THE FIRST KNOWN MASSELINK
THE MASSELINK STORY BEGINS SOME 38 GENERATIONS AGO
The surname 'Masselink' comes from the name of two farms established in what is now eastern Netherlands by a soldier or knight named Masse around the year 804.
MADAM I'M ADAM
But our oldest known DNA common ancestor or mitochondrial Adam is believed to be the first man or the first group of men from which of all living males came from. This Y-Chromosomal 'Adam' probably originated from what is now Cameroon (Africa) some 160,000 - 300,000 years ago.
THE MASSELINK STORY BEGINS SOME 38 GENERATIONS AGO
The surname 'Masselink' comes from the name of two farms established in what is now eastern Netherlands by a soldier or knight named Masse around the year 804.
MADAM I'M ADAM
But our oldest known DNA common ancestor or mitochondrial Adam is believed to be the first man or the first group of men from which of all living males came from. This Y-Chromosomal 'Adam' probably originated from what is now Cameroon (Africa) some 160,000 - 300,000 years ago.
Based on Masselink DNA, the below web address traces our Masselink Male (Paternal) Haplogroup
A haplogroup is a collection of common inherited genes that trace male ancestor lines back to an original parent. The Y chromosome is male-specific. During reproduction, the Y chromosome passes down from father to son only. This is how Haplogroup R1b represents a common ancestor that ties us directly to our male ancestral 'Adam' (Y).
Bronze Age Proto-Indo-Europeans
R was the dominant haplogroup among the Northern and Eastern Proto-Indo-European language speakers. The group evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches. The Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in the Yamna culture (3300-2500 BC). They adopted bronze weapons and domesticated horses in the Eurasian steppes around 4000-3500 BC. The Southern Steppe culture carried more R1b lineages. The Northern forest-steppe culture was R-dominant.
The first expansion of the forest-steppe people occurred with the Corded Ware Culture. They introduced corded pottery and used polished battle axes. These were the two most prominent features of the Corded Ware culture. This is also when the diffusion process of the Indo-European languages began. Haplogroup R was found in the Corded Ware culture in Germany (2600 BC).
The Germanic Branch
The first wave of R into Europe moved to Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The Corded Ware R people mixed with the pre-Germanic aborigines. They were the ancestors of the first Indo-European culture in Germany and Scandinavia. Yet, that culture is not Proto-Germanic. It is possible that the R people became the main Germanic lineage many centuries later.
When R moved up the Danube to the Pannonian plain around 2800 BC, they ended the local Bell Beaker (2200 BC) and Corded Ware (2400 BC) Cultures. They set up the Unetice Culture (2300-1600 BC) around Bohemia and Eastern Germany. That culture expanded to Scandinavia, founding the Nordic Bronze Age (1800-500 BC), then the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Germanic languages appeared after the Nordic Bronze Age. Proto-Germanic language developed as a blend of two branches of Indo-European languages. It acquired vocabulary from the indigenous Corded Ware language over a thousand years. Then it evolved with the arrival of Proto-Italo-Celto-Germanic people from the Unetice culture. Unetice is the source of future Germanic cultures. The Proto-Germanic language is closest to Proto-Italo-Celtic, but also shares similarities with Proto-Slavic. The first genuine Germanic tongue appeared around 500 BC.
This DNA analysis identified one of our ancestors some 25 generations back as a Northern European who lived around the years 1345-1405 AD. We know from historical records that a Masselink ancestor migrated probably from eastern Netherlands to Hardinghausen, Grafschaft Bentheim, in what is now Germany and founded the Masselink farm there sometime around 1407. That farm remained in the Masselink family until they sold the farm and emigrated to Michigan in the late 1800's.
A generation is often defined as all of the people born and living at about the same time, with the average period generally considered to be about thirty years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children of their own. Using this 30-year period for a generation, we know that the first Masselink farms were established around the year 804 in eastern Netherlands, some 400 years before the above referenced Generation 25 was born.
