New Netherland Settlers

Do you have ancestral lines going back to the settlement of New Netherland?

I knew that my husband's SEBRING line could be traced back to New Netherland. However, it wasn't until recently, when I connected my third great-grandmother, Rachel Harris Currey, to her parents, that I uncovered several Dutch lines in my own tree.

Suddenly, New Netherland research became much more relevant to my genealogy.

Thus, when I recently saw a Facebook post from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&B) about its New Netherland Settlers project, I immediately clicked to learn more.

The project has an ambitious goal: to develop detailed, peer-reviewed biographical sketches of the people who resided in New Netherland prior to 1664. The first completed sketches were released online in July 2025, and additional sketches are being added as research is completed.

What makes these sketches especially valuable to genealogists is their scope. Depending on the records available for an individual, a sketch may include information about origins, migration, marriage and children, occupation, land holdings and estates, church membership, associates, and other biographical details. Each sketch also identifies the sources and published literature used in the research.

One of the recent additions immediately caught my attention: Jan Roelofsen Suebering.

The spelling may look unfamiliar, but the sketch identifies numerous variations of his surname, including Suebering, Seubering, Sebring, Seabring and others. It notes that his descendants often used the English form Sebring.

According to the sketch, Jan Roelofsen Suebering came from Zwiggelte, a hamlet in Drenthe in the Netherlands, and was in New Netherland by 1656. He settled at Midwout, now Flatbush, Brooklyn.

That makes this particular sketch especially interesting because of my husband's SEBRING ancestry.

While I haven't yet found any of my newly discovered Dutch ancestors among the completed sketches, the project is far from finished. NYG&B plans to continue adding sketches as research is completed.

That means the New Netherland Settler Sketches have earned a place on my genealogy "watch list."

As additional sketches appear, I'll be checking the names against both my own Dutch ancestral lines and my husband's SEBRING family. One of those future sketches just might provide new information, clarify a relationship, identify an overseas origin—or point me toward records I haven't discovered yet.

Sometimes a new genealogy resource doesn't immediately provide an answer. Instead, it gives us something equally valuable:

a new place to keep watching.