The Allen Family of Bergen County is descended from Peter Garrets Van Halen. The name is probably derived from Haelen or Haalen, a town in Belgian Limbourg, from which place the family originally hailed. The name has gone through several forms: Haelen, Halen, Aelen, Alen, and Allen. Peter Van Halen was the son of Gerret Van Halen, of the City of Rotterdam, in Holland, where Peter was born about 1687. He came to America in 1706 and settled in the Paramus section of Bergen County, where, on the 11th of August of that year, he married, at Hackensack, Tryntie Hendricks Hopper. He purchased lands on the west side of the Saddle River, where he resided and reared a large family of children, whose names were Henry, 1706; Garret, 1798; William, 1710; Andrew, 1712; Maritie, 1714; Willempie, 1716; Lea, 1718; Rachel, 1723; Andrew, 1725; and John, 1727, all baptized at Hackensack. The descendants of these by the name of Allen and Van Allen are very numerous in the western part of Bergen County.
Source: Harvey, Cornelius Burnham, Editor; Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, New York: The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing Company, 1900.