Source: www.kuykendall.org

Born in Fort Orange, New Netherlands, on May 29, 1650, Luur grew up as the colony was being firmly established on the banks of the Hudson River. His early years were spent in Esopus County (now Kingston, New York) and Rochester, especially after the death of his father Jacob in 1655 and Luur's mother Stynje was married to Claes Teunissen in 1657/8. The area was being rapidly populated by Protestant Dutch who established the Dutch Reform Church in 1642 and built the first school the year Luur was born.

In 1680, Luur married Grietje Artze Tack (1663-1720), daughter of Annette Ariens and Aert Pietersen Tack of Kingston. The couple had eleven children, eight of whom were baptised in the Dutch Reform Church in Kingston and the ninth in 1700 at the church in Minisink on the Delaware River near present day Port Jervis, New York. Port Jervis was a sparsely settled area south of Kingston, at the point at which the borders of present day Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey meet. There, two more of Luur and Grietje's children were born and baptised. Luur and Grietje died after 1720 in Minisink.

Notes for Luer Van-Kuykendall:

Notes from Georgia Mayne GAMayne@aol.com 10/97:

May 29, 1650, Baptized in New York State

Compiled by Gene Kuykendall, 1997

In the vicinity of Kingston, NY, Luur Jacobsen grew up and married Grietje Tack. Old unpublished Kingston records show they rented a farm at Marbletown in 1681. The baptisms of the eleven children of Luur and Grietje are recorded in the records Kingston DRC. Kingston became the first capital of the colony of New York.

In 1664, the British, irritated by the growing population of Dutch between the British colonies of Boston and Virginia, surrounded New Amsterdam with a large naval force and forced New Netherland to become a British Colony, renamed New York.

Inheriting a strong pioneering spirit and probably sick of British soldiers and taxes, Luur and Grietje moved their family around 1698 from the vicinity of Kingston to the Delaware valley wilderness known by the Indians inhabitants as Minisink or Machackemeck (now Port Jervis, Orange county, NY).

The Kingston DRC records tell us only that Luur and his family were in "Minisink" by 1700. The term Minisink referred to a vast territory along the Delaware valley in the tri-state region of NY/NJ/PA. However, Only two areas were settled before 1700, Peenpack and Machackemeck. Peenpack, or the Upper Neighborhood, was well documented by Peter Gumaer and Luur was not one of the early settlers there. We know that William Tietsoort had been granted land in Machackemeck, or the Lower Neighborhood, in 1698 and we also know that Luur Jacobsen's oldest son, Jacob, married a daughter of William Tietsoort. I think we can fairly safely assume that Luur came to Machackemeck with William Tietsoort around 1698. If for no other reason than the fact that there don't seem to be any other possibilities. Old Minisink Village (Sussex co, NJ) where Luur's sons, Jacob and Matthew later owned property wasn't settled until in the 1720's. The section of Minisink on the PA side of the Delaware wasn't settled until even later.

Initially the local Leni-Lenape Indians, (called the Delaware by European settlers), were friendly toward these new neighbors. However, the Europeans penchant for exclusive land ownership soon led to hostilities. The history books reflect K-Family members among those scalped and kidnapped by Indian raiding parties.

There in Minisink, Luur Jacobsen adopted a toponym - church records of 1706 list "Luur Jacobsen van Kuykendaal". Early Dutch Genealogists Van Laer and Versteeg explained the name to mean "van kijk-in-t'dal", translated "from view of the valley" i.e.; From Wageningen overlooking the Rhine valley. Not Chicken-Valley or Church-in-the-Valley as some references suggest.

Adopting a toponym (place of origin) in America to supplement or replace their Dutch patronym (son of) was not uncommon, for example, Oloff Stevenszen added van Cortlant and Claes Martinszen added van Roosevelt. All three are surnames not found previously in Europe, but strictly of American origin. (Offers of European coat-of-arms for the Kuykendalls, Cortlands and Roosevelts are thus a fabrication by those who sell such items)

The prefix, "van" meaning "from", disappeared from the surname within two generations.

The van Kuykendall children and grandchildren married with the neighboring Dutch families of Westfall, Tietsoort, Westbrook, Decker, Quick, Cole, Cortright, Van Auken, Van Etten, Depue, Van Vliet etc. Also with the Huguenot French families of Gumaer, Swartwout, Cuddeback, DuBois and Freer all of whom spoke Dutch and attended the Dutch Reform Church.

Some have been led to believe that church records for the Minisink/Machackemeck (Deerpark) DRC were lost for the years 1720- 1736. Histories of the Dutch Reform Churches in America reveal the following: The Deerpark DRC was not established until 1737. Until that time, Dominies from the established Kingston DRC travelled to the remote areas to perform baptisms which were later entered into the Kingston DRC records. The first Dominie at the Deerpark DRC found notes on baptisms performed in 1716-1719 in Minisink that had never been recorded in Kingston. He appended them to the Deerpark records which actually began in 1737. Hence, the appearance of missing records for 1720-1736.

We have no record of when Luur or Grietje died. We know only that both are last recorded in Deerpark church records in 1720. Five of the sons of Luur and Grietje lived to raise families, Jacob, Cornelius, Matthew, Arie and Pieter.

Today due to family records that were thought lost long ago, Land Deeds, and court records, we now have the year of their deaths.