn’t read or write, so they left a much smaller written legacy than we would like; (3) having an open mind and being willing to revisit previous opinions is important; and (4) like it or not, this line of Brewers constantly recycled first names, generation after generation, which has created an obstacle for researchers trying to sort out individuals, even within the same generation and geographical area. Of course, our ancestors couldn't have cared less about that, but we certainly do. 

 This book is a work in progress, meant to be supplemented, corrected, and superseded, where appropriate, by the fruits of further research. I will accept all comments and suggested edits with a positive spirit. The identities of individual members of this subclade have been screened to protect their genetic privacy rights. Whether they choose to waive those rights in the course of future dialogue is strictly up to them. I’m pleased to share the book with members of the Brewer DNA Project through the following Google Drive share link: Tracing A Branch of the Brewer Families of Colonial Virginia to North Carolina and Beyond. I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Once I compile comments and make corrections, I’ll add an index and circulate the book more broadly. In the meantime, you can key word search the draft by using your standard pdf search method. Thanks for your interest. Dave Brewer."

And to the above I will just add that in a comment to the post of August 20, 2022, "Edmund Brewer of Robertson County, Tennesee: A Correction to the Brewer-Lanier Database," David mentions that Edmund Brewer is briefly discussed on page 132 of the book and that it is possible that he was originally from Martin County, North Carolina.

Thanks David, I am sure that this work will be of great interest and help to those researching this very large group of Brewer families. And once again, I very strongly encourage those researching their Brewer family ancestry, to contact the administrators at the Brewer DNA Project, through email links available on the Project's website, and join the project by having a close male relation (if you are not one yourself) take a Y-DNA test. 

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Theoretical Computed Paths for Sub-Groups of the Brewer DNA Project

 The links below will take you to "Theoretical Computed Paths," of ancestral migration as computed by Hunter Provyn (the Phylogeographer) and available on his website "mygrations." He has a YouTube channel as well. They were first posted by Hank Graham to the Activity Feed at the Brewer DNA Project website, but since that page is only available to members of the Brewer DNA Project, and as it was posted back in January and is now getting buried in the feed, I figured I'd transcribe the links here. Hopefully they will reach a wider audience and perhaps inspire a few BREWERs, BROWERs, BROUWERs and BRUERs (etc.) to join the Project. So, here goes:

Listed in order of Brewer DNA Project sub-groups as they appear on the Project's Y-DNA Results Page.

Adam Brouwer, Gowanus, L. I., E-Y19643

Ambrose Brewer (born ca. 1753), R-CTS1751 (see YTree links below)

Arthur Brewer, J-Y18401 (see below)

Hubert Brower, Immigrant to Philadelphia 1726, R-Y84707 

Jan Brouwer (of Flatlands, L.I.), I-Y7214 

John Brewer of Great Waltham near Coggeshall, Essex, England, R-A298 

John Brewer of Sudbury, Massachusetts, R-FGC46823 

Lanier-Brewer (includes descendants of George Brewer of Brunswick Co., VA and others), I-Y15031 

Sackfield Brewer, b. 1634 Berkshire, d. 1699 Virginia, R-FGC11784 (see below)

Under Consideration L - Group includes a non-Brewer surname (Campbell), BigY proven haplogroup match beyond the Genealogical Period, I-Y57730 (see below)

Under Consideration M - Ancestor: John Brewer, b. 1775 GA, d. LA, and Patience Sibley, R-ZP85  (see below)

What can I say, it's all just kind of fun to watch and imagine. Thanks to Hank for the original post and to Hunter Provyn for creating this wonderful visual tool. And to YFull, whose published YTree is the basis for the "paths."

Just for good measure here are links to the above haplogroups on the YFull YTree. Some of these are sub-clades of haplogroups whose Theoretical Computed Paths are included above. The Phylogeographer has not created paths for every SNP found on the FTDNA and/or YFull trees.

Adam Brouwer

Ambrose Brewer - R-Y53883 which is a sub-clade of R-CTS1751

Arthur Brewer - J-Y18828 a sub-clade of J-Y18401

Hubert Brower

Jan Brouwer

John Brewer of Great Waltham

John Brewer of Sudbury, MA

Lanier-Brewer haplogroups

Sackfield Brewer - R-FTA60564 a sub-clade of R-FGC11784

Under Consideration L - I-A6543, equivalent to I-Y57730

Under Consideration M - R-FTA10684 a sub-clade of R-ZP85

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Sunset At Gowanus Bay and A Note on the Bennett Project at FamilyTreeDNA

 The image of Henry Gritten's painting, "Sunset At Gowanus Bay," has occupied a prominent space on this blog's pages since inception. I have no plans or desire to change this. It's simply a beautiful image. The image I used is of relatively low resolution and was taken from the White Mountain Art & Artists website, which has since moved to this new online location. 

A much higher resolution image is available elsewhere. Ron Bennett, in a just recently received email has directed me to an online image of "Sunset At Gowanus Bay," at the website of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Art in Hobart, Tasmania. And with this link provided by Ron, you can find a much higher resolution image that is downloadable. 

