Person in this family
Mariah Stryker
1775 – 1856
Mariah Stryker married Abraham C. Brokaw in a Dutch Reformed church in Somerset County on 8 January 1792. Her daughter Cornelia carried Stryker as a middle name all her life, which is the ordinary Dutch practice of giving a child the mother's family name. She went with Abraham to Ohio in 1823 and returned to New Jersey after he died there in 1826. This comes from the volunteer-written biography on Cornelia Brokaw's Find a Grave memorial and **not from any record this archive has read**. It is recorded so it can be tested, not because it is established.
Uncertain
Mariah Stryker married Abraham C. Brokaw in a Dutch Reformed church in Somerset County on 8 January 1792. Her daughter Cornelia carried Stryker as a middle name all her life, which is the ordinary Dutch practice of giving a child the mother's family name. She went with Abraham to Ohio in 1823 and returned to New Jersey after he died there in 1826. This comes from the volunteer-written biography on Cornelia Brokaw's Find a Grave memorial and **not from any record this archive has read**. It is recorded so it can be tested, not because it is established.
Born at New Jersey
Recorded as: Maria Polly Brokaw, Maria Brokaw, Brokaw
Birth: From our family tree - no record found yet
Death: From our family tree - no record found yet
How is this person related?
Andrew John Leahey’s spouse's great-great-great-great-great-grandparent (by marriage)
Gina D. Cacace’s great-great-great-great-great-grandparent
Abigail Ann Leahey’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent
Marie C. Fitzgerald’s no single word covers it — connected through Andrew John Leahey, who is a child
Kevin Leahey’s no single word covers it — connected through Andrew John Leahey, who is a child
Worked out from the recorded parents and marriages. No sex is recorded for anyone in this archive, so the wording stays neutral.
Life
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Family
Spouse
Children
See this family in the family treeWhere they lived
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Places listed on this page
- New Jersey
- Somerset, Somerset County, New Jersey
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The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 1 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.
What the records say
0 of 2 records transcribed.
Record exhibit
Biography on the Find a Grave memorial for Cornelia Stryker Brokaw Stilwell (memorial 295247056)
This old record gives information about the person or family named here.
Partly proved
Verbatim transcription currently held in this archive — reproduced in full.
The exact words from this record have not been typed out yet.
Record exhibit
Geni relationship chart: Gina D. Leahey and Monica Potter, fifth cousins once removed (created 3 March 2025)
This old record gives information about the person or family named here.
Partly proved
Verbatim transcription currently held in this archive — reproduced in full.
The exact words from this record have not been typed out yet.
Historical context
These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.
What we still don't know
- Her marriage record of 1792, her birth, and her death after returning from Ohio.
- That her daughter's middle name is Stryker is the one piece of this that the archive can see for itself — it appears on Cornelia's memorial — and it is consistent with a Stryker mother without proving one.
- **This is a New Netherland Dutch family, and the surnames say so on their own.** Brokaw is the anglicised Bourgeois of a Huguenot family long settled among the Dutch of Somerset County; Stryker is Strycker; and the names standing around this household in the records — **Polhemus, Vroom, Van Dyck, Van Deventer, Ditmars** — are all New Netherland families. The marriage of Cornelia's parents in 1792 was in a **Dutch Reformed church**. Franklin Township in Somerset County was one of the densest Dutch settlements in New Jersey. That is worth stating plainly, because it is the only non-British, non-Irish, non-Italian, non-German strand anywhere in this side of the family, and it is easy to miss behind a name as English-looking as Stilwell.