The line can be traced back to Sebastian Van Kortrijk whose
family was from the Flemish town of Kortrijk on the Lys. He and
his family were refuges of the religious upheavals in Europe and
in the early 1600s, he left that area and moved to Holland. He
took up residence in Leerdam. There were seventeen provinces in
the Netherlands and these contained the present countries of
Holland and Belgium. That whole country had been made part of
France during the rule of Charlemagne (767-814), but in the
fifteenth century it came under Spanish rule. Charles V. became
king of Spain in 1516, and finding many adherents to Martin
Luther's reformed faith, he became determined to crush out
Protestantism. Thus became a time of great religious persecution
in the Netherlands. Under Philip, who succeeded his father,
Charles in 1555, things became even worse. By the early 1600s,
Holland had became an asylum for the persecuted of many lands.
Two sons were born to Sebastian during his time in Leerdam, Jan
and Michiel. Family names w