M William Wykoff

What's in a Name? History and Meaning of Wyckoff M William Wykoff

The cumulative evidence presented here proves that the origin of the surname Wyckoff is Frisian and refers to a household or settlement on a bay, although many uninformed American descendants of Pieter Claessen Wyckoff continue to believe the name to be Dutch. Frisian was only one of the many languages spoken by early settlers of New Netherland. In the Northern Germanic linguistic area of Europe, the surname occurs principally in the Lower Saxony area of Germany which includes East Frisia from where our American ancestor emigrated. Amid the proliferation of costly false and inaccurate information being disseminated on popular interactive genealogy websites, the author suggests corrective measures that could be taken by professional genealogical societies and family associations such as the Wyckoff Association of America.