In the course of gathering information for the family tree, it was found that the surname Spaender started to be used in the province of North-Holland in The Netherlands at around the year 1600. 
Before that names like 'Old John' or 'Young John' were used without a surname.
The origin of the surname was, like in so many cases, to be found in the trade area.
The phrase "comt van spaenderen.....", as in the old law archive in Wormer, was written in the first half of the 17^th century and for many years this raised questions for me as to what this verb "spaenderen" could mean.
Through research into the lexical history of Wormer, the fishing industry came to the fore.
In the smokehouses of the fisheries chips of wood, wood remnants, peat and peat waste were used (and still are used) for the smoking of fish.
When we read "spaenderen", it could be surmised that there was a trade in chips("spaenders") and that the turning of oak stumps into woodchips was a trade.
This, combined with the function of ship's carpenter (like J P Old Ian 1586 -1659) and dealer in various wares, such as mercery, beer and other wares, make it clear that here the basis for the surname is to be found.
The children of J P S Old Ian were also involved in this type of business.
Claes dealt in gleanings or "rap" (peat- and wood waste material) for the smokehouses and his 'scavenger' business was later taken over by his brother-in-law after his death.
Jacob had a peat business and was a peat-boat skipper.
Vrerick also was master of a vessel that transported peat in the form of clumps of turf.
Jan Pieter (young Ian) also had a ship and was noted as a bargeman. At the same time he had a shipyard at the Middel in Wormer. And on a shipyard there will be many "spaenders" when using oak planks for ship repairs and so he also carried the name of Spaender.
The failure to carry on a constant surname has been another puzzle in the unraveling of the family tree (an example of this can be found on the bottom of the left-hand page 14).
Through his knowledge of old script, Gerrit Spaander (one of the three Spaanders who gathered the information for this book) discovered that Spaenders and Mangleriussen could be brothers and sisters as they were mentioned in one Act concerning the division of the Coccrus' estate. And also, in another Act, that J P Old Ian and J P Young Ian (no surnames ! ) were brothers.
Many of the children of Old Ian took their mother's surname and used them
interchangeably with their father's surname, as did Vrerick. Luckily the families were not without means, because in the estates, the notaries clearly stated that they were
brothers and sisters in spite of different surnames.
From then on from various acts (mostly court cases) it was clear that there were Spaender children that were not found in the baptismal records.
In searching back through these acts, it appears that the father sometimes left out the name Spaender or wrote it as : Spans, Spaders, Scrap (nickname? Scrap is English for 'leftover', like a 'spaender'), Spr, etc.