First Time Here?
DeWitts of Dordrecht and Amsterdam
From article entitled :
DE GESLACHTEN DE WITT
te Dordrecht en te Amsterdam
published in :
DE NEDERLANDSCHE HERAUT
in 1886
by C. A. van Sypesteyn
The translation from Dutch is as follows :
Are there still descendants of *Raadspensionaris Johann de Witt? Are
the two de Witts in Paris (both married to a daughter of French minister Guizot)
descendants of the great Dutch statesman or better descendants of the regent
family from Dordrecht?
DE WITT (Dordrecht)
Already in the 13th and 14th century we can find members of this family
on the list of burgomasters and other regents of Dordrecht. They called themselves
"die Witte" or "de Witte" or de Witt" and the spelling changes several times
until most of them accepted "de Witt" as a final version. Most of them, because
even during the life of Raadspensionaris*(see
note at bottom) de Witt, two of his cousins were calling themselves
Johan de Wit and Gijsbert de With.
The family always remained in Dordrecht, and was always respected a lot
and supplied a lot of government personnel. One of them was born on 7th February
1519, Jacob de Witt.
He married Anna van den Corput, had 2 sons and 2 daughters. In the appendix
it is clearly shown which descendants from the famous brothers de Witt still
can be found. From this it seems that the two sons of the ruwaard (sheriff)
Cornelis de Witt died without marrying, while the eldest son of *Raadspensionaris
de Witt, also called Johann, married his cousin Wilhelmina de Witt, the youngest
daughter of the ruwaard van Putten. The two sons from this marriage between
cousins were the only great grandchildren of Mr. Jacob de Witt, because *Raadspensionaris
Jacob de Witt's youngest son died without marrying.
The eldest of the two brothers, Mr. Johan de Witt (died 27th May 1751,
Brussels) left no male heirs, for his only son was not married when he died
in 1783.
Mr. Cornelis de Witt, heer (viscount) van Jaarsvelt, the youngest grandson
of the Raadspensionaris had two married sons. The eldest was Mr. Johan, who
had a son Mr. Cornelis de Witt, born 20th August 1742. He married in 1780,
but died without an heir. With him died the lineage of Mr. Jacob de Witt and
his famous sons. The youngest brother, Mr. Herman Cornelis de Witt died on
23th November 1778. He left one daughter, Maria de Witt, who married in 1798
with Mr. Hermanus Hogg. Maria de Witt died on 1st April 1861 as the last descendant
of Jacob de Witt.
During the life of the *Raadspensionaris there
were a lot of family members, cousins in varying degree with names like de
With, de Wit or de With. Most probably these left male descendants.
The best way to track down their genealogy is to study the family coat of
arms. The coat of arms of the de Witt family (Dordrecht) was a sinopel field
with a hare, chased by a whippet and with a hound in the bottom of the shield.
All animals are silver coloured.
*Note :
Raadspensionaris = highest civil servant in the Republic of the Seven
United Netherlands (1568 - 1798), comparable with Prime Minister. The brothers
de Witt rules the Netherlands from the mid seventeenth century till 1672 while
Stadhoulder Willem III grew up. They were brutally murdered in the Hague,
while French, German and English troops invaded the Netherlands (1672 - "the
disaster year", floods and hurricane that destroyed Utrecht were other disasters).
Willem III took control of the country and ousted the German and French. The
Dutch navy humiliated the English and even ended up on the Thames, bombing
Chatham.
(End of Part 1)
