My Discovery: A Few Rare Manuscripts and Documents for Beekman Patent are Digitized!

This past Saturday I attended a Zoom Meeting for a genealogical society of a county where my early ancestors had settled for almost a century before my direct line migrated onwards leaving some relations in that area for at least a time. A family member had been a long-distance member of the group for some time but we have never attended an in-person meeting. 

Despite all the negatives of this COVID-19 pandemic, having the opportunity and ability to attend far away meetings virtually has indeed been a positive. I have virtually attended meetings for societies and groups in my own state, in near and far states, and in various parts of Ontario, Canada. Most of these groups did not do virtual meetings or recordings of in-person meetings prior to the pandemic. 

Saturday's virtual meeting was for the Dutchess County Genealogical Society in New York. While it was more of an informal presentation by author Frank J. Doherty, senior, on the rare record sources used in his book series, The Settlers of the Beekman Patent, it was still informative.

It also inspired me to revisit this line of mine that moved to the patent and get a few more details into my genealogy program that had not been entered yet. In addition to sorting through and organizing some files on the hard drives and entering information (and sourcing) into the genealogy program, I also revisited one of the rare sources and made a discovery.

First, here is a simplified look at the situation. In the 17th century, large tracts of land in the Dutch Colony of New Netherland were awarded to some invested members of the Dutch West India Company. These "patroons" were landowners with manorial rights and had to settle at least 50 families (or individuals?) within four years. Patroons often leased tracts/lots of land from a patent rather than sell them outright. Leases could be the term of three lives (perpetual) and often came with feudal obligations (i.e. so many days work for the patroon, so many fowls, first rights to proceeds of farm/work, etc.) The political environment through the years changed -- the English takeover in 1664 and American independence in 1783 -- the system essentially continued with the English government granting large patents of land to "proprietors" who surveyed, subdivided and either leased or sold smaller lots of land. Some patroons or proprietors were not successful while a few continued for generations. In 1839 there was an attempt to collect back rents which resulted in riots. In 1845 there was the "Anti-Rent" convention. In 1846 the legislature abolished distress for rent, quarter sales, and all remnants of feudal obligations, and forbade the leasing of agricultural land for a longer period than 12 years.

Land records are an important part of genealogical research. They connect a person to a location for a time period. Some yield more information (i.e. relationships) than others. Where you find land records depends on the location you are dealing with, the type of land you are dealing with, how it was received and from whom, and the time period to some extent. In most states you will find the land records were recorded and kept on the county level but in some New England states land records are kept on the town level. Besides various types of deeds, you may find mortgages (and their discharges) were recorded. But if your ancestor rented land from a private individual you won't find that in the land records. The initial purchase or distribution of land from the government is recorded by the government (i.e. Federal government) and sometimes (but not always) that grant is copied into the locally kept land records. If the land was purchased from a land company (a private company) that sale is recorded in the company records but not always found in the local records.

Depending on when and where your ancestor settled you may learn you are dealing with a patroon/proprietor lease of patent land situation which falls at the "private/family" entity side of the scale. Each patent is different: some have surviving records but not all. And because some patroon families intermarried records from different patents are sometimes held together. When records do survive today a patent's records could be located in a variety of places. More than likely the records are in archives, libraries or even museums rather than government offices.

Many of the records for Beekman Patent survive and were donated by descendants to Princeton University in 1986. But some of those donated records which include records for other patents are with other organizations.

My discovery? It is not new information on my family nor that these records still exist. I've known this since Doherty's book was first published. But ... what I discovered late Saturday night or early Sunday morning depending on your view of the clock is that a few of these records from this collection located at Princeton have been digitized. Digitized and in color and available from the comfort of home for free!

Oh, how I love an original record image rather than a transcription, index or abstract.

But before you get too excited, realize that it is just a few items of the collection digitized not the complete collection. I lucked out that a couple items that I had on a Research Trip bucket list can now be checked off but not everything.

