Sources
I’m just beginning to list sources here. Apologies for not being more complete. I will continue to add to this list as I have time. There are many sources of information on the DeWitt family line, some better than others.
Printed sources:
The DeWitt Genealogy: Descendants of Tjereck Claessen DeWitt of Ulster County, New York; compiled by Mary V[eldran] DeWitt (b. 1895) (privately published; no year indicated). This volume includes only names and dates, no attributions or locations or other stories or information are included. It includes nearly 2800 DeWitt descendants, some with more details, some fewer. It also includes some information on spouses and their parents. The laboriously typewritten volume came from years of personal research, often onsite in Ulster County; the current location of notes from this research is not known, but some of them may have gone to the Genealogical Society of Bergen County (New Jersey), where Mary DeWitt grew up and lived much of her life.
Baptismal and Marriage Registers of the Old Dutch Church of Kingston, Ulster County, New York (formerly named Wiltwyck, and often familiarly called Esopus or ’Sopus), for One Hundred and Fifty Years from their commencement in 1660. Transcribed and edited by Roswell Randall Hoes, Chaplain U.S.N., corresponding secretary of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, etc. New York 1891. Original publication 1891, De Vinne Press, New York; available today from Higginson Book Co., Salem, Mass., 508-745-7170. Detailed information about baptisms has been filled in through the end of 1687, marriages through 1701. More information is available. Records begin 1660. Other baptisms may have taken place in Hurley and other locations nearby; also from time to time itinerant ministers would travel through and perform various rites, not always entered in the books. This is available online at archive.org.
Thomas Grier Evans, The De Witt Family of Ulster County, New York (reprinted from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, October 1886), New York: Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Co., 201-213 East Twelfth Street, 1886. Available online from archive.org.
Evans’s work, reprinted in 1886 up to the point where it left off in Volume XVIII of the Record, was continued in 1890 (Volume XXI, commencing on p. 185) with additional names and family numbering. The reprinted portion includes names of descendants to the fourth generation; the extension shows their descendants, the fifth generation, with considerable further biographical information on some. This later addition to Evans’s work (he also published details on other families that intermarried with DeWitts in Ulster County, including Crispells, Bruyns, and others) extended into Volume XXII (January 1891, pp. 3-6). (I include here links to some publicly available copies of the individual issue and articles from the Record, but a better way to get access to it and a wealth of other genealogical resources, in addition to supporting genealogical research in general, is to join the NYGBS itself.)
Marbletown, New York, baptism records at archive.org.
Invaluable church records for this line are in Minisink Valley Reformed Dutch Church Records, 1716-1830, from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society
(Vol. V in their “Collections” series, originally published in 1913, and re-released (in cooperation with the Genealogy Society of Sussex County, New Jersey) in 1992 by Heritage Books, Bowie, Maryland (ISBN 1-55613-556-4), available today on archive.org and in other online repositories. Thanks to Sarah DeWitt for this link.
Note that Dingman Versteeg, who was involved in preserving the old town council minutes from Kingston, was also involved in transcribing these records (free registration required).
The introduction to the NYGBS volume is worth reading for background in disentangling the intertwining connections among the nearby communities, including some hints about where missing family graves may be found.
On Minisink DeWitts, and the general naming and topography and border-dwelling attitude of the area, see also many notes on the main page for Jacob DeWitt MVDW 104 (descended from Tjerck’s son Andries and his son Jacob), who also married and raised a family down that way.
Online sources:
Record of early marriages in the Dutch Reform Church in Manhattan, available in printed form or online
Record of early baptisms in the Dutch Reform Church in Manhattan, available online
English translations of Dutch colonial records, also known as “The Kingston Papers,” available online. These are the Dingman Versteeg translations. The originals are available on microfilm from the Ulster County archivist, who can be found through the same link. A cross-reference indexing the archive pages to the microfilm frames to the pages in the printed translation can be obtained from Donald Lockhart, dlockhart at rcn dot com, who includes an entertaining introduction about the misadventures of the original manuscript records in the 1800s, before they were at last safely ensconced with the Ulster County archives.
Also see The History of Kingston, New York, by Marius Schoonmaker (1888), a volume thick with detail and transcribed original records.
Ulster County, N. Y., Probate Records, In the Office of the Surrogate, and in the County Clerk’s Office at Kingston, N. Y., compiled, abstracted and translation by Gustave Anjou, Ph. D., 1906. Privately published (?) in New York, but available at genealogical libraries (NYPL and others). Subtitle: “A careful abstract and translation of the Dutch and English wills, letters of administration after intestates, and inventories from 1665, with genealogical and historical notes, and list of Dutch and Frisian baptismal names with their English equivalents.” Introduction by Judge A[lphonso] T[rumpbour] Clearwater, LL.D. This is available in reprinted form. Note that there are two distinct volumes included in this work, sometimes combined into one physical book.
National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 2 (March 1982), p. 123, hard to find in print form except in libraries, apparently not on archive.org, but available from the NGS online for paid members.
Marbletown, New York, baptism records at Archive.org.
Reproduced herein:
Wills of Tjerck Claessen DeWitt and his brother Jan, who died unmarried in Kingston, 1699 (1906 Anjou edition; see link above)
Very cursory look at public records from Albany, NY, regarding Tjerck Claessen DeWitt and possible relatives.
The Peltz Record (1948)
The History of Ulster County, New York
The Oberholtzer Genealogy
Research assistance:
Notes.
