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Historical Note: The "Dutch Puritan" movement was properly called “the Nadere Reformatie” (or Further Reformation). It emerged in the 17th-century Netherlands as a response to what was perceived as a stalled, overly institutionalized Protestantism. It was during this time that the Latin phrase “semper reformanda” (always reforming) became a watch cry for the most passionate churches. Influenced deeply by similar impulses in English Puritanism, leading Dutch theologians like G

I Historical Note: The stories that are extant of Aldert Roosa and his adventures are begging to be made into action movies--or at least a comic book. That's what I've done in this chronicle, based on a true event involving Aldert and his son Arien. Though the historic events called the Esopus Wars primarily involved the Dutch and the Lenape Indians, that was only part of the powder keg in Wiltwyk (Kingston). In this story, I've focused on the British connection. This story

Historical Note: When I first began to study the family information pages of the Rose Family Bible, I was struck by the earliest entries: Philip B. Rose, born in 1831 and married to Alida in March of 1857. I should clarify that, though. It was the entry that said she was deceased in 1866, only eleven years into their marriage. Born April 1840, she was just 26. What’s more, the Bible also noted that a daughter, Mary, was born and died in 1862. It was only after I was able to

The Word of God in Dutch Comes to the Low Countries The Breath of God for Goert de Rosa (1560) Historical Note: As dramatized in another chronicle on Goert de Rosa, a fictionalized pirate story during the Spanish Inquisition, I’ve speculated that this first known ancestor in the Netherlands had roots in Spain. The reason for that story was to account for the old family legends about the origin of the first Roses–Rosas Spain on the Catalonian coast. Most careful genealogists