This is an amazing thing having just returned from Amsterdam, but I have discovered that I have Dutch roots. I can remember my maternal grandfather saying many times that he was a Dutchman, but I never understood much of the history. I had heard that his family had migrated to America in the mid 1800′s from NW Germany from around Tecklenburg. I can also remember my grandfather quoting his ancestors as saying, “If I thought I had a single drop of German blood in my veins I would cut it out!” I could never figure out how to resolve that apparent contradiction. Another mystery I never understand was the strange spelling of the family name – Kuck, but pronounced as Cook.

Now I know the rest of the story. Since my father died, Cheryl has been going through some boxes in our basement that we stored for my parents. In one of those boxes today she found a genealogical study my grandfather worked on during the final years of his life. I can remember seeing him work on this, but had never read the finished result.

It seems the family was originally English and had come to Protestant faith at a time when religious dissidents were under great persecution in England. They were among numerous English believers who immigrated to Holland in the early 1600′s because of the historical tolerance afforded to different religious groups. My family settled in Friesland, a province in the north of what today is The Netherlands. The local folks had trouble with their English surname and so they changed Cook to Kuck, more easily recognizable to the Dutch while retaining the phonetic Cook.

In time, some of the Kucks moved back to England when conditions improved, while others migrated to America. Those who remained in Friesland (my family) became totally Dutch in their identity. Some found their way to the vicinity of Tecklenburg, today in Germany, and eventually some of them  moved to America. One of them founded the small village of Kuckville, NY near Niagara Falls.

In his family history my grandfather wrote, “I remember Grandma Kuck, a rather small, busy woman who always kept her wooden shoes by the back door and she would put them on when she went to the garden and when she scrubbed the brick walks in the yard … These are the characteristics of the Dutch people.”

I found all sorts of interesting tidbits of information about my family and I’ll not bore you with them. However, I did think it interesting that my affinity for Holland my have something to do with my DNA!