My connection to this surname is via Mary Hulse, daughter of James Hulse, and the wife of John Munday (c1770-1833). Her parents were James Hulse (see below) and Margaret Henry. All I know of the Hulse family is described in the following webpages.
Some Hulse Records in Frederick & Berkeley Counties, Virginia
Two Hulse families appear in the records of Frederick (later Berkeley) County, Virginia who settled about 20 years and 25 miles apart. Wether they were related is unknown, but available records do not suggest any interaction between them.
- Records relating to Josiah Hulse (c1715 – 1778) — who had come from New Jersey, was living near the mouth of Sleepy Creek before 1749, in the part of Frederick County that became Berkeley County.
- Records relating to Richard Hulse, (? – 1770) — also apparently from New Jersey, appears to have arrived near Shepherdstown about twenty years later. A narrative based on these records is below.
Records Relating to My Ancestor James Hulse (c1758-1829)
- Records relating to James Hulse (son of Richard Hulse) in Berkeley and Botetourt counties, Virginia, Franklin County, Kentucky and Ross and Jackson counties, Ohio
- James Hulse Revolutionary War Pension Documents
Biographies
Richard Hulse (? – 1770) & Family based on the records in the above file.
James Hulse (c1758 – 1829) & Family based on the records in the two files above.
Were these Hulses originally Holsaerts?
Probably not, despite the many claims on the internet. At least, I cannot find a shred of direct evidence to support this claim. I believe this notion rests mostly or entirely on the presence of a Holsaert family in Monmouth County, New Jersey and the associated belief that anyone in the vicinity with a similar name must have been a member of that family. That idea also appeared in print in a 1910 genealogical memorial of New Jersey families, sourced from contributions by family genealogists, which states “The Hulse, Hulsart, Hulshart and Holsaert families are descended from old Dutch families which formed the first inhabitants of Kings County, New Jersey. From there Benjamin Holsaert emigrated to Monmouth County and in 1717 bought land…”1 Unfortunately, no records exist that link Richard Hulse to a Hulsaert family beyond the location of his marriage..
In truth, though the early records of New Jersey, and of Monmouth County in particular, are not sufficiently preserved to be sure that all the Hulses who appear in those records that still exist were actually Holsaerts. There were, after all, Hulses of English origin living in New York as well as Holsaerts. It seems impossible to determine Monmouth’s residents in the mid-18th century and their relationships to one another.
We also have the fact that Hulse was reasonably common surnames in England as far back as the 15th Century. (For example, at least four men named Richard Hulse were baptized in Cheshire alone in a fifty year period in the 1500s.) Indeed, we have no indication that either Josiah Hulse or Richard Hulse were anything other than English.
In cases like this we can turn to genetic genealogy for help. While DNA is not conclusive at this writing, the current results of the Hulse-Holsaert Y-DNA Project suggest that Richard Hulse more likely had an English origin than a German one. A descendant’s Y-DNA profile most closely fits that of descendants of Richard Hulse of Brookhaven, New York.2