The Hartsinck family can be traced back to 1380 in Antwerp and records of the Marselis family first appear in 1532, also in Antwerp, where they owned the Elswoud Estate.
Gabriel Marselis (the elder), born in 1575 in Liege, established a banking and trading company in Hamburg in 1605. His children set up branches of this bank in various countries where the family was involved in financing: Peter in Moscow, Selio in Norway, Gabriel (the younger) in Amsterdam, Elizabeth in Denmark, while Leonard stayed in Hamburg.
At this time, the position of the family in Europe was unique. It owned vast forests in Norway, Russia supplied them with corn and they traded in metal which came from their own mines. The family members were also engaged in banking, much as Switzerland is today, and in other kinds of trade as well.
After his father’s death, the younger Gabriel took over the role as intermediary in the family's contacts with the Danish-Norwegian King. From Amsterdam, he financed King Christian IV's war against Sweden and in gratitude for this he was ennobled on September 7, 1665 by King Frederik III.
King Frederik III of Denmark couldn’t pay his debts to the Marselis family and as a result he had to surrender sizeable amounts of the Crownlands in Jutland to them. Here, the Marselis family built the Marselisborg Palace. When the family was unable to retain the estate, it was returned to the Danish Royal Family, and became their summer residence.
In Holland, the younger Gabriel decided to renovate an estate he had bought in 1654 between Haarlem and Aerdenhout in Overveen (North Holland) by building a larger mansion and a new orangerie which he named Elswout in memory of the Elswoud Estate of his ancestors in Antwerp.
Meanwhile, the Hartsinck family was also spreading out across the globe.
Both families, Van Marselis and Hartsinck, lived in Amsterdam as privilegedpatricians and knew each other well, so it is not surprising that on October 7, 1781 Lady Johanna Henrietta van Marselis married Jan Hartsinck. Four years later, on August 28, 1785 Johanna's sister, Lady Maria Petronella van Marselis and Jan’s brother, Pieter Cornelis Hartsinck also married each other.
Sisters Johanna Henrietta and Maria Petronella tragically died together on September 20, 1818. And because they were the last two individuals to bearthe name Van Marselis, it was declared by Royal Decree on February 25, 1821, by King William I of the Netherlands, that the surnames would now be united.
After the first wife of King William I died in 1837, the king remarried in 1841. He married Countess Henriëtte d’Oultremont de Wégimont, whose mother was Johanna Susanna Hartsinck, the daughter of Admiral Andries Hartsinck. The name Van Marselis Hartsinck still exists today and members of the family are still active in banking and family wealth preservation.
