Juriaen Probasco and his wife, Heyltie Aertss, had three children baptized in Brazil. Margariet, baptized 24 March 1647, was sponsored by Abraham van Stricht and Susannah Sweerts. Christoffel, baptized 13 June 1649, was sponsored by Jan Reynierss and Rijckie Janss. Anneken, baptized 17 May 1651, was sponsored by Jan Reynertsen Spits, Dirck Pieterssen Bijl, Geertien Adriaenssen and Margarita Paccen. An earlier date, 6 June 1649, is found for Christoffel in the records of Reverend Bijl, which may refer to his birth date. These baptismal records are the earliest references so far located which mention Juriaen. [NJHS 12]²⁰

The next record of Juriaen was located among the notarial records of the Dutch West Indies Company, in an entry by notary Hendrick Schaef, dated 17 June 1654, and reported in the New York Genealogical & Biographical Record, by Harry Macy, Jr. It reads, "Jurrien Probatski, from Breslau, going to New Netherland as an adelborst on the ship "Peartree" in the service of the West India Company, owes 130 carolus guilders to Henrick Otten, distiller, for his outfit, and will pay it back from his wages." [NYG&BR 125:4]²¹ This entry clarifies two persistent myths about Juriaen's life; first, that he was a Sephardic Jew from Spain, and second, that he was on the same ship as Reverend Polhemus, which was waylaid by a Spanish privateer subsequently captured by a French man-of-war.

Breslau, Silesia, is now known as Wroclaw, Poland. While it is possible that the Probasco forebears had migrated from Spain, absolutely no evidence has ever been produced to support those origins. There may have been a Spanish family whose surname bore some similarity to Probasco, but this spelling of Juriaen's surname appears to have been a simplification adopted in New Netherlands records of Probatski or Probatssey, spellings used in Brazil. The suggestion that Probasco is a reference to origins in the Basque lands (pro - for; basco - Basque) should be dismissed out-of-hand as idle speculation by a few researchers who wish to preserve the myth of a Spanish origin.

The Dutch yielded their Brazilian territories to the Portuguese 25 January 1654. Settlers were given three months to either evacuate or embrace the Roman Catholic faith and remain as citizens of Portugal. Sixteen ships were provided by the Dutch West Indies Company to transport settlers from Brazil back to Holland. Fifteen ships, including the one Mrs. Polhemus and her children were on, made it back to Holland. One, carrying Reverend Polhemus and 23 Portuguese Jews, was captured by a Spanish privateer about March or April of 1654. This ship was then captured by the French man-of-war "St Charles." The Dutch citizens and Jews on board were offered transportation to New Netherlands, which they agreed to, arriving in New Amsterdam in September of 1654. [GMNJ 4]¹⁹ Shortly thereafter, the Jews established the first Hebrew synagogue in New Amsterdam. [Peck]²² Meanwhile, in June of 1654, Juriaen was on board the "Peartree," en route from Holland to New Amsterdam. The chronology of events makes it impossible that he was with Reverend Polhemus.

Juriaen was almost certainly not a Jew. Had he been, there would have been no reason for him to have had his children baptized when they were born in Brazil. He would probably have accompanied those Jews which traveled with Reverend Polhemus, and he would probably have become a member of the synagogue in New Amsterdam. Instead we find him and his son, Christoffel, as catechumens of the Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn, 26 November 1662. [NJHS 12]²⁰

The last mention of Juriaen Probasco in New Netherlands was 26 March 1664, when he was keeping a cow, half its income being earmarked for relief of the poor. 23 July 1664 the cow is referred to again, but now in Heyltie's care. Juriaen may have died sometime between these two dates. The last mention of Heyltie Aerts was 10 October 1666, when she witnessed the baptism of Ryck and Jacob, sons of Hyndrick Rycke and Sitie Jacobs in Brooklyn.

Jan, the common ancestor of the Flh branch of the family, and supposed to be a brother of Jacob Gerritse, emigrated in 1652 from Ruinen in the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands, settled in Flh as early as 1654, having probably previously resided in N. A.; was b. in 1615; m. 1st Lambertje Seubering, by whom all his children; m. 2d, Apl. 30, 1679, Swantje Jans wid. of Cornelis de Potter of Brn; m. 3d, Mar. 31, 1687, in N. Y., Teuntje Teunis of Flh, wid. of Jacob Hellekers, alias Swart or Swartcop, of N. Y.; d. prior to 1697. On a declaration he made in 1679 he is styled "armorer," as per p. 80 of Cal. of Eng. Man. Mag. of Flh for several years; one of its representatives in the Hempstead convention of 1665; name on its town patents, and took the oath of allegiance there in 1687. Issue:--Altje, b. in the Netherlands, m. Abm Jorise Brinckerhoff; Jannetje, also b. in the Netherlands, m. Cors Janse Berrian; Gerrit Janse; Angenietje, m. 1st Claas Tysen, m. 2d Jan Cornelise Boomgaert or Bougaert; Eytie or Ida, m. Stoffel Probasco of N. L.; Pieter of Flh, b. Nov. 1, 1653; Sara, m. Joris Hansen Bergen; and Hendrick. Signed his name "Jan Strycker."

