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Oct 20
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The book, “Famous Frisians in America” is now available for purchase. There are 8 pages on the Fonda Family which detail the history of Jellis Douw Fonda, who emigrated from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam in about 1650. It provides some ideas on his origins in Holland including some new angles on how he came to live in Eagum (Friesland) near Leeuwarden, ending up in Amsterdam, marrying Hester Jans, and then taking the voyage to America with a young family of five. It goes into the colorful life of Hester Fonda, long after Jellis passed away, and the plentiful progeny they created, including many modern-day Fonda’s talented in acting and the arts.
My father and I were honored to be present at the Friesland Day ceremony on New York City’s Governor’s Island on September 12, 2009, which unveiled the book. We were very pleased to meet the book’s editors, Peter de Haan and Kerst Huisman, as well as the Queens Commissioner of Friesland, John Jorritsma, and also many others from the Frisian Provincial contingent and fellow Frisian-American descendants. The book is a wonderful accomplishment, providing the history of Friesland’s support of United States sovereignty, based on a solid basis of exchange between the two regions which continues to this day. There are many prominent Frisian families in the US including such names as Stuyvesant, Douw, Jansen, Banta, Fonda, Isaacs, Dykstra, Hyma, De Vries, Fridsma, Hofstra, De Jong and Hageman.
The book is available on Amazon and is highlighted on-line at the New Netherland Institute, US Embassy The Hague, and Calvin College Dutch Department.
Albert Mark Fonda, admin
(12th Generation Descendant of Jellis Douw Fonda)
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May 10
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Some interesting information on our Anneke Jans connection…
(connection verified through references in “Dear Cousin”; A Charted Genealogy of the Descendants of Anneke Jans Bogardus (1605-1663) to the 5th Generation“)
This is an e-mail I recently responded to regarding this topic:
MessageOn Fri, 08 May 2009 17:32:02 -0600, <mark@fonda.org> wrote: Hello Ronald, Yes, Fonda vs. Trinity… interesting case. I believe many have tried to latch onto the Anneke Jans estate, but few, if any, have succeeded. There are plenty of stories on the internet about those who have tried, which you have most likely seen. John H. Fonda (1828-1915) and wife Mary tried to stake their claim based on speculation/wishful thinking and fell flat… in fact their lawyer was brought up on fraud charges. I think the Fonda/Trinity case got a lot of notoriety in the newspapers because of the scandal. Funny thing is, according to my research, John was not even a descendant of Anneke Jans. There is a connection to our line from Neeltje E. Briese (1739-1820) who was a g-g-granddaughter of Anneke. Neeltje married Adam Douw Fonda (1736-1808) in 1759, but John’s branch takes off well before that point. I am connected to the famous Fonda’s through this very marriage, about five generation up, but we don’t know each other. So, in other words, both the Hollywood Fonda‘s and my Fonda line are both descended from Anneke Jans, but John H. Fonda‘s line is not. Either way, none of us stand to gain anything from the connection, except maybe bragging rights… ha ha. Regards,  Bogardus Farm on west bank of (now) Manhattan Island On Thu, 07 May 2009 13:55:22 -0400, wrote: > Mark; Some of my daughters clan claim claim their |
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Anneke and HesterSome interesting similarities between Anneke Jans Bogardus (1605-1663) and Hester Jansz Fonda (1615-1690), the wife of Jellis Douw Fonda, our American patriarch:  Anneke Jans in New Amsterdam (1630-1657)
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Aug 20
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Marriage of Jelles Douwes and Hester Douwedr
This is a microfilm copy of the original Banns (marriage vows) between Jelles Douwes and Hester Douwedr in 1641. Surnames were not used at the time in Holland. Douwes means son of Douw, Douwedr means daughter of Douw… they were not related, that we know of. The first image is the Baans certificate and the second is the register (Jilles and Hester are the second of three couples shown). Can anyone translate this into English?
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Jan 01
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Greetings to fellow Fonda Family members who are exploring their lineage… and to others who are doing genealogy research, or are just browsing for information. The Fonda Family in America has a rich heritage and there are many fascinating stories of perseverance, integrity and achievement… a truly great American legacy which is still unfolding. I hope you will find this report useful and that this database continues to grow.
There are currently over 4000 Fondas in the Main Family Line (6000 including spouses) over a 400-year time span. There are another 1500 Fondas identified, but not yet placed (Strays, for the lack of a better term). As of 2005, there are approximately 900 households world-wide with Fonda surnames listed… about 500 in America, 200 in Italy, followed distantly by France, Slovenia and Canada. The majority of the American line is descendant from Jellis Douw Fonda (1614-1659) who migrated from Holland to American in about 1650. The link back to Italy is still uncertain.
This project is limited to just the Fonda surname (and its spelling variants), which includes only those born with the Fonda surname and their spouses. This means that wive’s parents and daughter’s children are not included. There are separate sections broken out for Allied Early Families (nearly 400 ancestors of pre-1800 marriages) and Other European Immigrants (over 600 Fonda immigrants not in the main family line). There are also about 70 Black Fondas in the Strays section, with some links back to their likely slave owners prior to the Civil War. There is good evidence of at least four family lines of former slaves who retained the Fonda family name.
Recent additions include:
– many new immigration and ship passenger records
– expanded entries from global listings, except Italy and Slovenia
– all available court, land and probate records
– all available Canadian Phone & Address listings
– all available info from classmates.com
– correspondence with dozens of distant cousins
Future work will concentrate on:
– more research into historical newspapers
– more research into Italian/Slovenian roots and current branches
– more research into current Rest-of-World branches
– include available info from linkedin.com and other social networking sites
– seeking gravestone photos and pre-1950 family photos
I have enjoyed putting this project together, and I was gratified to find so much information… thanks to some excellent previous work, collaboration with other researchers, some great library resources and the ever-expanding Internet mass of information. Please feel free to send me an e-mail with comments or questions… this is a living document and is never totally complete.
I am currently working on more recent generations based on public records and feedback from our many Fonda cousins who have found the website or database. The Rootsweb on-line database does not display people born after 1930, but the GNO, GED and PDF files linked above all have everything included. Although this is all public information, please respect other people’s privacy. The message boards on Genealogy.com and Ancestry.com are good places to make inquiries. The latest update of the database files are posted at www.fonda.org and worldconnect.rootsweb.com. Please send any inquiries or comments to webmaster(at)fonda.org.
Regards,
Albert (Mark) Fonda
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Jan 01
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Genoa, Italy
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.”