Over several generations, the Albany members of the New Netherland ancestry and variously spelled Van Dyck family are best known as surgeons and physicians. Perhaps one "Hendrick Thomasse Van Dyke" was the first American member of the family.

New Amsterdam native Cornelis Van Dyck was sent to Beverwyck to to serve as a surgical apprentice under his sister's husband. His sons and their sons became "physicians" in Albany and Schenectady.

In 1720, five Van Dyck men were identified as freeholders in Albany County. Two of them lived in Albany's first and second wards.

Born in 1726, Hendrick Van Dyck married a Schuyler and followed his father to medical practice in Albany. However, Hendrick's life was cut short when he drowned in 1707. His son Cornelis was an Albany mainstay who may have practiced medicine. Another son was an Albany trader who connected the family to the regional elite when he married a Ten Broeck daughter in 1718. After the death of her husband, Maria Schuyler Van Dyck relocated her family to Kinderhook where they intermarried and became prominent residents.

For most of the eighteenth century, one "Dr." Van Dyck practiced medicine in Schenectady, Kinderhook, in large Albany County, and in New Jersey and elsewhere. Van Dyck daughters became wives and mothers of these regional families as well.

Henry Van Dyck was the last of the the Van Dyck physicians. Like the generations of before him, his practice reached deeply into the community. By that time, more enlightened newcomers had eclipsed the locally trained Albany physicians. In 1790, the Court Street household of Henry's widow was the only Van Dyck family left in the city!

Traditional medical mainstays for almost 150 years, these Van Dycks were well known in Albany and in its hinterland.

Sources: Our understanding of the Van Dyck/Dyke/Dyk/Dike family derives from family and community-based resources. Basic family information appears online and in a number of formats. Chief among the printed resources is Joseph North van Dycke, "Notes on the van Dyck ancestry," DSSA (1956/1958). Family papers collection at the New York State Library.