As four hundred years works out to be about 13 generations (400/30), adding that to the 25 generations of DNA evidence as shown above, it appears that the first Masselink lived some 38 generations ago. As 'Masselink' is the name of a farm and there were no Masselink farms before the year 804, there cannot be anyone surnamed Masselink before the year 804 or before some 38 generations ago. We can trace the oldest known Masselink by name to around the year 1660.
https://vault.crigenetics.com/dna/report/YP264328/paternal-haplo
Thanks to the hard work and persistence of scientists and DNA testing, we’re able to understand more about the genetic landscape of the Germans than ever before. Truth is, there’s a lot more to being German than you think.
Think you know what being German means?
To Be French is Actually to Be German (480 - 843 AD)
Evidence of the first humans in Germany dates back to 4600 BC, during the late Neolithic Period, and after the last Ice Age. Although there are no written records from this time period, anthropologists discovered tools, structures, and garbage that helped them piece together early German life.
Fast-forward to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the picture is much clearer. First came Julius Caesar’s invasion and defeat of the Gauls in 51 BC. This defeat coincided with Germanic tribes assimilating the Gauls into Gallo-Roman culture as they expanded into new areas. Centuries later, the Germanic tribes would be ready to capitalize on another situation. The Franks (a western Germanic tribe) made their move just as the Western Roman Empire was falling.
Within 80 years after the fall of Rome in 480 AD, the Franks conquered most of Western Europe. They continued their expansion by conquering Italy in the 700s, forming all of Francia. During this series of conquests, they destroyed the Burgundians, the Gauls, and the Ostrogoths. They even got some land in the Iberian Peninsula.
So, that means:
Germans Form the Holy Roman Empire (843 - 1806 AD)
In 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned Emperor of Rome by Pope Leo III. The event set the Frankish kingdom on the path to eventually becoming the Holy Roman Empire which, after a simple renaming, became the Carolingian Empire. Due to the civil war in 843, the Carolingian Empire was split into 3 different kingdoms (West, Middle, and East). One of the three was crowned 'king' over the others but had no real authority over them.
This didn’t sit well with any of the kings. Western Francia separated from this confederation and became France, Middle Francia was annexed by Eastern Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire was founded in 888 AD. Because the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was a loose collection of principalities and territories, its map was baffling. It was loosely divided into four different kingdoms:
If you would like to read more about that and how the kingdoms were divided during that time, click here.
Similarly, as with the French, those part of the HRE, including but not limited to Italy, were actually of German ancestry. Because these two ancestries overlapped during history’s winding road, it follows that we could potentially have any or all of these results in our DNA report.
Top 6 German Ancestry Surprises All Germans Should Know (crigenetics.com)
A haplogroup is a collection of common inherited genes that trace male ancestor lines back to an original parent. The Y chromosome is male-specific. During reproduction, the Y chromosome passes down from father to son only. This is how Haplogroup R1b represents a common ancestor that ties us directly to our male ancestral 'Adam' (Y).
Bronze Age Proto-Indo-Europeans
R was the dominant haplogroup among the Northern and Eastern Proto-Indo-European language speakers. The group evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches. The Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in the Yamna culture (3300-2500 BC). They adopted bronze weapons and domesticated horses in the Eurasian steppes around 4000-3500 BC. The Southern Steppe culture carried more R1b lineages. The Northern forest-steppe culture was R-dominant.
The first expansion of the forest-steppe people occurred with the Corded Ware Culture. They introduced corded pottery and used polished battle axes. These were the two most prominent features of the Corded Ware culture. This is also when the diffusion process of the Indo-European languages began. Haplogroup R was found in the Corded Ware culture in Germany (2600 BC).
The Germanic Branch
The first wave of R into Europe moved to Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The Corded Ware R people mixed with the pre-Germanic aborigines. They were the ancestors of the first Indo-European culture in Germany and Scandinavia. Yet, that culture is not Proto-Germanic. It is possible that the R people became the main Germanic lineage many centuries later.
