Cornelius De Roo was born in 1855 in Holland, Michigan, to Cornelius De Roo, Sr. and Elizabeth Vander Meulen De Roo, daughter of Cornelius Vander Meulen, the pastor who co-founded the colony of Zeeland with Jannes Van de Luyster.
Jan Rabbers was ambitious. He was born in 1811. He and his wife, Cornelia Kolvoord Rabbers, and family led one of at least four early groups that emigrated from the Netherlands in 1847.