Cornelis married Anna van Liere, they produced four children[6] and share a grave in the Great Church of Mary Magdalene in Goes.

By the middle 17th Century, some Dutch provinces began following the practice of the Holy Roman Empire where all descendants, male and female, inherited the father's title (but only males could pass it on), so official records of the time referred to all four of Cornelis and Anna's children variously and concurrently as "Heer van Watervliet", and "Heer van Ellewoutsdijk, etc".

[8] Mentions of the Van Watervliets in the records of Zeeland gradually disappear in the 18th Century, while Myndert and Carsten start a new chapter of the family history in the New Netherland settlement of Beverwijck around 1655.

As Lutherans, their move to North America may have been prompted by a 1619 law that limited membership in the highest level of government, the Ridderschap, to members of the Reformed Church.

[12] As Van Watervliets, Myndert and Carsten immediately started businesses as blacksmiths and fur traders to fund land purchases in the colony, with Rynier acting as their agent in Amsterdam.

[14] Eventually Myndert secured a warrant from Governor Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, to provide all the arms and armor for Fort Orange, and joined the Albany Convention, with Governors Nicholas Bayard and Stephanus Van Cortlandt, and another Dutch nobleman, Frederick Philipse, seeking to restore the rule of William III of England (and probably not coincidentally, also Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic) against Leisler's Rebellion during the Glorious Revolution.

The title is not recognized in the modern Netherlands, possibly because no living members of the family resided in the country to petition for recognition when the nobility there was re-established in 1814.

In the United States, while legally permitted but not recognized, it is very rare for nobles to employ their titles in a routine fashion and frowned upon in some circles.