(Van) Oudenaerde (Oudenaarden) is a Dutch Mennonite family, probably emigrants from the Belgian town of Oudenaarden, was from the 17th century found at Rotterdam, Netherlands. Willem van Oudenaerde, d. 27 October 1726 at Rotterdam at a very advanced age, a grocer and a linen merchant, married to Wilhelmina van Eyse, was in 1682 appointed preacher of the Rotterdam Flemish congregation and in 1691 elder; in 1694 he moved to Middelburg, and thereupon to Dordrecht, but in 1696 he was back in Rotterdam as a preacher in the Waterlander congregation. After the Flemish and the Waterlander congregations merged in 1700 Willem van Oudenaerde was preacher of the united congregation 1701-1705. Some of his descendants served in Rotterdam as deacons. Marinus Oudenaarden published a pamphlet, Korte Aanmerkingen (Rotterdam: 1718), against Jan Suderman and Aelbert van Meurs, who had protested against the appointment of David van Heyst as preacher. The van Oudenaerde family has died out.

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 98. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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