Welcome to the Valkenburg Surname Project!

Is your last name VALKENBURG?  Are your ancestors from The Netherlands or Belgium? 

When the Valkenburg Surname Project began in January 2012, its goal was to find out if the Valkenburgs from The Netherlands and Belgium all have a common ancestor or if there are several branches that have the same last name by coincidence.  As the first results from members Y-DNA came in, it was very clear that there is NOT a common ancestor, and that they come from a wider area in Europe than first believed. The project goal now is to track the various families to see where they originated.

The Valkenburg surname seems to have originated in a number of areas in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany (including present day Poland), and include:

THE NETHERLANDS

Gelderland Province:

• A property  known as Valkenberg or Valkenborch in Wichmond

Groningen Province:

• A building called Valkenburg in Lettelbert, named after a family named Valcke (it no longer exists). 
• A former castle in the Westerkwartier, now a farm.  The land was once owned by the farmer P.D Valkenburg who lived in Lettellbert.

Limburg Province:

• Decanate Valkenburg of the diocese of Roermond.
• The town of Valkenburg, mentioned earlier in reference to Henken Wouters.

Noord-BrabantProvince:

• Castle Valkenberg in Breda. 
• Farm "Van Valckenberch" in Gilse.
• A creek called Amer, running between the Dintel and Tonnekreek, was referred to by the steward at Oudenbosch in 1462 as the “Valkenberger” Amer.  Next to the Amer was "the overflow area of Valkenberg" (where now the towns/villages of Willemstad , Fijnaart and Klundert are now). Canals were dug there in the direction of Gastel. In 1549 a dam was constructed through "the Valkenberchschen Aemer". It’s believed that this name came from a village, north of Gastel, called Valkenberg.
• A submerged village of Valkenburg, situated south of Willemstad (Helwijk area).

Zuid-HollandProvince:

• The town of Valkenburg.
• The parish of Falcon Burch in Rijnland.

BELGIUM:

• Facons Court in Antwerp

GERMANY:

• Falkenburg Castle, a castle in Rhineland-Palatinate.  In the documents of Archbishop Erkinbalds of Mainz are letters from 1019 mentioning a cliff called Falkenstein.  Construction of a castle began on this cliff in 1125.  Only ruins remain now.

POLAND:

• The town of Falkenburg in what was originally Middle Pomerania, now in north-western Poland and renamed Złocieniec.
  

• Cornelius DRIESS (1712-1760), originally from Germany
• Henry FORTENBERRY born 1810 in North Carolina, with origins from The Netherlands
• James FAULKENBERRY (1802-1865), unknown origin
• Matthijs HENDRICKSZ, (abt 1555-1607) of Ammerzoden, The Netherlands
• Jan Spierinc van HESEWIJCK (1350-1420) of The Netherlands
• Hans Michael HOLD of Germany
• Evo HOSTE of Belgium
• John MCBEE born 1827 in Virginia, with origins from Scotland
• John PIGMAN (1662-1712) of Taunton, Somerset, England, whose origins are believed to be French
• Andries van VALCKENBURG of Millen, Belgium (abt 1540-1609)
• Peter van VALKENBURG born abt 1718/21 of The Netherlands

A number of Valkenburg lines are being researched up to the oldest known ancestor and then the process has ground to a halt. Perhaps this surname project can prove or disprove a relationship.

Luc Valkenburgh has coordinated an extensive project of the known genealogies of Valkenburg family branches in The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium, and his link can be accessed at http://www.valkenburgh.nl/

We would love to hear your story! Who is your oldest known ancestor?  Where did he come from?  What stories or legends do you have about the origin of your Valkenburg family? 
What do you know of your origins? 

While this website will be maintained in English, Dutch speakers who are not comfortable writing in English are welcome to send us an email in Dutch.   Behalve Engels, spreek en schrijf ik ook Nederlands, derhalve kunt U ook corresponderenin het Nederlands.

To participate in this surname study, please drop us a line at  and....if you haven't done so already, don't forget to have your Y-DNA test done!  Sample collection is painless.... it merely involves rubbing the inside of your cheek with a foam swab.

The Y-DNA test will help us to find out which Haplogroups the Valkenburgs come from.  A Haplogroup is a way of grouping men according to a shared male-line ancestor and geographic origin.  What will the Haplogroup tell us?  It will help us to learn the following:

• the origins of the earliest male ancestor
• the number of families with this Haplogroup
• the geographical origins of the families
• the date of the oldest ancestor in each family

Since markers on the Y-chromosome are being analyzed in this study, the DNA sample donor must be a male with a direct male Valkenburg lineage. Men have both an X and Y chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes.  Since only males have the Y-chromosome, it is passed directly from father to son, never to or from females.

For this reason, women interested in information about their Valkenburg lineage,and men descended from Valkenburg women, need to have a male relative (father,brother, uncle, a male cousin, from their direct Valkenburg line) actually supply the sample for analysis.

Now you may be wondering which Y-DNA test you need.  There are several choices, testing for different levels of markers: 37, 67, 111, and Big-Y.  We request that for the purposes of the surname study that the minimum number of markers you test is 37.  Here's why.  The more markers that are tested and compared, the more confidence you will have that any matches are recently related.  Here are a few examples:

An exact 37-marker match means that there may be a 90% chance of two people sharing a common ancestor within 1 to 5 generations.  If you estimate that 1 generation is about 25 years, then 5 generations is 125 years.  This makes tracing our common ancestry back much more reasonable.

To learn more about your paternal line through matching or to get the most benefit out of any of the Projects you may wish to join, consider a Y-67 test to start. TheY-111 test will be of most benefit for those looking to confirm Y chromosome matching at our highest level between two living men. The difference between the tests is that more markers (STRs) are tested, which allows for more refined results.

We have 23 pairs of DNA chromosomes that contain the genes we inherit from both our parents.  22 of those pairs of chromosomes are called autosomal and give us the traits such as our eye colour and height.The past pair of DNA chromosomes identifies our sex. 

Normally, Y chromosomes are passed directly from father to son, unchanged, from generation to generation.  Sometimes,however, a mutation—a random, naturally occurring, usually harmless change—occurs. This mutation is called a marker.  The marker now gets passed down over the generations from father to son, and so on, for thousands of years.  Because of this, the marker can be tracked through DNA testing. 

Sometimes, more than one mutational event, or marker,defines a particular family group. These markers help to identify a Haplogroup, since everyone who has one of these markers will also have the other.

When geneticists identify a marker,they try to discover its first occurrence - when and where it occurred. Since each marker identifies a new family group, your participation in the Y-DNA study is an important step in our research project.

A marker is what is tested in basic Y-DNA tests. These markers are also referred to as STRs (Short Tandem Repeats) which are a series of repeating nucleotides (A, T, G, C). For example: GACTACTACTACTGG - the STR consists of the three repeated CTA segments. Y-DNA tests look for matching markers or “STRs” between two men, if they match, which would indicate a genetic relationship.

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