Re: Dutch Coles?
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In reply to:
Dutch Coles?
Cindy Jernee 8/18/03
In the Dutch language the word cool or kool refers to cabbage and is pronounced the way the English pronounce cole, coal, kohl, etc.If you look up the word coleslaw in many dictionaries, you will find that it is based on the Dutch term kool-slaw for chopped cabbage.
When the Dutch immigrated to the Colony of New Netherland in the early 1600s, most were not using any surname, they used the patronymic naming system.Most of them did soon adopt a surname, some used Cool or Kool as their surname.One of the very early immigrants to New Amsterdam was Barent Jacobson (or Jacobsen, Jacobzen) COOL.He was here in 1633 when he was about 23 years old.Barent was a sailor, working for the Dutch East India Company.Mostly delivering goods and piloting on the Hudson River.I and many others are descended from a very extensive Cole line that he founded in what is now New York and northern New Jersey.My great grandmother was Laura Minerva Cole, an 8th generation descendant of Barent Jacobsen Cool.
When people of English ancestry heard the surname Cool or Kool pronounced by the Dutch, they wrote it down as Cole or Coal or other variations with the first letter K. By 1800 all of my ancestral relatives surnames were being spelled COLE in the censuses and other records.
Most of what I know about Barent Jacobsen Cool, and his descendants, comes from the book "The Barent Jacobsen Cool Family" by Richard H. Benson, NEHGS, 2001.His book covers the first 5 generations, and is excellent, but is currently out of stock. If you think you may have roots originating in a Cole family of New York or New Jersey in the 17/18th century, I may be able to help you.