When R moved up the Danube to the Pannonian plain around 2800 BC, they ended the local Bell Beaker (2200 BC) and Corded Ware (2400 BC) Cultures. They set up the Unetice Culture (2300-1600 BC) around Bohemia and Eastern Germany. That culture expanded to Scandinavia, founding the Nordic Bronze Age (1800-500 BC), then the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Germanic languages appeared after the Nordic Bronze Age. Proto-Germanic language developed as a blend of two branches of Indo-European languages. It acquired vocabulary from the indigenous Corded Ware language over a thousand years. Then it evolved with the arrival of Proto-Italo-Celto-Germanic people from the Unetice culture. Unetice is the source of future Germanic cultures. The Proto-Germanic language is closest to Proto-Italo-Celtic, but also shares similarities with Proto-Slavic. The first genuine Germanic tongue appeared around 500 BC.
This DNA analysis identified one of our ancestors some 25 generations back as a Northern European who lived around the years 1345-1405 AD. We know from historical records that a Masselink ancestor migrated probably from eastern Netherlands to Hardinghausen, Grafschaft Bentheim, in what is now Germany and founded the Masselink farm there sometime around 1407. That farm remained in the Masselink family until they sold the farm and emigrated to Michigan in the late 1800's.
A generation is often defined as all of the people born and living at about the same time, with the average period generally considered to be about thirty years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children of their own. Using this 30-year period for a generation, we know that the first Masselink farms were established around the year 804 in eastern Netherlands, some 400 years before the above referenced Generation 25 was born.
As four hundred years works out to be about 13 generations (400/30), adding that to the 25 generations of DNA evidence as shown above, it appears that the first Masselink lived some 38 generations ago. As 'Masselink' is the name of a farm and there were no Masselink farms before the year 804, there cannot be anyone surnamed Masselink before the year 804 or before some 38 generations ago. We can trace the oldest known Masselink by name to around the year 1660.
https://vault.crigenetics.com/dna/report/YP264328/paternal-haplo
Thanks to the hard work and persistence of scientists and DNA testing, we’re able to understand more about the genetic landscape of the Germans than ever before. Truth is, there’s a lot more to being German than you think.
Think you know what being German means?
To Be French is Actually to Be German (480 - 843 AD)
Evidence of the first humans in Germany dates back to 4600 BC, during the late Neolithic Period, and after the last Ice Age. Although there are no written records from this time period, anthropologists discovered tools, structures, and garbage that helped them piece together early German life.
Fast-forward to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the picture is much clearer. First came Julius Caesar’s invasion and defeat of the Gauls in 51 BC. This defeat coincided with Germanic tribes assimilating the Gauls into Gallo-Roman culture as they expanded into new areas. Centuries later, the Germanic tribes would be ready to capitalize on another situation. The Franks (a western Germanic tribe) made their move just as the Western Roman Empire was falling.
Within 80 years after the fall of Rome in 480 AD, the Franks conquered most of Western Europe. They continued their expansion by conquering Italy in the 700s, forming all of Francia. During this series of conquests, they destroyed the Burgundians, the Gauls, and the Ostrogoths. They even got some land in the Iberian Peninsula.
So, that means:
- The Franks (a Germanic tribe) conquered most of Western Europe
- The Frankish kingdom was known as Francia
- Western Francia would later break off from the Holy Roman Empire and become what is now France.
Germans Form the Holy Roman Empire (843 - 1806 AD)
In 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned Emperor of Rome by Pope Leo III. The event set the Frankish kingdom on the path to eventually becoming the Holy Roman Empire which, after a simple renaming, became the Carolingian Empire. Due to the civil war in 843, the Carolingian Empire was split into 3 different kingdoms (West, Middle, and East). One of the three was crowned 'king' over the others but had no real authority over them.
This didn’t sit well with any of the kings. Western Francia separated from this confederation and became France, Middle Francia was annexed by Eastern Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire was founded in 888 AD. Because the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was a loose collection of principalities and territories, its map was baffling. It was loosely divided into four different kingdoms:
- Kingdom of Germany
- Kingdom of Italy
- Kingdom of Bohemia
- Kingdom of Burgundy
If you would like to read more about that and how the kingdoms were divided during that time, click here.
