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Sep 17
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Here are some photos of the family of James Robert Fonda (1816-1891), born in West Troy, Rensselaer Co., NY in 1816, who settled in Wyoming, Lee Co., IL prior to 1870. He was reportedly an orphan at 9 years old, although the burial record of father is in 1837, so he could have been adopted. He became a blacksmith and married Alzina Bacon of Fulton, Oswego Co., NY in December 1837. She died in 1852, leaving him with six children. He then married Jane E. Hendricks, the daughter of John Hendricks of Wayne Co., NY and had five more children. They moved to Wyoming, Illinois after the Civil War, with the four youngest children, founding a Methodist Episcopal Church in about 1870.
One son, Fitch Fenton Fonda (1840-1864), born in Fulton, Oswego Co., NY, served in the Civil War for the New York 59th Infantry (Private) in the Battles of Wilderness and Weldon Railroad. He was taken prisoner on June 22, 1864 and died of disease at Andersonville Confederate Prison on October 2, 1864. He is buried at the Andersonville National Cemetery.
Another son, Erwin Roselle Fonda (1844-1919), born in Fulton, Oswego Co., NY, also served in the Civil War for the New York 147th Infantry (Corporal) in the Battles of Wilderness, Chancellorsville and Hatcher’s Run. He caught Typhoid Fever and was slightly wounded as well. He was discharged, went home to Illinois, then returned to the war as a Secretary to a Quartermaster. Later he became an Engineer with the Union Pacific and was headquartered in Omaha, NE as of 1881.
A notable descendant of this family is Albert Neir Brown (1905-2011), great grandson of James Robert Fonda, born in North Platte, NE and raised in Council Bluffs, IA, where he excelled in sports and became involved in the ROTC. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Johnson in 1925, attended Creighton University School of Dentistry, established a dental practice, started a family and became a licensed pilot. He had continued in the ROTC in college and afterwards in the reserves at the rank of First Lieutenant. He was called to active duty in October 1940 (Capt. in Dental Corps) and when war broke out he was stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, which was attacked and overrun by the Japanese just hours after Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He was captured and survived the infamous Bataan Death March and over three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. Upon his release, he was treated for three years at Fitzsimons Hospital in Denver. He then moved to Hollywood, Calif. where his sister and brother-in-law were involved in show business. He worked in the real estate business, became an active member of the Hollywood YMCA and an avid handball player. In 1993 Albert moved to Pinckneyville, Ill. where he made his home with his daughter. He died in a nursing home in Nashville, Illinois, on August 14, 2011, at the age of 105. At the time of his death he was the oldest living survivor of the Bataan Death March. He was also listed as the oldest living WWII veteran. He had been awarded the Purple Heart, the Philippine Defense Ribbon with one star, the Presidential Unit Citation, the American Defense Ribbon with one star, the American Theater Ribbon, the Asiatic-Pacific Ribbon and the WWII Victory Medal. [link] [link] [link] [link]
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Oct 01
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See the Fonda Family Merchandise store at http://www.zazzle.com/fondafamily
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Mar 29
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Here is a menagerie of various Fonda photos that do not appear on the main fonda.org website. They are all of deceased people and I have not given any references since most are from public sources. If I have stepped on any copyrights please advise and I will give credits or remove… my intent is to honor and respect, not worry about credits. There is no captioning but if you run your cursor over the thumbnails the picture name gives the description. If any additional info is desired, please advise. e-mail admin
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Nov 10
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I had my DNA tested a few months ago, using the Paternal Lineage Y-46 method through Ancestry.com. I compared my results to some info I found on the Frisian peoples and to a couple of other individuals who joined my Fonda DNA Group on Ancestry.com. There is not yet enough DNA data to find any direct relatives, and the test only applies to males using the Y-chromosome method. I know there is mitochondrial DNA testing which works with the female DNA components, but of course genealogy is based on male heredity. Note: I have now entered my data in GeneTree, Y-Search, and SMGF which are all free access.
From what little I know so far it seems that it is a question of probabilities, because every geographic or ethnic area has a mix of different genetic types (haplogroups). If I were to make a strict interpretation of my (our) DNA profile, being Haplogroup I1, widely known as Anglo-Saxon… as opposed to the predominant Frisian DNA profile, being Haplogroup R1b, widely known as Basque… I would say that we were not indigenous to Northern Holland, at least not as far back as the main Frisian population.
