Friday, October 17, 2008

Evidence of Sarah Martin's Maiden Name in the Putman Files

I posted Digging in the Putman Garden of Genealogical Mysteries last Saturday, and had some interesting responses in Comments. Tamura Jones reviewed several records in Holland for me, and did not find Jan/Johannes Pootman's birth record in Leiden or Delden. He thinks that Rutger Putman might have been Jan/Johannes/ father, but there is no record. Rutger Putman was the church pastor in Delden. Thank you, Tamura!

Holly found Mark Putnam's web page through my post, and proudly proclaims cousinhood with me, and I with her. Thomas MacEntee noted that he is descended from Jan/Johannes Pootman also - more cousins!

Mark Putman emailed me last week, and passed along more information about the family of John and Sarah (Martin?) Putman. We determined that a death certificate of one or more of their children might reveal Sarah's maiden name. We hoped to find a death record for Peter V. Putman (died 1882 in NY, but buried in Ontario), Isaac K. Putman (died after 1880, perhaps in Allegany County NY), Mulford M. Putman (died 1892 in Ontario), Eliza (Putman) Sovereen (died 1895 in Ontario) or Mary (Putman) Hubbard (died 1912 in Ontario).

New York death records officially started in 1881, but we don't know the exact death date for Isaac Putman. The death records for Mulford and Eliza in Ontario don't list the parents names. However, the record for Mary (Putman) Hubbard did list the parents names - John Putman and ???? Martin!

Mark had this information on his web page previously, but now we have the record that supports the information. However, while this is an original record, the information is secondary, since whoever gave the information to the recorder was not present for Sarah (Martin) Putman's birth, although they may have had a written record (e.g., a family Bible, notes on a paper, etc.) that provided the name. So far, it is the only evidence we have!

The next question is "Who were Sarah (Martin) Putman's parents?" Mark said in an email that Clarkson Martin, who had a son Mulford Martin, lived in Yates County NY in the early 1800's, when the Putman's also lived in Yates County. This is the first good lead I've had for Sarah's parents. I sure wish that the New Jersey census records for 1790 to 1820 were available.

One of the "lost genealogy arts" is, I think, the One-Name Study like Mark has done over many years for the Putman/Putnam family. If we had more one-name studies on specific surnames, we might have fewer genealogical mysteries.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

> Rutger Putman might have been Jan/Johannes/ father, but there is no record.

I haven't researched it, so I hardly have an opinion on the competing theories.
I do think you should figure out where the claim of Leiden birth orginates, to review whether that source might actually read "Delden" instead of "Leiden".
Also, the 17-century portret of Rutger and his wife could show a family resemblance - or not. Try tracking it down. Perhaps museums in Essen know about it.

Rutger does fit the descrxiption on the American Putman site: "Johannes Pootman's father was according to tradition a dominee, or minister, of a church in Netherlands" perfectly.
That same site says " Johannes Potman was born, reportedly in Leyden, South Holland, about 1645.", but does not seem to mention the source.
Perhaps it is the "De Witt Putman, an 1800's history of the family" he mentions elsewhere on the site.

The Putman tree created in 1921 makes it relatively easy to find descendants of Rutger for a DNA comparison.
I could not make much sense of the reference in that Putman family tree to earlier research, because it did not seem to refer to the same magazine.
It is a reference to the magazine "Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van Overijssel", volume XIII, page 291.
I have not seen the article, but suspect that it gets it information from a book J. Doorninck published in Deventer in 1871: "Geslachtkundige aanteekeningen ten aanzien van de gecommitteerden ten landdage van Overijssel sedert 1610-1794, met eenige berichten omtrent de voormalige havezathen in dat gewest." by J. van Doorninck, published in Deventer, 1871.". The Dutch title essentially says that this is genealogical extract based on official papers from the period.
A search in the catalogue of the Central Bureau of Genealogy does bring up this book as a result for a search on "Putman".
Google Books has the book in their index, but does not have scans.

- Tamura

Mark R. Putnam said...

At the current time, I think from the naming of the children of Johannes Pootman that Johannes' father was a "Victor Pootman". His mother may have been "Mary Corneliuse". There was a Victor Pootman who was a teacher, perhaps dominee, in Aalburg, North Brabant, Holland, in 1645 at the same time Johannes Pootman was born. I think it should be noted that the name Rutger was never used by the descendants of Johannes Pootman [1645-1690], which would seem to precluded Rutger Putman as the father of Johannes Pootman. The last name Putman was not used until the time of the American Revolution. The early names Putman and Pootman, it seems, have entirely different meanings.

Mark R. Putnam