This is a duplicate of the listing on the fonda.org website.
Bridget Jane Fonda; Actress; born Jan-27-1964 in Los Angeles, California; studied theater at New York University; she married Danny Elfman in 2003; Musician, Composer; born 1954; see Wikipedia, Biographies for more…
Carol Fonda; Dancer, Teacher, Choreographer; see www.stepsnyc.com; danced with the San Francisco Ballet, Ballet de Lyon, et al; has taught master classes and workshops throughout the United States, Europe and Central America; has an M.A. in theater from the University of Miami, Florida and an M.F.A. in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of Performing Arts; currently Artistic Director of Dance Forum and Resident Choreographer for Carol Fonda & Company.
Douw Fonda; Radio Actor, Manufacturer’s Representative; born Sep-30-1912, died May-7-1997 at 84 years of age; b. Omaha, Nebraska; d. Denver, CO; attended the University of Nebraska; He had been a radio actor in New York City before he moved to Denver to start his own business. He was president of Douw Fonda Co. for 50 years. He retired as a manufacturer’s representative.
Harry Stuart Fonda; Landscape Artist; see www.askart.com; born 24-Aug-1863, died Aug-10-1942 at 78 years of age; b. San Francisco, CA; 1870 U.S. Census, California, San Francisco, San Francisco Ward 12; 1880 US Census, San Francisco, CA; Fonda, Harry Stuart 1863-1942, Artists of the American West. A biographical dictionary; see Biographies for more…
Henry Jaynes Fonda; Actor; born May-16-1905, died Aug-12-1982 at 77 years of age; b. Grand Island, Hall Co., Nebraska; 1930 Census, Nebraska, Douglas, Omaha, District 114; d. Los Angeles, CA; Academy and Tony Award-winning film and stage actor who as a young man portrayed honest, hardworking men, and as an adult often played heroic characters. He appeared in nearly 90 films, which include the Grapes of Wrath (1940), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and On Golden Pond (1981); see Wikipedia, Biographiesfor more…
1st wife Margaret Brooke Sullavan; Actress; born May-16-1911, died Jan-1-1960 at 48 years of age; b. Norfolk, VA; d. New Haven, CT; committed suicide by drug overdose;
2nd wife Frances Ford Seymour; Actress; born Apr-14-1908, died Apr-14-1950 at 42 years of age; dau. of Eugene Ford Seymour and Sophie Mildred Bower; d. Craig House (sanatorium), Beacon, Dutchess County, New York; committed suicide. (see “Don’t Tell Dad” autobiography by Peter Fonda). 1st marriage 1931 to George Tuttle Brokaw who died in 1936. She had one child with her 1st husband, Frances and two with Henry Fonda, Jane and Peter;
3rd wife Susan Blanchard; born 1928; stepdaughter of Oscar Hammerstein II, theatrical lyricist and producer; studied at the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania;
4th wife Afdera Franchetti; Baroness; born 1933; International jet-setter, daughter of Italian aristocrat and explorer, Baron Raimondo Franchetti, who was assassinated while on an envoy to Mussolini on the orders of Churchill; Afdera had alleged affair with John F. Kennedy during the very week he entered the White House; once arrested for drug smuggling; detailed in her 1987 autobiography “Never Before Noon“;
5th wife Shirlee Mae Adams; Stewardess, Model; born 1932.
Jane Seymour Fonda; Actress, Writer, Model, Producer, Activist, Fitness Guru; born Dec-21-1937; b. New York City, New York; attended Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1960, Actors Studio, New York City, studied with Lee Strasberg. She was named after one of Henry VIII’s wives, Lady Jane Seymour; since coincidently, her father’s middle name was Jaynes and her mother’s maiden name was Seymour; see Wikipedia, Biographies, Storiesfor more…
1st husband Roger Vladmir Vadim; Director, Writer, Actor, Producer; born Jan-26-1928, died Feb-11-2000 at 72 years of age;
2nd husband Thomas Hayden; Politician, Author; born Dec-11-1939;
3rd husband Robert Edward Turner III; Media mogul and philanthropist; born Nov-19-1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Joseph Fonda; Musician, Composer, Producer; see www.joefonda.com; born Dec-16-1954; b. Amsterdam, Montgomery Co., New York; Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts 1975; composer, bassist, recording artist, interdisciplinary performer and producer; an accomplished international artist, has performed as a leader in his own ensembles throughout the United States and Europe, and as a sideman with other bands as bassist.