Similarly, as with the French, those part of the HRE, including but not limited to Italy, were actually of German ancestry. Because these two ancestries overlapped during history’s winding road, it follows that we could potentially have any or all of these results in our DNA report.
Top 6 German Ancestry Surprises All Germans Should Know (crigenetics.com)
Hereditary Surnames
With a few exceptions, hereditary surnames (last names passed down through the males of a family) did not exist until about a thousand years ago, as surnames weren't necessary before then. In a world where most folks never ventured more than a few miles from their place of birth and everyone knew their neighbors, first or given names were the only designations needed.
True surnames (hereditary names used to distinguish one person from another) first came into use in the southern areas of Europe and gradually spread northward. In many countries, the use of hereditary surnames began with the nobility who often called themselves after their ancestral lands. Many of the gentry, however, did not adopt surnames until the 1300's and it took from the late 1400’s until the early 1800’s before family surnames became permanent and inherited (i.e., passed down from father to son) rather than being subject to a change in a person’s appearance, job, or place of residence.
A farm name (German Hofname, Dutch erfnaam) is a variation of a locality name. In rural areas it was common for farmers to be known by the traditional name of their farm and because of this custom, farm names rarely changed. What makes farm surnames different from other surnames is that when someone moved onto a farm as a worker or as a new owner, they would change their old surname to that new farm name (whose name usually came from the farm’s original leaseholder).
Because of the tradition of impartible inheritance in German-speaking Europe, ownership of a Hof (farm) over the centuries was often tied to direct patrimonial descent. Thus, a farmer was traditionally known by his Hofname (farm name) even before the development of the Nachname (last name or surname), and the two systems often overlapped. Many Nachnamen (last names) are in fact derived from Hofnamen (farm names), but in some instances, the Hofname tradition survived alongside an official Nachname. Historically, the Hofname was the first type of a family name by a commoner to become inheritable. This process began in the Late Middle Ages: e.g., Ulrich Zwingli (b. 1484) inherited his father's surname that was originally a Hofname (from the term Twing, denoting a type of walled-in estate) even though he did not inherit the estate.
Another interesting fact regarding the perpetuation of the Hofname was that if a farmer had no sons, a daughter or a wife could inherit the farm. If that daughter or widowed wife married, her new husband was required to take as his new last name (Rufname) the name of the farm, which was also the woman's surname, thus keeping the farm's family name intact. This custom is called Stabrut (static progeny in Low German) and Erbtochter (heiress in High German). There are instances in the Masselink family genealogy when (1) a male ancestor changed his surname from Kleine Masselink to his wife’s surname, (2) a female ancestor's husband changed his surname to her surname of Kleine Masselink, and (3) a female ancestor had children with different surnames with different husbands based on whether she or her husband changed his respective surname at the time of marriage (e.g., the same Kleine Masselink mother had children with the surname Kleine Masselink from one marriage while her children from the other marriage had the surname Norbeck). Within a family that had sons, the oldest son usually inherited the farm. An option for the other brothers was to become a heuermann (or heuerling or huurman). But these brothers would be more than just a "hireling". They would get the use of a small house and a small piece of land on the farm, but had no hereditary rights to that property.
Surnames in the Netherlands and Grafschaft Bentheim became fixed when France occupied and ruled both areas. Napoleon's "Surname Act of 1811" required all families to have permanent last names. Surnames registered under this decree were often based on a father's current surname,residence or occupation
THE FIRST KNOWN MASSELINK ...
...could have been a Christian (converted pagan?) Saxon soldier, knight or nobleman with the occupational name or a cognomen of Masse who acquired two farm leaseholds (which became the farms named Masselink) in what is now eastern Netherlands sometime around the early 800's. This land was actually owned from the early 9th century until 1768 by the powerful Werden Abbey (Abdij Werden), a Roman Catholic monastery located in Essen, Germany. Our Masselink common ancestor only had a leasehold to these farms, i.e., he and his descendants had the right to farm the land but had to pay tithes to the Church and taxes to the Government in order to maintain the family leasehold.
