Genealogists first want to know the correct spelling of his name. It’s a take-your-pick situation. The given name is easy: Laurens can be translated as Lawrence. The various surnames attributed to him are a mixture of Danish, Dutch and English. They are Dye, Duyts, Duytszen and Duyksen. Laurens was also known as Laurens Bigshoe and Laurens Grootschoe. Family researchers may also find that the surname varies from generation to generation as it becomes more anglicized.

Laurens Dey was born in 1610 at Holstein, Denmark, son of Derick Dytszen, and in 1639 married Ytie Jansen and immigrated to New Amsterdam aboard the ship “deBrant van Trogan”, translated as Fire of Troy.

Laurens Dey Goes Astray

Laurens had an agreement with a friend of the ship’s captain by which he would lease land and clear it to cover the expenses of his passage. This apparently worked to everyone’s advantage and there is little mention of Dey, then a New Amsterdam resident, until he was brought before the Harlem court on morals charges.

The court found Laurens guilty of selling his wife, Ytie Jansen, and forcing her to live in adultery with another man, and of living in adultery himself. He was sentenced to have a rope tied around his neck and to be severely flogged, have his right ear cut off, and to be banished for fifty years. He went across the Hudson River to Bergen (now Jersey City), married Gritje Jansen in 1666, and died there in 1668. Bergen was part of the 17th century province of New Netherland.

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