This farmer’s son, Jan Eltinge, left Zwiggelte for New Netherlands, now New York, around 1657. He built a farm in Flatbush, now Brooklyn, part of New York. He founded a church, and when he moved deeper into the colony of New Netherland, he even became a judge. He marries and has eight children. We later encounter him in the archives as a prominent citizen.
In 1679 he received the message that his parents had died in Zwiggelte and that he, Jan Eltinge, had been officially declared dead by his own relatives, so that they could retain his inheritance. Sieders: “They did not think he was dead, I am convinced. But they wanted him to be dead and they also stated that he was dead. He would have died shortly after arriving in the new world. But that was disputed by family who also lived here and who also had relations in America, who knew better.”
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