I got the ancestory bug, a few years back and have been exploring my American roots on both my parents sides ever since!
The artists rendering in my profile, is of the original Winne homestead near Bethlehen NY. Pieter Winne, from Ghent Flanders ( now known as Belgium ) was the first of our line to arrive. He was a successful teneant farmer on the Van Rennselear tract, raising a very large family, that went on to marry into many of the well known original Dutch families: Fonda, Van Ness, Van Shaick, Van Cortlandt, etc.
My last name spelling of Winner, came about from a patriotic reaction to a loyalist great grandfather of mine just after the American Revolution. As I understand it, the patriot son and his brother added an 'r' to Winne, and left home on the Esopus Creek west of Kingston, for the western slope of the Catskills, never to return.

I got the ancestory bug, a few years back and have been exploring my American roots on both my parents sides ever since!
The artists rendering in my profile, is of the original Winne homestead near Bethlehen NY. Pieter Winne, from Ghent Flanders ( now known as Belgium ) was the first of our line to arrive. He was a successful teneant farmer on the Van Rennselear tract, raising a very large family, that went on to marry into many of the well known original Dutch families: Fonda, Van Ness, Van Shaick, Van Cortlandt, etc.
My last name spelling of Winner, came about from a patriotic reaction to a loyalist great grandfather of mine just after the American Revolution. As I understand it, the patriot son and his brother added an 'r' to Winne, and left home on the Esopus Creek west of Kingston, for the western slope of the Catskills, never to return.