http://www.renderplus.com/hartgen/htm/vandervoort.htm
http://home.planet.nl/~voort359/home.html
Van der Voort literally means "of the ford" (a ford being a place where a road crosses through shallow water in a riverbed). Arthur van der Voort who lived around 1500 in Flanders (Turnhout) in present-day Belgium. It was probably his offspring who went to Amsterdam and became successful "zijdekooplieden" (silk merchants). In 1593 a Hans Jansz. van der Voort was "poorter" of Amsterdam. There still is a warehouse at the "Korte Prinsengracht", dating from 1656, with the Van der Voort name on it. In the same period there were other Van der Voorts in Amsterdam, the so-called "huidenkooplieden" (leather skin merchants), who may well have been related to the silk merchants. Another Van der Voort family is from 's-Gravenhage ("The Hague") in the province of Holland in the west of the Netherlands. Its earliest known members were living at the farm "Crispijnshoeve" (in the Houtrust area) in the 15th century, but they later moved to the "voirde" (ford) in Rijswijk, near The Hague. And yet another Van der Voort family was founded around 1500 in Lisse, Holland, by the son of Dirk van Laren who called himself "Van der Voorden". |
