Tomys and Hendrickje (Otsen) Swartwout and family

 Tomys Swartwout was born in 1607 in Het Rech te Fath, Groningen, Holland. He was a tobacco merchant in the Netherlands by 1629 with his brothers, Wybrandt and Hermanus. They were buying and selling tobacco grown in Virginia and New Netherlands from their establishment in Amsterdam, Holland, just three years after Manhattan Island was purchased by the Dutch West India Company.



Amsterdam is the Netherlands’ capital, known for its artistic heritage, elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled facades, legacies of the city’s 17th-century Golden Age. Its Museum District houses the Van Gogh Museum, works by Rembrandt and Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum, and modern art at the Stedelijk. Cycling is key to the city’s character, and there are numerous bike paths. (Take note, Dwan Shepard.) I was privileged to see Amsterdam for a few days in 1955 and fell in love with the cleanliness of the city, the Hague, their cuisine, the canals, a cheese farm and villages that I visited, and yes, the bicycling habits of the people. Therefore, I chose to share a photograph of that city rather than any city where Tomys and his family lived in New Amsterdam. In addition, Tomys lived in Amsterdam longer than he lived in New Amsterdam. (I do love Manhattan, too. Afterall, that's where my sweet father was born!!)

Tomys was married twice in Holland before he left for the new world. On the 7th of April in 1630 he married (1) Andrijetjen (daughter of Sijmon and Catryna Grebbers Sijmons) in Niewe Kerk, Amsterdam. She died there on 17 Dec 1630, giving birth to a child, Jan. Tomys remarried there, 7 Jun 1631, to Hendrickje Barents Otsen and had 4 children, all born in Amsterdam:

 1634 Roeloff, our ancestor
1638 Barent
1639 Tryntje 
1645 Jacomijutje

Tomys brought his family to America, having left Holland in May 1652. On 11 Dec 1653 he was one of 19 settlers who attended a convention in the New Amsterdam city hall and protested bad administration of the colony by the West India Company and claimed that tax paying colonists had a right to a voice in government. 

 On the 13th of April 1655,  Tomys was appointed a magistrate of the court of Midwout (Flatbush) on Long Island. He and his family moved to Wiltwick in Esopus in March 1661, where Tomys received property. 

Tradition claims that Tomys had returned to Holland in 1662 and died there that year. However, there are also records that say that he died on 3 Jun 1665 in Amsterdam, Holland, Netherlands.

TOMYS SWARTWOUT
BORN: 1 Jun 1607 in Het Rech de Fath, Groningen, Holland
MARRIED: 3 Jun 1631 in Amsterdam, Holland
DIED: 3 Jun 1665 in Amsterdam, Holland

HENDRICKJE BARENTS OTSEN
BORN:  1609 in Holland
DIED: unknown date in Ulster, NY
SOURCES: Swartwout Chronicles A. J. Weise 1899, p. 49 - 56, 89, 581; "The Ambition of Roeloff Swartwout, Schout of Esopus" by Andrew Brink; ; "A History of Ulster Co. under the Dominion of the Dutch" by TAugustus M. Van Buren; Brøderbund Software, Inc. Family Archive #17, Ed. 1, Birth Records: United States/Europe, Birth Records AAI Birth Records Extraction. Release date: December 23, 1993; "Netherlands Marriages, 1565-1892," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FNQQ-Y38 : 10 February 2018), Tomas Swartwout and Aerjaentje Sijmons, 07 Apr 1630; citing Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands; FHL microfilm 113,358; Tomys Swartwout Birthdate: 1607 Birthplace: Groningen, The Netherlands Death: Died June 3, 1665 in Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands Immediate Family: Son of Roelef Swartwout and Catryna Swartwood;