Masse is probably a metonymic occupational name or a cognomen for a man who wielded a cudgel or a mace-like weapon in battle. The name of the leasehold owner of a farm named 'Masselink' is sometimes shown in old tax records as 'Masselman' (Mace Man).
...could have been a Christian (converted pagan?) Saxon soldier, knight or nobleman with the occupational name or a cognomen of Masse who acquired two farm leaseholds (which became the farms named Masselink) in what is now eastern Netherlands sometime around the early 800's. This land was actually owned from the early 9th century until 1768 by the powerful Werden Abbey (Abdij Werden), a Roman Catholic monastery located in Essen, Germany. Our Masselink common ancestor only had a leasehold to these farms, i.e., he and his descendants had the right to farm the land but had to pay tithes to the Church and taxes to the Government in order to maintain the family leasehold.
Masse is probably a metonymic occupational name or a cognomen for a man who wielded a cudgel or a mace-like weapon in battle. The name of the leasehold owner of a farm named 'Masselink' is sometimes shown in old tax records as 'Masselman' (Mace Man).
Charlemagne (742-814), also known as Charles the Great (German: Karl der Große) was the King of the Franks who united most of Western Europe during the Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France and Germany. He took the Frankish throne in 768, became King of Italy in 774, and from the year 800, was also the first Roman Emperor in Western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The expanded Frankish state he founded was called the Carolingian Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
From the 9th century and for almost 1,000 years thereafter, the powerful Roman Catholic Werden Monastery had extensive landholdings, to include properties in Twente (now in eastern Netherlands) of De Lutte (Monninkhof and Elfterheurne), Denekamp, Beuningen, Zenderen, Mander, Rossum, Lemselo, Lonneker, Albergen, Neuenhaus, and Nordhorn. All of these properties are about six miles apart from each other.
The Masselink story begins around the year 804 AD...
when Charlemagne donated thirty hoven (farms) in Twente to the Werden Monastery to finance the education of priests. This donation included farms in Vasse and Mander, which are located near Ootmarsum in what is now known as The Netherlands. A farm (hof) was a well-defined property during Carolingian times. These farms often had a wood or stone living quarters, some farming and trade buildings and sometimes a watermill. A portion of these farms donated by Charlemagne became the Vasse and Mander Masselink Farms sometime during the early 800's.
Some speculate that their families came to what is now eastern Netherlands because they were handpicked by Charlemagne sometime before his death in 814 to be model farmers in the region. They were all reported to have had large farms. (The original Masselink farm by Mander and Vasse in the Netherlands, which in the 800's was part of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire and near the border of present day Grafschaft Bentheim, was indeed a large farm). The story goes that around the early 800's, nine families from Charlemagne's Saxony settled in Vasse. After receiving their land leaseholds from the Werden Monastery, these families became known by their respective farm names as each had a name ending in "link" or "ink": Geerdink (also known as Ensink), Lensink, Masselink, Mastink, Mensink, Teusink, Vrielink, Warmelink and Wigbelink. If our namesake had indeed earned his Masselman (Mace Man) name for his expertise with a mace during battle and based on the significantly larger amount of land he acquired compared to the other families, he could have received his two farms as a retirement reward for his years of service to Charlemagne and his expertise in battle. The current Masselink named crossroads on the Dutch-Grafschaft Bentheim border is not the location of the original Masselink farm in the Netherlands.
The First Masselink was not a Huguenot.
Family legend says that a Calvinist Huguenot, whose family originally came from either Masse, La Masse or Masse' fled from France to what is now Germany sometime after the 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and took as his surname from what the people in Grafschaft Bentheim could have called him, i.e., Masseling: meaning ‘from Masse’ or ‘the young Masse’. As surnames began in southern Europe first, his French family could have taken Masse as their permanent surname many years before he fled France. Although a Huguenot farmer would have been a welcomed addition to the farming community of Hardinghausen, as he would have brought from France an advanced knowledge of farming and cattle breeding, a Huguenot CANNOT be the first Masselink due to the fact that there were no Huguenots before 1519 and there are documented Masselink farms since before 1332 in what is now eastern Netherlands and since before 1407 in Hardinghausen, in what is now western Germany.