And just to stretch this post out a little further, Ron tells me that he is a descendant of Willem Adriaense Bennet who Adam Brouwer descendants will recognize as the second husband of Maria Badie, who in turn is the mother of Adam Brouwer's wife Magdalena Verdon by her first husband Jacob Verdon. There is a Bennett surname project at FamilyTreeDNA. Group 02 of this surname project is comprised of descendants of Willem Adriaense Bennet (see the project's public Y-DNA colorized chart page). Tested members of this group are identified by the ancient haplogroup E-M35 which, coincidentally, is the same ancient haplogroup in which descendants of Adam Brouwer are found. I say, "coincidentally," only to emphasize that despite sharing a common haplogroup (E-M35) Adam Brouwer and Willem Adriaense Bennet were not closely related. E-M35, as calculated by Y-Full, was formed 34,700 years before the present (ybp). The Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA) is 23,900 ybp. Looking at the Bennett project chart I linked to, we can see that two members have taken the advanced BigY tests and have been identified by two different SNPs, E-FTA645 and E-BY164190. Neither of the two SNPs are found on YFull's current YTree (v10.04.00), but hopefully in time as more Bennet descendants take advanced Y-DNA tests like the BigY-700, and submit their results to YFull, we will see an appearance on the larger Y-Full Y-DNA tree. We then may get a better idea of just how far back in time Adam Brouwer and Willem Adriaense Bennet shared a common paternal ancestor.

Thanks to Ron for directing us to a better image of "Sunset At Gowanus Bay."

Update August 22, 2022: My mistake on not finding haplogroup E-FTA645 on the YFull YTree. I was using their SNP search tool incorrectly. Ron has pointed out that it is equivalent to E-FTA557 which is a sub-branch of E-Y32590 and you can see that branch here. The earliest haplogroup that is shared between both the descendants of Adam Brouwer and those of Willem Adriaense Bennet is E-M78. As of YTree v10.04.00, YFull calculates that E-M78 was formed 19,100 ybp and that the time to most recent common ancestor was 13,200 ybp.

Using the Phylogeographer's "Theoretical Computed Paths" tool, we find E-M78 placed in the Mediterranean Sea, just south of the Aegean Sea, on the island of Crete. Theoretical Computed Path for E-M78. 

Update November 21, 2024: As per the comment below dated November 20, 2024, from Ron Bennett, the link to the Bennett Projects Y-DNA Results page has been updated in the above text. Here are the current links to pages at FTDNA's Bennett Project website:

FTDNA Bennett Project About Page

Bennett Project Y-DNA Results Overview page (colorized chart)

Bennett Project Group Time Tree (public view)

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Edmund Brewer of Robertson County, Tennessee: A Correction to the Brewer-Lanier Database

 I created the Brewer-Lanier Database back in late 2015 and it was later updated in early 2016. It's purpose was to share collected genealogical research that I accumulated over a period of just a few months in an effort to help out members of the Brewer DNA Project who were descendants of George Brewer of Brunswick County, Virginia or of other Brewer families found in the American southeast. 

An Edmund Brewer is found on page seven of the Brewer-Lanier Database. It has been brought to my attention in an email from Michelle Reardon that the information I have assembled for this Edmund Brewer in fact belongs to two different men named Edmund Brewer. The purpose of this post is to correct and clarify the profile of Edmund Brewer found on the Brewer-Lanier Database. 

Michelle, whose 3rd great-grandfather is Edmund Brewer informs me that he was born about 1788 in North Carolina, and although he is the Edmund Brewer who witnessed a deed in Robertson County, Tennessee in 1805, he is not the Edmund Brewer who married Francis Rool, and had a daughter Rebecca Brewer who was born 16 February 1819 and died 28 November 1912 in Green County, Kentucky. The Edmund Brewer of Robertson County, Tennessee later relocated to Yell County, Arkansas where Michelle has traced her ancestors and her 3rd great-grandfather Edmund Brewer's descendants. 

In short, the profile of Edmund Brewer found on page seven of the Brewer-Lanier Database is actually for two different Edmund Brewers. One Edmund Brewer married Francis Rool and had a daughter Rebecca (Brewer) Handy who died in Green County, Kentucky in 1912. Her Kentucky Death Certificate names her parents as Edmond Brewer and Francis Rool. The second Edmund Brewer is Michelle's ancestor who is found as a witness to a deed in 1805 in Robertson County, Tennessee, but later moved to Yell County, Arkansas where he is found on the 1860 U.S. census in the household of his son Joseph Brewer (Michelle's 2nd great-grandfather).  The name of this Edmund Brewer's wife has not been discovered. Whether or not he is in fact related to Jones Brewer (as is postulated in the profile) is not known, and no evidence has been located to either confirm or refute this possibility. 

Thanks to Michelle Reardon for bringing this correction to my attention. Should anyone have additional information regarding either of the two Edmund Brewers mentioned, please feel free to use the Comments feature for this post to share such info with others.

[Also see the post of September 8, 2022].

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