Closson Press

Authors: Sherida K. Eddlemon and Rhena A. V. Eddlemon
...1796 and Beyond. When you think about Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island and the Brooklyn Dodgers come to mind. Brooklyn has a rich historical past. It’s a city of immigrates and it still is today. In the late 1600’s, Dutch farmers formed a small hamlet called Bruecklen. This name was eventually anglicized to Brooklyn. In 1683 Kings County was formed. Brooklyn was chartered as a city in 1834. It grew absorbing the surrounding towns of Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, Williamsburgh, and New Utrecht. In 1898, Brooklyn became a borough of New York City -a borough of neighborhoods.

According to the US Census Bureau, these are the neighborhoods that make up the Brooklyn area: Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Borough Park, Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Brownsville, Ocean Hill, Bushwick, Canarsie, Flatlands, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Crown Heights, South Wingate, Crown Heights North, East Flatbush, Rugby, Farragut, East New York, Starrett City, Flatbush, Midwood, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, Gerritsen Beach, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint. Each of these neighborhoods is so large that they could be their own city. Sometimes people gave the name of their neighborhood as their residence rather than saying Brooklyn.

This compilation is the first in a series devoted to immigrate ancestors that lived in Brooklyn. Between 1840 and 1845, the Irish trying to escape famine came to America along with the Germans fleeing a disruptive revolution. In the 1870s, there was a wave of Arab immigrates into Brooklyn. Many of the Arabs arriving at this time have Turkish passports because of the extension of the Ottoman Empire. Most spoke Arabic and came from Syria, the region is known today as Lebanon. The Arabic immigrates were mainly Catholic and Jews. They called themselves Syrians despite their Turkish travel papers. In the 1880s another wave of immigrates from Eastern Europe began. This included the Italians, Poles, Russians, Danes, Finns, Swedes and Norwegians.

Information was gathered from sources such as directories, sheet music, event programs, newspapers, annuals, receipts, ship manifests, and other vital records. Sheet music is an unusual source for genealogical material. Songs were dedicated to people and many times gave their residence. Sometimes the names of the composer, arranger, lyrist and publisher had Brooklyn ties.

Immigrants came to New York in an effort to make a better life for their children. They may have sent them to school to colleges such as Amherst, Dartmouth and Princeton They formed business and social alliances that left footprints in newspapers, trade cards, programs, and receipts. These dated documents establish a place and date in time for your ancestor.