The family of Anneke Jans has been pursuing a genealogy project for over 300 years.
During all this time the family has been working hard to track down every single one of Jans’s descendants.
They are doing this not so much from a love for family history—but rather, to sort out the heirs to a contested land grant that was given to Jans by Britain’s Queen Anne in 1697!
These three newspaper clippings from GenealogyBank’s historical newspaper archives help tell this unusual genealogy story.
The historical newspaper article on the right outlines the disputed property. It was published in the Cabinet (New York City, New York), 14 August 1833, page 3.
In 1888 the family intensified their efforts by organizing an unusually-named genealogical society, the “Anneke Jans Bogardus Literary Association,” which gathered all of the genealogical records of the family to help them properly document the descendents of the family.
The old newspaper article on the left reports on this incorporated genealogical association. It was published in the Evening Repository (Canton, Ohio), 20 June 1888, page 6.
Almost one hundred years later a descendant, William Brower Bogardus, placed a notice in a Texas newspaper announcing that he “has extensive collections” of records on the descendants of Anneka Jans Bogardus. That notice was published in the Dallas Morning News (Dallas, Texas), 20 October 1983, page 50-A.
Hmm…I wonder if William has all the records of the “Anneke Jans Bogardus Literary Association” since it started in 1888?