I come into the Van Inman/Vanemen/Vaneman, Vanaman, etc., family via a variety of intermarriages into the early Vandever's and related families. Reviewing previous research and then consulting as many original records as possible, the entire framework of the family begins to break down when compared to the Vandever's and others. What I have done is realign all the dates to match known events and records into what I believe is the correct placement of the first 3 generations of the family. First I'll give the outline tree, then explain why I placed individuals in this manner. The few existing records can be found in New Amsterdam (New York), New Amstel, and New Jersey records:

1..Gerrit Van Inman b.c. 1600-1610 The Netherlands; d.c. 8 June 1684 Salem Co., NJ
2Jan Gerritsen Van Inman b.c. 1630 The Netherlands; d.c. 7 May 1707 Salem Co., NJ
3.Johannes Vanniman b.c. 1662 New Amstel; d.c. 10 April 1719 Salem Co., NJ
+.Cattran Johnsson
3.Garret Vanniman b.c. 1664 New Amstel; d.c. 1751 Salem Co., NJ
+.Margaret Johnsson
3.Henric Van Nemen b.c. 1665-1670 Salem Co., NJ
3.Peter Vanniman b.c. 1670-1680 Salem Co., NJ
3.Olof/Wollo/William Van Nemen b.c. 1670-1680 Salem Co., NJ
+.Magdalena Vandevear b.c. 1695 Salem Co., NJ

The dates of birth for the 3rd generation are somewhat arbitrary. Most researchers have Jan Gerritsen arriving in the colonies around 1650-1654 with his wife and all his sons having been born in the Netherlands. This, then, requires that his sons are assigned births prior to 1654 (at least), though I have seen some lists indicate births as late as 1665. The things that made this all seem unreasonable to me was the marriage between William/Wollo/Olof Van Nemen to Magdalena Vandevear around 1711-12. Based on the accepted date of birth ranges for William, he would be at least 40 years older than Magdalena when they married and potentially 5 or so years older than Magdalena's father, Jacob Jacobsson Vandevere (I can review Vandever data to explain dates of birth for them if anyone is interested). William would then be in his 60's when he married and around 95 when he died in 1748. Further, all of his activity in the Swedish Church would have occured while he was in his 60's-80's. This seemed extreme to me, so I took a look at the records that existed.

One of the often told premisis is that Jan Gerritszen Van Inman arrived in New Amsterdam with his father Garret. I have seen nothing to specifically verify this, but if we retain this as the truth, we know they arrived by 1654 when Jan Gerritsen Van Inman receives a grant on the west side of the North Hudson (roughly Jersey City). In 1659 he donates the property to the Dutch Church in Manhattan and is next found in New Amstel in 1660.

The next certain record available is the 1677 Census which indicates a Gerrit and a Joh. resident in the Penn's Neck area. They have been identified as Jan Gerritsen's sons Johannes and Garret, but this does not hold up if Jan's sons had all been born by 1665 at the latest. If Jan Gerritszen himself and his father Gerrit are not the two in the census, then they would both have to be over 70 and all 5 of Jan's sons would have been of taxable age, not just the two oldest. We know from looking at the rest of the Census that even if the brothers were living with brothers, there would have been an annotation to the effect which would have accounted for the other three brothers (see Jacob Vanderveer with two sons of tydable age). If, however, we identify Gerrit and Jan Gerritszen as the two in the 1677 Census, we then have to say that all of Jan's sons were born no earlier than 1662 as they would have been taxable themselves.

Interestingly, this works just fine with the Church Records and land records that do exist. If Jan Gerritsen had arrived in New Amstel and settled in the Salem Co. area by 1660 and married by 1661, then his eldest son (who appears to be Johannes) would have been born no earlier than 1662. From that point, if Johannes was named for the maternal grandfather, the next son would be Gerrit, named for the paternal grandfather. The other three sons would then be place subsequent to, their births spread out from there.

Looking at the Wills, Administrations and Inventories in Salem Co., New Jersey to correspond with these assumptions: 8 June 1684 we have Gerrit Van Inman, who would be the father of Jan Gerritsen. Jan Gerritszen's Will we find proven on 7 May 1707 naming his five known sons: Johannes, Garret (Jansen), Henric, Peter and William. The next Will is proven 10 April 1719 for Johannes Vanniman naming his sons: John, Aaron and Garret. It would appear that Garret Jansen did not leave a Will, his estate administered in 1751 and his sons being: Samuel, John, Desiderious and David. Henric sons were Henric and Lars. My data on Peter is limited, so we then turn to William who married Magdalena Vandever prior to the baptism of their first child, Elizabeth, on 14 September 1713.

This all corresponds with my theoretical descendancy tree above and allows for more reasonable dates of birth for Jan Gerritsen van Inman's sons. I also make the final assumption that Jan Gerritsen married a Swede, based on the accepted understanding that members of the Swedish Lutheran Church had to be part Swede or married to a Swede. All of his sons appear in the records of the Swedish Lutheran Churches at Raccoon, Penn's Neck and Holy Trinity in Wilmington. The last supposition that I have recently made is that Jan Gerritszen may have been married more than once. His first wife being the mother of Johannes and Garret (Jansen), whose children appear to be older than those of Henric, Peter and William (whom I believe was the youngest).

Final note: Given the apparent ages of Cattran, Margaret and Marten (Gill) Johnson (all three of whom married Vanaman's), the ages of Jan Gerritszen's sons as listed above makes more sense.

I do not take all the family lines much further, except where they are intermarried with the Vanderveer family.