The Beekman Patent records are part of the Edward Livingston Papers (C0280) which are part of The Delafield Family Papers at The Firestone Library. Each collection of papers (Livingston and Delafield) has its own finding aid to cut down on confusion. The collection actually consists of papers from multiple family members spanning generations in some cases. Henry Beekman (1688-1776,) who inherited Beekman Patent and Rhinebeck from his father, was a grandfather of Edward Livingston (1764-1836) for whom the papers take their name.

So, in the series of the collection for Henry Beekman under the Financial Records three items listed for container Box 129 have been digitized. These include a Daybook, Rent Book and Account Book.

The Day Book is noted as circa 1741-1763. Written in script on the volume's cover is "Cladd Book" which appears to be a combination of Welsh and English with Cladd translating to burial thus Burial book. However, the book is arranged by date thus the likely description given as a Day Book. But it contains far more than a diary of notations of the dates individuals died. It is also a daily notation of events and transactions of day to day dealings with regards to the business of the leases. The title page of this volume appears to say "Waäst Booke" with what appears to be an overring on top of the second o in "Booke" which isn't a norm since my fonts will not create the combination.  While the second word is more clearly identifiable as Book, the first is questionable at least for me. Is it supposed to be west or waste or something else? Other items written on the title page are in English and some French. There is no index or table of contents in this book.

The Rent Book is noted as 1740 - 1768. Though there is something written on the volume's cover the only word clearly recognizable in the image is Book. On the title page is "Rent Book A" and "A This book for received rents is belonging to Mr Henry Beekman." There is actually a table of contents at the front of this book. However, it is missing the pages for surnames starting with A through K unfortunately.

The Account Book is noted as 1719-1730. Written on the volume's cover is "Ledger B for HB 1719 to 1730." On the title page is "January 1719 Book B Belonging to Henry Beekman." There is no index or table of contents in the book.

For my ancestor, Doherty's footnote was "ELP Box 129, p. 54." The text that used this footnote stated, "... Henry Beekman made a notation in his rent ledger 8 Aug 1846 ..." That particular notation text actually came from the Day Book's page 54 rather than the Rent Book. In Rent Book A there is a notation for my ancestor on page 135 but it is just a brief two line entry referring one to the Cladd Book or Day Book page 54.

Unfortunately, I also need multiple pages from "ELP Book "E"" and from items in Box 157 as well as a Vertical File but I will have to wait for those items to be digitized so they remain on a to-do list for now. Well, at least I hope they will be digitized.

The image viewer used by the library's website is fairly easy to use. It would be nicer if the viewable area of the image was larger and by that I mean that it would utilized more of the available screen real estate. But the viewer does allow page images to be downloaded in various sizes and file types. The choices are: Whole Image 1000 x 1457 pixels jpg; Current View 2000 x 967pixel jpg; Whole Image 1372 x 2000 pixels jpg; Original File tiff; or a PDF file. Information on the page image can be found to the right of the image or below the image viewer. I choose to download the tiff images for the pages I desired. I can use my image editing software to adjust and convert the file type. Oh, and by the way there is no electronic index to these digitized documents. It is strictly manual searching.

The items pertaining to landholdings are referenced in the collection outline by both the person's papers and as an all together series under landholdings regardless of which family member was the creator. So, additional items can be found under landholdings series at the end of the outline. A couple of these items are also digitized too. Under Dutchess County, Surveys noted as Container Box B-0000060, Folder 15-17 an agreement from 1819 was digitized. Under Dutchess County, Surveys noted as Container Box 157, Folder 8 three small survey maps were digitized. Under Janet Montgomery a Hardenburgh Patent Survey Map was digitized from Container Box 153, Folder 7.

How do you figure out what is digitized and what is not? Click on the search entry box at the top under the collection name but do not enter anything and then click the Search This Collection button. Then in the left column check Available Online to be shown what parts of the collection have something digitized.

We can only hope more of the land record manuscripts and documents are digitized in the future.

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