by Stefan Bielinski Geertruy Staats was born in March 1711. She was the daughter of Albany residents Barent and Neeltie Vandenbergh Staats. In November 1735, she married Jacobus Schuyler - further cementing the bond between those two families. By 1752, most of their eight children had been baptized in the Albany Dutch church. These Schuylers lived in Albany's North End - perhaps with Jacob's widowed mother. Geertruy lost her husband in 1760. After that, her family may have resided with her son or in the Pearl Street household of her married sister. Beginning in 1799, her name appears on the city's poor rolls. She was identified as a resident of the third ward and was allowed 15 pounds a year. She also received aid in a variety of forms from the Dutch church. In 1802, she would have been ninety-one-years-old! notes
Tricia Barbagallo has compiled aid profiles for Albany's needy as part of her larger study of "The Poor, Destitute, and Legally Entitled."
first posted: 3/20/04 |