Family name origins & meanings
- This name was brought to North America from Amsterdam in the Netherlands; its ultimate origins are uncertain. It looks Spanish, but no such Spanish surname is recorded. If, as has been suggested, the original form of the name was Probatski, it is almost certainly of Polish origin, but this has not been identified as a Polish surname.
- Juriaen Probasco came to New Netherland in 1654, having previously lived in the Dutch colonies in South America. The files of the notary Hendrick Schaef for 17 June, 1654 (Amsterdam notarial archives) record that Jurrien Probatski from Breslau shipped to New Netherland as a midshipman on the West India Company’s ship Peartree, having borrowed 130 guilders from the distiller Henrick Otten for his outfit, and undertaken to pay it back out of his wages.