Talk:Sebastian Croll

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The sourcing of the Cruller/Croll attribution is dubious and does not appear in the Cruller article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by The sobsister (talk • contribs) 22:49, April 2, 2011‎ (UTC)

FYI: Your entry here is for an individual whose name already appears elsewhere: Sebastiaen Jansen Krol. Please note, however, that it shouldn't be "KROL" ; it should be "Crul" and not even "Krul". A check of the old Dutch West Indies Company archives will confirm this. A number of individuals think that "Kroll", "Krol", "Krull", and "Krul" are interchangeable with either "Crul" and "Crull." They are misinformed since "Crull" is almost like a patented name; it is not because someone was curly haired, came from the area near the old "Crull" River in Cornwall, etc. The Dutch changed a number of "Crull"s to "Crul" to make it more Dutch otherwise those who carried the name would be considered German. Pure foolishness. In fact it is carried to extremes: The most recent edition of the Dutch Dictionary of Biography has two entries--William Crull and Willian Crul; the same man; and the old editions only have William Crull. The name is actually Norman. Enough scholarship exists to substantiate the aforesaid. Just thought I'd pass this on (also most American Crulls came here with other names). This is in response to a discussion on one of the other "Discussion" pages for a Crull Billington James (talk) 19:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC

Yes, to the above! Roggard Hurren (talk) 18:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure you guys know what you're talking about. In older Dutch there is not really a 'C' in the alphabet, although in modern Dutch it may appear in foreign loanwords. A 'C' would usually be pronounced as an 'S' in this time (like the ς from which it was derived), and the consonant cluster 'sr-' is not really possible in Dutch (it would change to a 'schr-'). A look around Dutch genealogy sites and the telephone registry shows that this is a relatively uncommon name most prevalent in Friesland and surrounding provinces (as 'Krol', 'de Krol', 'Krols', 'Krul'), although the name is not a typical Frisian name (these usually end in '-ma', '-sma' or '-us'). Note the spelling of Dutch family names was only 'fixed' and standardised around 1830 after the country was annexed by Napoleon. In Germany this is a much more common name (as 'Kroll', 'Krull', 'Krol'), and it would appear the Dutch name was originally German. The German wikipedia page says that the name 'Kroll' was originally Polish and is derived from król (='king'), and the name 'Krull' is Low German (Saxony) and is derived from the local language, meaning 'curl' and referring to the curly hair of the original members of this family. Considering the real Sebastiaen Jansen Krol was from Friesland, and considering the history (both regions were part of the same Saxon barony in the 15th-16th century) and close proximity of this region to Saxony, it seems much less likely that there were Cornish settlers in the late Middle Ages to what was then a largely dangerous and destitute pirate-infested swampland which was embroiled in a war (civil war, plus wars vs. Holland and Spain) which went on for over a century, as that the Saxon barons had some people move a few dozen kilometres -the fact that his family even had a last name in the Netherlands in this time period indicates that the family was of relatively high standing, and the family Krol who settled in this region were likely some kind of noblemen or courtiers. Furthermore, American genealogy sites regarding the name 'Crull' in the USA say it is originally a German name of which the spelling was usually altered in America. It is possible there are people from Cornwall with this name, but they are evidently too uncommon to show up on the first few pages of internet. Leo 86.83.56.115 (talk) 13:48, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

This guy is probably fiction, the article spurious

I question if this dude ever existed beyond the imaginings of Mrs. Anna R. Bradbury and her primary source Joel Munsell (and now Wikipedia), and what is going on is that these authors are mixing up and embellishing the real Sebastiaen Jansz. Krol (also Bastiaen Jansz Krol, Sebastia(e)n Jans(s)en Crol or Crull, Sebastiaan Croll).

• Fort Orange did not exist in 1617, as Munsell claims. It was only built in 1624. Perhaps Munsell is confused with nearby Fort Nassau, but this was actually destroyed in 1617 or 1618, so that doesn't make sense either.

• The Dutch Reformed church has no commissaries (that's more an Anglican or Catholic thing). The Dutch royal government has commissaries (since 1830 or so), but the Netherlands was a republic at the time and there is no reason one would be sent to a recent colony on the other side of the planet. Also there are police commissaries, but there were no police in the world at the time. Perhaps 'commander' (kommandeur) is meant?

• The spelling of the name does not correspond to Dutch orthography of the time. Presumably it is Anglicised from Sebastiaen Krol? That would mean he had exactly the same name as Sebastiaen Krol.

• The real Sebastiaen Jansz. Krol also happened to be a church official and arrived in the colony in 1624, thus the reference in the article text to a Sebastian Croll being a church elder in 1628 most likely refers to him.

• The real Sebastiaen Jansz. Krol became the first commander of the fort in 1626.

• It seems exceedingly unlikely that two people with both the same very rare Dutch last name and at that time uncommon given name just happened to be in the same place, doing approximately the same thing, only a decade apart, in a settlement that at the time at most contained only 20 men or so, and of whom, initially, most residents had French names.

• I did find a 1833 Dutch reference to a Sebastiaan Croll in America in 1617 outside of the two used here, which might be where Munsell got his info. But this date and spelling appear to be restricted to a few 19th century works.

Cheers, Leo 86.83.56.115 (talk) 03:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)