MovieChat Forums > You Can't Take It with You (1938) Discussion > Grandpa's family name.

Grandpa's family name.

posted 18 years ago by nancyrobsmail
2 replies | jump to latest

My family immigrated to Canada from Holland in 1957 and guess what my fathers' name was?? Martin Vanderhoef, so am wondering where they came up with that name, does anyone know or how I could find out?
I know my father checked into some of his family background at one time, and he could only get as far as that an uncle had immigrated to the states .
I know this doesn't really mean much to other people, but I'd really like to know, so if someone has any ideas I'd really appreciate it, we just watched this movie this evening, and I had never seen it before.

[–] JR541 18 years ago

Well it takes place in New York City and I believe the Vanderhof family in the film are supposed to have been there for quite a while.

The Dutch settled in NYC (then called New Amsterdam) in the early 1600's and many of those Dutch had descendants still living there in the early 20th century. We could assume that these Vanderhof's are supposed to be decendants.

In fact there are still many around the NYC area today as I am one of them. My surname is not a Dutch name but I am a decendant of Dutch settlers.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

[–] nancyrobsmail 18 years ago

Thank you for your reply, I was just wondering if it could have been some way back relations that was all. But as my mother was telling me, one time when they stayed at a motel where they were doing a film, that they saw later on, they had a "character" in that film with then name "marten vanderhoef", and she thinks that they just took a name of the registry from the motel, which I guess could be very likely also. They probably just heard or saw the name somewhere and used it. Thanks again for your reply.