The other day, I was fortunate to discover that two resources that I needed for my research were put online. The Tilburg Regional Archives put up the population registers of Terheijden, a town where some of my maternal ancestors come from. Shortly afterwards, I noticed that the Gelderland Archives put the death duties files online, which allowed me to trace the real estate owned by dozens of paternal ancestors. Once again, I realized how lucky I am to have online access to all these sources. … [Read more...]
Preservation
5 December 2013 by 2 Comments
I fondly watch the grainy movie on my HD-television. On the screen, the room has 70s wallpaper with a psychedelic orange/brown motive. A group of children watches excitedly as Saint Nicholas comes through the door. A baby is put in his lap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUk43JXhhDQ The baby is me, and my grandfather is Saint Nicholas. It was the last time he was able to be "Sinterklaas." I owe it to my mother that I am able to watch these images. She had the home movies from when I was a … [Read more...]
Column: Farewell
1 November 2013 by 4 Comments
After twenty years, it is time to say goodbye. I have struggled in vain but it will not do. I have decided to say farewell to my old genealogy program. Twenty years: it feels like forever in this digital age where three-year-old software feels outdated. My old program was MS-DOS-based and did not even work with a mouse. To keep it running on new versions of Windows required me to jump through an increasing amount of hoops. Emulators, virtual machines, miscellaneous tools and gadgets: whatever … [Read more...]
Column: Citizen archivist
4 October 2013 by Leave a Comment
Citizen archivists is a term coined by David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, to call a new breed of users of archives. Visitors who not only come to take information, but bring it as well. Visitors who help to create access to archives by contributing in the form of comments, transcripts or tags. The benefits to the archives are clear, but why would visitors even bother? Let's take me as an example. Whenever I find a Dutch immigrant on Ancestry with a hopelessly mangled name, I … [Read more...]
Column: Twenty years
6 September 2013 by 2 Comments
In 1993, I built my first website while I was a first year Computer Science major. I did not have to think long about a topic: genealogy, what else? Back then, hardly anybody had internet access in the Netherlands, so my target audience was Americans with Dutch ancestors. "Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Homepage" was born. I had no idea then how much impact this website would have on my career. Internet was all new and exciting, so soon the local chapters of the Dutch Genealogical Society came … [Read more...]
Column: virtual repository
2 August 2013 by Leave a Comment
"If you go back far enough, everybody is related," is a common quote when you tell people you're into genealogy . That is certainly the case with my father's side of the family tree. I started researching my ancestors over twenty years ago. Pretty soon, I discovered that my paternal grandparents, both from Winterswijk, shared multiple ancestors. Bit by bit, my tree grew from an ahnentafel to a population reconstruction of the entire region. … [Read more...]
Column: land movers
6 July 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the nineteenth century, thousands of people emigrated from the area around Winterswijk to the United States. "Land movers", they were called. Some left because of their religion, most in the hope of a better future. Among them there were several siblings of ancestors of mine. Curious what happened to them, I contacted their offspring on the internet. What began as a simple question ('What happened to Gerrit Jan Droppers') quickly turned into several long contacts and one of the closest … [Read more...]
