| Note | See notes for Rachel's son, Jacob Van Woert Vrooman. Jacob died in 1784. His brother Adam petitioned for land that would otherwise have been Jacob's. Also, mentioned in the petition and the attached certificate of Andrew Bradt is that Rachel Vrooman died in 1793. Adam refers to her as his mother. Given the context, it is possible, just, that Rachel Van Woert Vrooman died in Upper Canada. Other than the slight implication offered in the Bradt certificate, however, there is nothing else in the way of documentation to support this possibility. St. Mark's Anglican Church burial records begin in 1792 (for a transcription see Niagara Branch of the OGS publication C015). There are less than a dozen burials recorded for 1793, none of which have a name resembling Vrooman. Likewise, the Field, Brown, Vrooman Burial Ground transcription (Niagara OGS publication 3349 done by Lester Wilker in 1983) offers nothing to indicate such an early usage for the burial ground. It is evident that by 1983 many stones are badly worn. Included in the publication are pages covering this cemetery appearing in Publication 19 of the Niagara Historical Society. This is a partial transcription of the Field, Brown, Vrooman cemetery by Janet Carnochan. Her earliest burials shown are from 1808. (NHS publication 19 is undated, but will likely have been done prior to 1920.)
The one piece of information to be gleaned from this is that if Rachel Van Woert Vrooman didn't die in Niagara Township, and instead died in New York State, then we may say that the Canadian and American members of the family were still in contact. |