The numbers in this line refer to the Strycker family genealogy by William S. Stryker, of Trenton, New Jersey.

(I) Jan Strycker was born in Holland, in the year 1615. He emigrated from Ruinen, a village in the province of Drenthe, with his wife, two sons and four daughters, and arrived at New Amsterdam in the year 1652. Leaving behind him all the privileges and rights which might be his by descent in the old world, he sought to start his family on new soil in habits of industry and honesty. He was a man of ability and education, for his subsequent history shows him to have been prominent in the civil and religious community in which his lot was cast.

His first wife in Holland was Lambertje Snebering, and by her all his children were born there or in this country. She was certainly living in 1663. Jan Strycker remained in New Amsterdam a little over a year after his arrival there, and in the year 1654 he took the lead in founding a Dutch colony on Long Island, at what was called Midwout, probably from a little village of that name in the province of North Holland. It was also called Middlewoods. The modern name of the place is Flatbush.

On the 11th of December, 1653, while still in New Amsterdam, Jan Strycker joined with others in a petition of the Commonalty of the New Netherlands and a remonstrance against the conduct of Director Stuyvesant. The petition recited that "they apprehended the establishment of an arbitrary government over them; that it was contrary to the genuine principles of well regulated governments that one or more men should arrogate to themselves the exclusive power to dispose at will of the life and property of any individual; that it was odious to every freeborn man, principally so to those whom God has placed in a free state or newly settled lands. We humbly submit that 'tis one of our privileges that our consent, or that of our representatives is necessarily required in the enactment of laws and orders."

It is remarkable that at this early day this indictment was drawn up, this "bill of rights" was published. But these men came from the blood of the hardy Northmen and imbibed with the free air of America the determination to be truly free themselves next, on the present state of the country.

To turn from the civil and military man we find him in the first year of his residence at Midwout, one of the two commissioners to build the Dutch church there, the first erected on Long Island, and he was for many years an active supporter of the Dominie Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, of the Reformed Church of Holland, in that edifice.

After raising a family of eight children, every one of whom lived to adult life and married, seeing his sons settled on valuable plantations and occupying positions of influence in the community, and his daughters marrying into the families of the Brinckerhoffs, the Berriens and the Bergens, living to be over eighty years of age, he died about the year 1697, full of the honors which these new towns could bestow, and with his duties as a civil officer and a free citizen of his adopted country well performed.

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In connection with this purchase of Jersey land it is well to note that the Dutch land owners in and around New York thought the rule of the British Crown very oppressive. Looking across the harbor they saw the fine farms and the benign rule of the proprietors. In the year 1654 Jan Strycker was selected as the chief magistrate of Midwout, and this office he held most of the time for twenty years. The last time we find notice of his election was at the council of war holden in Fort William Hendricks, August 18, anno 1673, where the delegates from the respective towns of Midwout, Bruckelen, Amersfort, Utrecht, Boswyck and Gravesend selected him a "Schepen."

In Dr. O'Callaghan's Colonial History of New York, Volume II, page 374, we find a letter to the Right Honorable Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General and Council of New Netherlands, from the same Long Island towns just mentioned, "naming Jan Strycker as one of the embassy from New Amsterdam and the principal Dutch towns to be sent to the Lord Mayors of Hollands; they complain that they will be driven off their lands unless re-enforced from Fatherland."

On the 10th of April, 1664, he took his seat as a representative from Midwout in that great Landtag, a general assembly called by the burgomasters, which was held at the City Hall in New Amsterdam, to take into consideration the precarious condition of the country. This meeting was presided over by Hon. Jeremias Van Rennselaer, and Governor Stuyvesant was presant at this august and memorable council. (See Mrs. Lamb's History of New York, Vol. 1, pp. 205, 206 and 207. Also O'Callaghan's New Netherland Register, p. 147.)

Director Stuyvesant, August 28, 1664, addressed a letter to the Dutch towns on Long Island, calling upon them "to send every third man to defend the Capital from the English now arriving in the Narrows." This the court of commonalty of the town of Midwout unanimously answered by Jan Strycker that it was impossible to comply with his demands, as "we must leave wives and children seated here in fear and trembling, which our hearts fail to do, as the English are themselves hourly expected there."

He was one of the representatives in the Hempstead convention in 1665, and he appears as a patentee on the celebrated Nichols patent, October 11, 1667, and again on the Dongan patent, November 12, 1685.

On October 25, 1673, he was elected captain of the military company at Midwout, and his brother Jacobus was given the authority to "administer the oaths and to install him into office."

On March 26, 1674, Captain Jan Strycker was named as a deputy to represent the town in a conference to be held at New Orange to confer with Governor Colse "on Monday, of Jersey, and they resolved that at least some of their descendants should settle there. The exactions of the English in the matter of their town governments, and more especially the establishment of the Church of England among them, made them long to remove further away from their conquerers. Various parcels of land were purchased by companies, and the Strycker family selected the fertile soil of Somerset county for their future home.