The Barkuloo branch can best be described as the group from Brooklyn(New Utrecht),Kings Co.,New York. Although all Bartlow and Burklow branches could also make the same claim based upon their ancestral ties to the immigrant, Harmen Janse Lubberdinck van Borculo(c1626-c1672), locating the "progenitor" of a major branch by its surname uniqueness required identifying a common forefather from which all Barkuloo lines must descend. This process didn't necessarily need to begin with the earliest known ancestor or even the immigrant himself. For example, William Harmense Barkeloo(c1666-p1738), a son of Harmen, is also responsible for the Barkelow lines in Hunterdon County,NJ through his son, Jacques(c1698-1780). In lieu of this single common-forefather requirement, employed to simplify genealogical compilations, the most logical candidate to use defaulted to the only other son of William and Maria(Cortelyou) Barkeloo, Harmanus Barkeloo(c1705-c1753), who married Sarah Terhune.
There were only two of Harmen Janse van Borculo's four sons who remained in the NY area by 1710. Reynier Van Burkelow(1659-1713) and Harmen Van Burkelow(c1662-1729) had long since joined religious movements that settled in the Upper Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland and in Delaware. Of Harmen's remaining sons, Jan Harmense Barkeloo married circa 1683, a woman named Margaret, and settled in Northfield(now Port Richmond), on Staten Island, while William Harmense Barkeloo went to work in New York City and refrained from marriage until a mature young man of thirty. It is fairly certain the latter worked for Jacques Cortelyou(c1626-1693) learning the trade of surveying. William Barkeloo(c1666-p1738) would eventually marry Maria Cortelyou in 1697, four years after her father's death. As a result, it is not known whether Maria's father would have approved of the marriage. Jacques Cortelyou was a prominent surveyor and businessman who lived in New Utrecht, but apparently commuted(by boat, obviously) to an office in NYC regularly, as stories relate.
By 1683, Harmen's widow, Willempken, had remarried and was living with her second husband, Hans Harmensen, in Constaple's Hook(now Bayonne,NJ). This meant that son Jan's residence in Northfield on Staten Island was probably less than one lineal mile from his mother's home, requiring, however, a short boat ride for visitations. William, on the other hand, would return to his old stamping grounds in New Utrecht, Long Island, at "The Narrows", near Fort Hamilton. Although six or seven miles from his brother Jan's home on Staten Island, today William could have driven 4,200 feet across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Staten Island and avoided the lengthy boat ride he must have endured in 1700 to visit relatives there.
The close proximity of these sons of Harmen Janse van Borculo who remained in the New York City area had the effect of producing some consistency in the spelling of their surname. "Barkeloo" tended to be the earlier phonetic interpretation by church clerics with the eventual transition to Barkuloo occurring before 1800, and achieving some permanency shortly thereafter. Although both spellings exist today, the Barkuloo variation predominates, which is why it was chosen to represent the entire branch.
Jan Harmense Barkeloo's disappearance from Northfield DR church records and local tax lists by 1708 presupposes an early death. Only four daughters have ever been identified, putting the extension of his branch as a surname carrier in serious jeopardy. Without sons to continue his line, Jan's status as a potential forefather of Barkeloo bearing descendants all but disappeared with him. His daughter's lines are, however, traceable. The sudden appearance of a Barkuloo line on Staten Island in the 1740's cannot be ignored as a possible extension of Jan Harmense Barkeloo.
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