The circumstances connected with Neeltje's coming to New Netherland were a little unusual, for she and her brother, Gerrit Cornelise van Duyn, seem to have come to the Dutch settlements as unmarried young people, unaccompanied by their parents, some three years before Jaques arrived.
Bergen (ESKC, p. 331) states that "Gerrit Cornelise (van Duyn), the common ancestor of the family, emigrated in 1649 from Nieuwkerk, in Zeeland." This date is no doubt correct, for Gerrit, when taking the oath of allegiance in 1687, declared that he had arrived thirty-eight years earlier. (N.Y. Col Hist., vol. I, p.660)
Neeltje presumably crossed the Atlantic with her brother. Where she and her brother lived until her marriage to Jaques, around 1655/6, is not known. Gerrit did not marry until October, 1663.