Facts about the original Masselink farms in Mander and Vasse from official Dutch records:
Number 557 Inheritable Farm Masselink in Mander:
799-1768 Farms located in Twente are owned by the Werden Abbey in Essen.
804? (Before 1332 until 1777) An inheritable life estate farm in the Parish of Vasse is assigned to a Masselink along with an inheritable farm in the Parish of Mander sometime before 1332.
<1332-1768 A portion of the crops is paid by the Masselink farm as a tithe to the Werden Abbey.
1475 A comment in the Dutch tax register states that the Masselink farm was listed in their records since before 1400: "Ontvangen van de erven, lieden en goed toebehorende aan dat huis aan Lage/zoals lage in dit voorschrift" (Received by the heirs, people and goods (or property) belonging to that house as so stated/as stated in this prescript). Note: "Lage' is probably a legal term meaning ‘as so stated’.
1601 Masselynck, belmondich. Tax register notes that the Masselink farm contained arable land.
1601 Masselynck, Note in the tax register as to the amount of various crops paid to the Masselink Mander farm to the Masselink Vasse farm.
<1601-1808 A portion of the crops was paid to the Monastery (Stift Weerselo) in Overijssel.
1602 Record listing the crops that were paid as various tithes and taxes.
1768+ A portion of the crops was paid to the Masselink farm in Vasse.
1777+ The inhabitants of the farm take ownership of the property. The farm is no longer owned by the Werden Abbey.
1808-1844 A family named Cramer now owns this original Masselink farm.
1832 The Municipality of Tubbergen (Kadaster gemeente Tubbergen) conducts a formal survey of the property. The records report the following: Section (sectie) C, (number cannot be determined). The Masselink farmland plots were sold, but the Masselink holdings were established and recorded as plots of farmland comprised of section C numbers 569, 570, 573 (registered as 32.00), 575 (20.00), 588 (16.00), 589, 733 (24.00), 735, 737 (half), 739, 839, (8.00), 859 and section E number 259 (40.00). (Note: The farmland is not contiguous; it is comprised of a number of unconnected separate plots)
Number 515 Inheritable Life Estate Farm Masselink in Vasse: The Municipality of Tubbergen (Kadaster gemeente Tubbergen) completes a formal survey of the property in 1832. The records state that the Vasse farm consisted of Section (sectie) E number 451. The Vasse farm may have been acquired by the Huis Bellinckhof in 1601. In 1979 it is reported that on the left side of the road from Vasse to Mander there is a marker showing the borders of five farms: Asman, Booyink, Kottink, Masselink and de Elferink.
Today, there is still a Masselink farm located near Mander, NL, Latitude: 52°27'0" Longitude: 6°51'0". (Time is plus 6 hours from USA EST). The only connection of this farm to the original two Masselink farms is probably limited to being owned by an ancestor who owned or worked on the original Masselink farm before establishing this farm along the present Dutch/German border. The ownership history of this Masselink farm along the border is unknown (Google: Masselink Germany). See map:
http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-2528049&fid=2019&c=germany
1. Historisch boerderij-onderzoek in het richterambt Ootmarsum - PDF Free Download (adoc.pub)
The surname 'Kleine Masselink' could mean: Mace bearer's farm whose original farm was split into two unequal parts as part of an inheritance and my ancestor got the small (kleine) share.
Further research is required to determine the connection, if any, between the Vasse and Mander Masselink Farms in The Netherlands and the various Masselink Farms in Grafschaft Bentheim. The Masselink Vasse and Mander farms are located some 10 miles south of where, for over 400 years, the Masselinks lived and farmed in the Grafschaft.