Mina M. Fonda; Portrait Artist; see www.askart.com; born 28-Mar-1862, died 1924 at 62 years of age; m. Burlington Twp, Chittenden, Vermont; 1880 US Census, Laconia, Belknap, New Hampshire; Fonda, Mina M.; Dictionary of Women Artists. An international dictionary of women artists born before 1900; 1985; Who Was Who in American Art. Compiled from the original thirty-four volumes of [American Art Annual: Who’s Who in Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947.]; 1985.
married Leonard Ochtman; Impressionist Artist; see www.askart.com; born 21-Oct-1854, died Oct-10-1934 at 80 years of age; b. Zonnemaire, the Netherlands; d. Greenwich, Connecticut;
dau. Dorothy Fonda Ochtman; Still-Life Artist; see www.askart.com; born 1892, died Apr-26-1971 at 79 years of age; b. Riverside, Connecticut; d. Greenwich, Connecticut; graduate of Smith College, Bryn Mawr and National Academy of Design. Was a Guggenheim Fellow for study in Europe in 1927-28. Won many awards, among them the first prize of the Greenwich Society of Artists in 1947 and 1951, the Hooker Prize and best-in-show of the Greenwich Art Society in 1960, and the National Association of Women Artists in 1952.
Peter Seymour Fonda; Actor, Director, Writer, Producer; born Feb-23-1939; b. New York City, New York. Educated at the University of Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska; left a year before graduating; Peter Fonda, a longtime friend of Thomas McGuane, first saw Montana during the filming of 92 In the Shade (1975), which McGuane wrote and directed. Fonda married Portia Rebecca Crockett (McGuane’s ex-wife) in 1977 and moved to Livingston, Montana soon after. they have been permanent residents ever since; see Wikipedia, Biographiesfor more…
1st wife Susan Brewer; Actress, Artist; her stepfather was Howard Hughes’s right-hand man;
2nd wife Portia Rebecca Crockett; nickname “Becky” g4-granddaughter of Davy Crockett; aka Becky McGuane; son Thomas IV from previous marriage to Thomas McGuane.
Sybil Clark Fonda; Impressionist Artist; Illustrator of “Palatines Along the Mohawk” by Great-Aunt Ada Laura Fonda Snell; born Jun-17-1923, died Jan-15-1998 at 74 years of age; b. Fonda Farm, Town of Mohawk (near Fonda), Montgomery, New York; 1930 Census, New York, Montgomery, Mohawk, District 44; d. Norristown, Pennsylvania; attended Mount Holyoke College; then Univ. of Iowa, MFA degree in 1948; taught Art at Tribes Hill, near Fonda, New York; member of Art Student League of New York and Columbia U.; granted a Fulbright Scholarship in 1954 to study Art in Paris for one year; resided on the Fonda Farm while exhibiting her art work locally, regionally, and nationally. see Website
Extract from “Early American Families“, Rev. W.A. Williams; Philadelphia, PA; 1916: “The Rensselaer-Bowier Papers say that Douw Fonda was a Frisian, and Tacitus says that the Frisians dwelt along the coast of the North sea. They were converted to Christianity before A.D. 800. The family of Fonda was originally from the Republic of Genoa, Italy. The Marquis de Fonda was one of the leaders of a revolution in Genoa, having for its object the overturning of the aristocratic government, and putting the election of the Doge and Senate, into the hands of the people at large. The Doge (=duke) was the duke, or chief magistrate. Our ancestor was an early republican, and must have lived there, between 1339, when the first Doge was elected, and 1528 when the Dogate ceased. Baron de Fonda was unsuccessful in his attempt, and fled from the country, taking refuge in Amsterdam, Holland, whence his descendant, Jellis Douwese Fonda, emigrated to America in 1642 (1650), and had grants of land from the Dutch government, settling in or near the present city of Albany, N. Y.”
