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| Percy and Ola Dutch, ca. 1906. They were married for 69 years. |
The Dutch Family: Pioneers of New England:
Descendents of Osmund Dutch
of Gloucester, Massachusetts
By David E. Dutch
The author has masterfully taken the history and genealogy of his family from the period of Henry VIII of England to the present sixteenth generation in America. Adding to, and following up on the work of noted genealogist Walter Goodwin Davis, who had traced the Dutch family in colonial times, the author has followed these roots through Cape Ann, Massachusetts, to the western expansion of the United States and beyond.
Osmund Dutch, the progenitor of the Dutch family, came to America in 1630 and after eight years sent for his family. He became one of the 11 original Gloucester fisherman and his sons and grandsons became fishermen and mariners. The family enjoyed rich maritime tradition for generations. Osmund's wife Grace, her daughter and daughters-in-law would become involved in Cape Ann's notorious witch trials. Many Dutches left the sea and pioneered the rugged New England hinterland as farmers and homesteaded the untamed west and beyond. The author has chronicled the good as well as the bad "warts and all" so-to-speak. He has taken the "skeletons out of the closet and danced with them."
The author gives the reader a chronological, geographical, biographical review of the data he has compiled and used the Register style of genealogical numbering to easily follow the ancestral lineage. Each generation, a chapter in its own right, is preceded by a socio-historical introduction to give the reader a feeling for time. Much attention has been give to the feminine or maternal side of the family with many daughters carried over with interests and highlights of the Dutch family women. The publication is "researcher-friendly" with over a thousand footnotes and a bibliography. Finally, the author uses quotes, poems and anecdotes to add, "flavor" to the Dutch Family: Pioneers of New England.
The publication contains over 50 photographs, 50 signatures, and five new maps showing the Dutch family settlements in America. Over 6500 names appear in the all name index and nearly 200 ships are also alphabetically named and indexed. Chapters entitled "Unconnected Dutches" and "Other Dutches Who Immigrated" may be of interest.
$69.95, 694 pages, 6" x 9", cloth, ISBN 1-931807-32-9
Praise for The Dutch Family
"David Dutch has put an enormous amount of work into collecting the data necessary to tell the history of the Dutch family in America, and even more work into telling the stories of the family members who stand as mileposts on the Dutch journey through time."
-- Dr. Thomas A. Easton, Professor of Science, Thomas College, Waterville, Maine
Contact Information
David Dutch
166 Somersworth Road
North Berwick, Maine, 03906
Email: dutchfam@gwi.net
Telephone: (207) 676-9252
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