PARTY TIME!!! The Dutch Genealogy website is 25 years old!
The website started out as Yvette’s Dutch Genealogy Homepage. I don’t know the exact date, but it toward the end of 1993, shortly after I started studying Computer Science. All the students got webspace to experiment with this new invention called The Internet. I had been an enthusiastic genealogist for several years so I chose to create a web page about genealogy. It was in English, since there were no Dutch genealogists online at that time.
In 1993, hardly anybody was online. There was no Ancestry, no FamilySearch, and it would be another two years before Cyndi’s List came along. None of the archives or genealogical societies in the Netherlands had a website yet. It was great fun to be there during these pioneering days.
The first version of the website was a single page with a bit of explanation and links to the few resources I could find. As the available resources expanded, I changed that to a website with multiple frames, all the hype in the mid 1990s, with links for different topics. I changed the layout again in the late 1990s, but kept the focus on links to other websites.
Yvette’s Dutch Genealogy Homepage in April 1996
By 2005, other websites such as the Digital Resources of Netherlands and Belgium had taken over the role of providing links. I decided to change my website to a blog format with articles about doing research and move it to its own domain, DutchGenealogy.nl. Several of the blog posts I wrote then are still among the most visited pages today:
- 10 most common Dutch surnames
- English versions of Dutch first names
- English versions of Dutch last names
- Prefixes in surnames
Yvette’s Dutch Genealogy Homepage in 2006
In 2012, when I started taking clients, I changed the look of the website and changed the name to Dutch Genealogy. I begin blogging regularly; two to three times per week. This saw a huge increase in visitor numbers, some of whom became clients. The website now welcomes about 250,000 visitors per year.
The website has had an enormous impact on my career. In the 1990s, having the only genealogy website made me an instant internet genealogy expert. I was invited to lecture all over the country, for which I received book gift certificates I used to buy my university books. A few years later, I wrote a book about internet genealogy together with a friend, Jeroen van Luin. The lectures and book helped build me a network in the genealogy and archives community. When my boyfriend (now husband) and I started a computer company, we specialized in creating websites for archives and were involved in several of the first websites of archives in the country.
After a couple of years, one of our biggest clients offered me a job, which is how I became an IT consultant and project manager at the National Archives in The Hague. I worked there for eight years. The last two years I worked there, I was working part-time while starting my genealogy business. I quit my job after my client list was long enough to go full-time. I still do IT projects for the National Archives and other archives in the Netherlands sometimes on a freelance basis, because I enjoy working with larger groups of people and keeping up my IT skills up-to-date.
I could not have gotten this far without the support of my readers. Your reactions and questions made it clear that there’s a need for information about genealogical research in the Netherlands, which encouraged me to keep going with my website. You helped me find my voice, and even a new career since the website is the main way my clients find me. So this isn’t just an anniversary of a website, but of 25 years of collaboration and friendship. Thank you!
About Yvette Hoitink
Congratulations Yvette!
In my opinion you’re doing a great job in explaining very basic Dutch words, customs and family related matters, to an international public and in a very simple and clear way.
And you’re other topics (about Winterswijk, Eleanor, etc) are a joy to read. I hope you will be doing this for at least another 25 years.
I wish you luck and happiness in your professional and your private life.
Rob W
Thank you! I intend to keep this up at least another 50 years or so 😀 It may take me that long to write all the things I have in my head.
Yvette! As a Dutch Canadian citizen your website is invaluable in researching my Dutch roots. I love the articles in your blog and how they provide insight into everyday occurrences in the past and how that has affected people over time. I love all the links to other sites and the cool sections where you explain a Dutch word and all of its implications. Keep doing such a great job. with probably as many people of Dutch origin speaking English in countries like Canada and the US your website provides such a service!
How wonderful to hear my website has been so helpful for your research. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please let me know. I’m always looking for inspiration!
Congrats from Texas!
Thank you!
I’m so pleased to have had a tiny part in your journey. I’m very proud of you and what you have done. We need leaders in this field and are so fortunate to have you. I’m also extremely grateful for your amazing research work. You have gifted me with so many new ancestors. Thank you for everything you do!!!
You have been a major part of my transition from amateur to professional genealogist. That blog post about your hopeless Dutch lines was the kick-start I needed. Thank you so much for your support!
Congratulations on your 25 years presence on the world wide web. It interesting to read how you went from a budding genealogist and student to the expert who researches for clients.
Thank you! It’s been a fun ride 🙂
Congratulations, Yvette. You were definitely at the forefront of the future of genealogical research. 25 years online is pretty incredible. I still need to investigate my Philip Crouse, Loyalist from Zeeland to North Carolina to Canada.
Congratulations!!! I well remember when multiple frames on a web page was new and awe-inspiring.
Not too many sites can claim to be 25 years old!
Congratulations and I wish you the best in the future. I have only followed you for a couple of years but I have learned so much from you. My mother-in-law was of Dutch descent but my husband didn’t know much about Dutch history so I have been learning and teaching him.
Congratulations on 25 years from Australia! Your website has provided lots of help in my research and the blogs are always interesting. Thank you.
🎈Happy 25th Birthday, Dutch Genealogy🎈!!! And congratulations 🎉, Yvette! I’m SO thankful to you and your blog! I’ve learned so much from you and I look forward to reading this blog every week! The biggest hurdle for me to get past when I’m researching my dad’s Dutch side of the family in Noord-Brabant, is the Dutch Culture and the Language, and I appreciate that you always make a point of covering both of these topics with every blog post! My wish for you is that, when you read all these comments, that you’ll see just how invaluable you and your hard work is to all of us all over the world! Here’s to another 25 years!
Congratulations! Here’s to another 25 amazing years!