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Looking for an Ancestor in Wyckoff Reformed Church Cemetery? A 1916 Gravestone List Is One Place to Look
A fire in 1898 destroyed most of the church's earlier records. A separate 1916 copy of the cemetery's gravestone inscriptions, 581 entries, is online. It lists names and dates, not baptism or membership records, and here is how to read it.
In 1898, a fire in Wyckoff Reformed Church destroyed most of its earlier records and documents, according to the church's National Register of Historic Places nomination.[1] Eighteen years later, George H. Budke copied the inscriptions in the church's cemetery. His list of 581 entries is published as a single table by the Genealogical Society of Bergen County at njgsbc.org, and anyone can read it.[2]
For families with roots in the area before 1916, it is one place to look. The church's self-guided cemetery tour is Saturday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m.[3] (details), and the list is a way to look up names before you go, or on a phone while you walk.
What's in the 1916 list
The list is Budke's 1916 copy of the inscriptions, with later notes added in brackets. It gives no grave locations and does not say which stones still stand today. The surname counts in this guide are Wyckoff News tallies of the society's table: they use exact spellings, count the surname of the person buried, and include every row, so the few people listed twice are counted twice.[2]
- Ackerman has the most rows, 26, followed by Smith (23), Pulis (21), Post (20) and Watson (19).[2]
- The earliest death date in the list is for Nancy, wife of Col. Peter Ward, who died May 10, 1806, at 43.[2]
- Eleven children in the list died before their first birthday, going by the ages and birth dates given. Among them is a Stagg baby recorded only as "Twin Child."[2]
How to search it
On Oct. 1, 1931, the Garret A. Hobart Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) transcribed Budke's list. In October 2001, Judith Courter Ullman added notes to it, set off in square brackets.[2] The society publishes the result as a single table, and the columns and counts in this guide describe that table.[2]
Each row has eight columns. Here is the first row in the table, with its empty cells marked "(blank)":[2]
| Last name | First name | Date of death | Age/Birthdate | Relation | Last name | First name | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (blank) | Lettice | 12 Nov 1827 | 69-3-9 | wife | Winters | Henry | (blank) |
The first two columns are the person buried. The next three describe them. The last three name a relative and hold any notes. This row reads as Lettice, wife of Henry Winters, who died Nov. 12, 1827, aged 69 years, 3 months and 9 days.
Three things about the table are easy to miss.
Spellings vary. The list has 18 entries under Winter and 13 under Winters. Voorhis, VanVoorhis and Van Voorhis all appear, as do Folley and Folly.[2] Search for a short piece of the name, such as "Voorh" or "Foll," to catch them all.
It is not in alphabetical order. The rows do not run A to Z, so scrolling for a surname does not work. Use your browser's find command (Ctrl+F, or Command+F on a Mac; on a phone, Find in Page in the browser's menu) and search the whole page. Expect more hits than the counts above, because a surname also turns up when it belongs to a relative.
Many wives have no surname. Of the 581 entries, 78 leave the first last-name column blank, and 76 of those are wives listed by first name and their husband's name, as Lettice and Nancy are.[2] A search for a woman's married surname finds these rows, because the husband's surname is in the sixth column. A search for her maiden name will not.
Going further
About 3 in 10 entries give a birth date. Most of the rest give an age at death in years, months and days, which lets you work backward.[2] Abraham VanVoorhis died Feb. 5, 1830, aged 94-8-18.[2] Counting back 94 years, 8 months and 18 days lands on May 18, 1735. Ullman's bracketed note, citing Steven L. Winter, says he was born May 17, 1735, and baptized June 8 of that year at Hackensack.[2] The arithmetic got within a day.
Seventy-nine rows carry bracketed additions.[2] Many name a person's parents. Others flag conflicts with other sources. For Abram Folley, the list gives a death date of May 4, 1859. Ullman's note says a tall stone, which is not listed in these records, gives May 24.[2]
The list stops in 1916, so anyone buried later is not in it. For later burials, the society's page links to the cemetery's listing on Find a Grave, a volunteer-built site.[2][4]
A name in the table is a lead, not proof. Budke read the stones, the DAR chapter transcribed his list, and the website reproduces that transcription. To confirm an entry, compare it with a second record, such as a census record or a family Bible. The society's page cites Family History Library microfilm 868247 for the 1931 transcription.[2] If the stone still stands, a visit can settle a disputed date.
Every claim in this article is drawn from public Wyckoff records. To dispute a fact, request a fact-check, or ask that personal information be removed, contact the ombudsman.