Research note: which Abraham married Elizabeth and died at Piscataway?
Older family files, including the one this site began from, gave the Piscataway will of 6 June 1714, the wife Elizabeth and the younger children (Gideon, John, Elizabeth, Thomas, George and Dirck) to this man’s son, Abraham, christened in 1680. That made two Abrahams who both “died in 1714.”
The will itself points to the father. It names a daughter Frances, wife of Jan La Forge. From the ages of her own children, Frances was born about 1682 to 1684, when the younger Abraham was a small child, so she cannot have been his daughter. The man who wrote the will, and who died at Piscataway in 1716, was therefore this Abraham, the son of Gideon. Elizabeth was his later wife. The will was written in 1714 and proved on 16 May 1716.
The site was corrected on 1 October 2026: the six children once listed under the younger Abraham are now shown here. That removes one generation from every line that comes down through them. The Marlatt-Merlet DNA Project had already described Thomas, George, Dirck and John as sons of this Abraham.
Elizabeth and her children. William P. Marlatt’s 2019 study reaches the same conclusion about the will and adds detail. The will names Thom, Guedion, George, Derick, John, Elizabeth and Frances Laforge. George was baptised at Raritan on 14 April 1706 as the son of Abraham and Elisabet, so Christance Billeau had died and Abraham had remarried by about 1704–5. Only George (1706), Dirck (1708) and John (1711) are Elizabeth’s children; Gideon, Thomas and the daughter Elizabeth belong to the first marriage and are now shown there. Elizabeth is called Morgan in older files, but an “Elizabeth Van Nest” stood sponsor with George at a baptism on 3 April 1728, and she was probably his mother under her maiden name.
Still uncertain. Thomas (1682) and Thomas (1698), and Elizabeth (1690) and Elizabeth (about 1694), may each be one person entered twice.
Source: Merlet / Marlet genealogy on RootsWeb, which cites the will and the New Jersey and New York church registers; and William P. Marlatt, Family of Abraham and Mary (Maple) Marlatt of New Jersey, Virginia and Ohio (30 September 2019).
History and lore
Five tested men in the Marlatt-Merlet DNA Project descend from Abraham, through his sons Thomas, George, Dirck and John. Their Y-DNA closely matches the descendant of his brother Josias, suggesting the two had the same father, most likely Gedeon. Surprisingly, it does not closely match the descendants of his brother Jean Pierre.
Read the full report: The Marlatt-Merlet DNA Project: Summary Report
Abraham was 6 when he crossed the Atlantic with his parents and brothers aboard Der Permerlander Kerck, sailing from Amsterdam on 12 October 1662 and reaching New Amsterdam in February 1663. He grew up on the family’s land on the south side of Staten Island, married Christance Billeau there in 1678, and died at Piscataway, New Jersey, in 1716. The Billious were close neighbors: Pierre Billiou’s 270 acres lay just east of the Marlett land. After his father’s farm passed to Paul Richards, Abraham kept a place of his own on the island: a colonial patent map shows “Abm. Marlett, July 26, 1694, 80 A.” inland from Great Kills, between John Bodine and William Barker, with his father’s old 243 acres just below. See the map.
Read the full article: Across the Atlantic in 1662: The Merle Family Comes to New Netherland