Jan Van Goyen (1596-1656) – River Landscape With Fishermen
This is consistent with all that we have known, since tradition holds that the Fonda’s were not native Dutch… and lends support to the latest theory presented in the new book, “Famous Frisians in America” on pages 111-112, which states that:
“This means that the trail leading to the origins of the name Fonda ends in Eagum. In the Genealogysk Jierboek. (Genealogical Yearbook), the village historian D. F. van der Meer from Reduzum has suggested that Jilles Douwes could be the son of the Eagumer farmer Douwe Everts. This possibility presented itself after he had been informed by the author of the present contribution that there is a marriage certificate of Jilles Douwes and Hester Douwes in the Amsterdam Municipal Archives. However, there was no Jilles among the children of Douwe Everts originally tracked down by Van der Meer in the archives. In his publication in the Yearbook, he himself took the liberty of inserting the name of Jilles among those of Douwe Everts’ other children. In this way, the notion was created that the forefather of the Fondas came from Hornemastate in Eagum, Douwe Everts’ farm. In 1988 the same notion also found its way into the article ‘Amsterdam Records of the Fonda Family’ by Robert C. Cooney Jr. in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. However, that finding – that Jilles was the son of Douwe Everts – has been recorded with far too much certainty. A number of facts speak against this suggestion. Douwe Everts was a farmer with voting rights. This means that he was almost certainly a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. However, Jilles Douwes and Hester – given that they chose Old Testament names for two of their children (Abraham and Sarah) – may well have been members of a non-conformist denomination. In this connection, it is also striking that Hester does not appear in any of the church registers in New Amsterdam.”
Dutch Poldering Mills
“According to Van der Meer, Jelle Fonda (Jilles Douwes) must have been a son of Douwe Everts. Eagum was a very small village. But that is by no means proof that he descended from Douwe Everts. The oldest register of births, deaths and marriages, the Quotisatiekohier of 1749 (a century after Jilles Douwes), says there were 47 people living in or near the village, and 19 children under the age of 13. They included five farmers and one independent woman farmer, a widow with no profession, a schoolmaster, and three working-class families. The latter category is particularly difficult to place in a historical sense, especially when it comes to the archives dating from before the French era. There is much to be said for the suggestion that Jelle Fonda came from this group. The fact that on the occasion of his marriage he is registered as a ‘journeyman smithy’ indicates that he was a craftsman, and thus did not belong to the group made up of ’tillers of the soil’. Mention is also made of the fact that his parents gave their written consent to the marriage. This means that they could read and write. As could Jelle Fonda and his wife Hester, in view of the signatures which appear at the bottom of the document. In the period 1632-1633, eight years before he married in Diemen, the lake known as Wargastermeer was impoldered. The primary financier of this project was the Amsterdam merchant Paulus Jansz Kley (1582-1655). Obviously he required an army of diggers and other workmen, including craftsmen. It is quite possible that Jilles Douwes was one of them. Indeed, it may well have been through the mediation of Kley that Jilles moved to Amsterdam, and he may even have helped him to get a job there. He was literate and he had a trade. Moreover, he was anxious to get ahead in the world.“
In conclusion, according to this account, here is what we know… Jilles Fonda was a journeyman smithy, who hired on to a big earthworks project near Eagum in 1632-1633 (he would have been 16-17 years old)… he then moved to Amsterdam, got married in 1641 (age 25), started a family (he became an innkeeper and blacksmith)… and then took the voyage to America in 1651 (age 35) with his young family of five.
This still does not settle the question of the origin of Jilles Fonda, but at least it moves the ball forward a bit.
Albert Mark Fonda
admin
November 2009
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Nov 05
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I came across this record last year sometime, and the exercise to determine the voyage date spurred my memory.
The first tangible record of Jellis (Gillis) in America has been established as that found in Fort Orange on October 15, 1651 when he received permission from the court to distill liquor in Greenbush, a small village near Albany.
Early Albany Court
However… a new record has been found in the book “Early Irish in Old Albany” which places him there a couple of months earlier. Not a big difference, but nonetheless, this appears to be the earliest tangible record of a Fonda in the New World: Early Irish in Old Albany, N.Y.: with special mention of Jan Andriessen, “De Iersman Van Dublingh”, Danaher, Franklin M., Boston, MA, American-Irish Historical Society, 1903, p. 17:
[…the court records show that on August 18, 1651, “Thomas Konnig abused the court as an unlawful court, taking materials from the sayings of Dyckman, who sang the 82nd Psalm and called the high council rogues and tale bearers in presence of Evert Pels, Art Jacobse and Gillis Fonda.”]
Evert Pels was also listed in the October 15 court record as the party selling distillation equipment to Gillis for the production of liquor. It is odd that the men were in court merely observing two months prior to their court date. Perhaps they were preparing for their upcoming petition.
Jellis had been an innkeeper and blacksmith in Amsterdam. Brandy was a product of high value in New Amsterdam. The skills and knowledge needed may have been similar. Although none of the early Fonda’s were known as anything but pious in nature, the making of spirits was a worthwhile commercial venture in the fur trading environs of early Albany.