Clercq, de, family
De Clercq was a Dutch Mennonite family originally from Flanders, Belgium. Geraerdt de Clercq, born about 1530, who is thought to have been a Mennonite, migrated from Bruges to Emden, Germany, because of persecution between 1609 and 1622 and died there. His son Jacques de Clercq, born 1555 at Ghent, Belgium, a linen merchant of Bruges, who married Passchijntje Gryspeert of Rumbeeke (of the well-known Mennonite Grispeer or Grijspeert family). While most members of the de Clercq family remained Catholic, and their descendants are still living in Bruges, Jacques joined the Mennonite Church and left Flanders with his wife and two children to settle in Haarlem, Holland, in 1607, where he joined the Flemish congregation and died in 1609. It is not clear whether other Mennonites of this family name who are found in Aardenburg and Middelburg in the Dutch province of Zeeland were relatives of Jacques de Clercq. In Haarlem Jacques de Clercq evidently became a deacon and a friend of the well-known Elder Jacques Outerman.
The de Clercq family lived in Haarlem for three or four generations. Then most members went to Amsterdam, where they were engaged in business and banking. Here in the 18th and 19th centuries no fewer than 18 members of this family served the church <em>bij't Lam</em> as deacons. In Middelburg, Zeeland, there must also have been a branch of this family: Jacob de Clercq was a minister of the Flemish congregation of this town in 1665. Willem de Clercq was a member of this family. To this family also belonged Pieter de Clercq, born 21 January 1849, at Amsterdam, died 9 May 1934 at Zeist, married Maria Catharina Müller of Krefeld. Pieter de Clercq, a banker at Amsterdam, who was a deacon of the Amsterdam congregation, and later, while living at his country house at Veenwouden, a president of the Friesche Doopsgezinde Societeit (Mennonite Conference of Friesland), was very active in stimulating the reading of the Bible and in promoting the translation of the Bible into the Frisian language.
Bibliography
Eeghen, P. van. Familieboek de Clercq. The Hague, 1940.
Nederland’s Patriciaat II (1911) 60-68; XI (1920) 43-53; XIII (1923) 29-30.
| Author(s) | Nanne van der Zijpp |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1953 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
van der Zijpp, Nanne. "Clercq, de, family." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1953. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Clercq,_de,_family&oldid=62936.
APA style
van der Zijpp, Nanne. (1953). Clercq, de, family. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Clercq,_de,_family&oldid=62936.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, pp. 622-623. All rights reserved.
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