“There is a perhaps less credible tradition also, that the Fondas were Huguenots. and fled from France to Holland after the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s night, Aug. 25, 1572. There is another tradition that they fled from Spain on account of persecution or followed the Duke of Alva to Holland. It is also said that they belonged to the royal house of Spain, fled to Italy, because of religious persecution, and came later to Holland. Possibly they fled from Italy to France, and from France to Holland. The form of the family name is Latin and therefore similar in French, Italian, and Spanish, indicating the Latin origin of the family, probably In Italy. The Fondas were Dutch Reformed Protestants when they emigrated to America, and must have been among the first converts of the Reformation. Their descendants are widely scattered throughout the Union, though many are still living near the old home in Eastern N.Y.”
“The family name is taken from a deep valley in the Apennines, about 12 mi. from the city of Genoa, called Fonda, a name which means bottom, deep, foundation, etc. It is said that, in the early part of the last century, the estate was still in the possession of a branch of the family, the Count de Fonda, and there are many of the name, in the various parts of the Genoese territories.” Some of the family may have known Columbus in Genoa.”
Note: the above is disputed in “Old Dutch Families: Fonda Family” (De Halve Maen Quarterly, 1945): “The Fondas were important in up-state New York during the Colonial period and in the early development of the State. Presumably the family is of Frisian origin and one genealogist has outlined European background for the Fondas giving them a really illustrious descent. However, these stories apparently come from tradition rather than substance.”
Trieste, Italy
Today, most native Fonda families live in Trieste, Italy and nearby Piran, Slovenia. There is a wonderful website by Robert Fonda regarding Slovenian Fonda Genealogy which provides a rich family history within that area. This tends to support the above statement about the Genoa connection being less credible.
quoting Robert Fonda: “Although there is no written evidence to prove that surname FONDA really came into existence in Piran, there is some statistic research which more than obviously shows that. Here I will mention three: the first was done by means of a telephone book and internet (Labo.net) for the year 2002; the second was done by the historian Darja Mihelič, Ph.D. in the book “Piran, mesto in ljudje pred sto leti” (Piran, the town and the people a hundred years ago) and deals with the years between 1889 and 1892; the third one represents the number of families FONDA in the area of Italy in 1945.”
“The research of the FONDA families today shows that it is quite centrally dispersed from the area of Piran (according to the migration of population in Piran after WW2) with the emphasized direction to the Italian speaking territory the “Italian line” – Piran belonged to Italy till WW2, most of the time to the Venetian republic. It is interesting that some other old Piran surnames of the Roman origin show the same way of dispersion. As the surname FONDA is only one branch that developed from the family tree of FUNDANI’s, I was interested to to know which surname nowadays would correspond to the main branch of the genealogy.”
“By means of the the same help I found an even more frequent surname FONDI which shows exactly the same dispersion as expected. With this one namely the Rome and its vicinity is emphasized as the main centre (the town FONDI is only a hundred kilometres to the south). This surname has two somewhat smaller and less important centres with denser population in the vicinity of Florence and Milan. Beside these two surnames I also found another: FONDACARO, which probably belongs to the same family tree, the dispersion of which in the area of Italy today is different. I broadened this statistical research based on the FONDA families in phone books to the whole of Europe. The results showed the existence of the “French-Spanish line” which frequently appears in the eastern Pyrenne (Pyrennees Orientales), the “American line” in the USA and the “Slovene line” with two centres, the first in Lokev (the Slovenian Karst), and the second in Latkova vas (the Savinja valley) and its surroundings. Later on I will focus on the branch from Lokev in detail as it is the one my family derives from.”
“The historian Darja Mihelič researched the weddings in Piran from 1 January 1889 till 31 December 1892 and within this period gathered enough data according to which one can make a valid statistical pattern. The results showed that surname FONDA was statistically most frequently mentioned in the wedding certificates (2,7% ).This surname was also most frequent in connection with the house numbers – it appears in 25 addresses (the processed data was one third of all the houses in Piran). Following the data from 1945 there lived in Piran as many as 67 FONDA families which means that it was the second just after the surname Ruzzier (70 families). In this time it was estimated that in Trieste there lived 40 and in other parts of Italy another 60 to 70 FONDA families. After the cancellation of the “Zone B” in 1954, most of the Piran families emigrated to Trieste. There are now more than 20% of all FONDA families living in Trieste.”
