Here is an overview of the new sources, projects, and news about archives that were announced last month. Online sources An index of all the church records of baptisms, marriages, and burials in the province of Utrecht is now available at the Utrechts Archief website. The index contains 10 million persons from 1576 to 1811. The Regionaal Archief Tilburg published scans of civil registration records of Moergestel (marriages 1915-1942), Oisterwijk (marriages, 1921-1942), and Oosterhout … [Read more...]
About this website
Creating a website like this is a fun activity. There are so many options, so many choices. What do visitors want? What do I want? In this blog I will describe some of the things I encounter in developing and maintaining this website.
Column – Virtual
28 September 2018 by Leave a Comment
At the Famillement event last June, I noticed once more how nice it is to talk genealogy in person rather than online. To meet new people, and where you can feel the presence of a good speaker in the farthest corner of the room. Like the Famillement, most genealogy educational opportunities in the Netherlands are on-site. We go to an archive for a palaeography course, or go to a meeting of a genealogical society to hear a presentation about a type of source. The topic is often selected to … [Read more...]
Quick Tip – Life events may create notarial records
26 September 2018 by Leave a Comment
Many notarial records are unindexed and can be time-consuming to go through. But notarial records were often created because of a life event that we can find in other sources. In a small town with just one or two notaries, it can pay off to browse the notarial records around that time. In towns without a notary, these types of records can be found in the series of voluntary court records. Examples of life events that may have created notarial records: Marriages: prenuptual agreements, … [Read more...]
Was Eleanor of Aquitaine my Ancestor? Generation 10 – Petronella van Vlijmen
21 September 2018 by 7 Comments
This is the eleventh post in a series about my possible line of descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine. In the first post, I explained how I discovered the possible line, and how I am going to verify it one generation at a time. In the last post, I proved that my sixth great-grandfather Jan Smulders was the son of Hendrik Smulders and Petronella van Vlijmen. Petronella van Vlijmen, daughter of Jenneken Laureijs Denis Peters In the last blog post, I had already found several sources that provided … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Are There Scans of that Unindexed Record?
12 September 2018 by Leave a Comment
If you can't find a record for your ancestor by searching for their name, see if the records have been scanned but not indexed yet. It's much quicker to scan a record that it is to index it. Indexing requires people to read the names and type them into a database. This is time consuming so millions of records have been scanned without being indexed yet. Unindexed scans can be found via the online finding aids presented by the archives where the records are kept. See the Digital Resources … [Read more...]
Dutch Genealogy News for August 2018
7 September 2018 by Leave a Comment
Here is an overview of the new sources, projects, and news about archives that were announced last month. Online sources The area around Maastricht, Limburg has been added to HisGis, the historical geographical information system. You can click on a plot to see the owners. The population register of Haarlem, Noord-Holland for the period 1849-1860 has been indexed and is available via the Noord-Hollands Archief website. When the Zuiderzee was closed by the Afsluitdijk [dike], many … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Search Family Papers First
5 September 2018 by Leave a Comment
When you're researching a line, first check what records might be available in your family. When I was researching my grandfather Johannes Marijnissen, my mother had several interesting records about him: an old passport, his marriage booklet, military discharge papers, an extract of his death record, and family photos. Since my grandfather was born less than 100 years ago, these family papers provided information that would not have been available to me otherwise. … [Read more...]
Ask Yvette – Should I Take a DNA Test?
31 August 2018 by Leave a Comment
Last month, I blogged about my ethnicity predictions, which were wildly off. As a result, several people have asked me: Should I take a DNA test if they are so unreliable? My answer? Absolutely! You see, a DNA test gives you two types of results. On the one hand, it gives you the ethnicity predictions. This feature has the most curb appeal and is a reason why many people test. Unfortunately, these results are highly speculative, especially below the continent level. My ethnicity … [Read more...]
Four Degrees of Separation
24 August 2018 by 7 Comments
Randy Seaver offered the following Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge: Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with FOUR degrees of separation? That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor." When was that fourth ancestor born? Here is my line: I knew my paternal grandfather, Hendrik Hoitink (1914-2000). He knew his maternal grandmother, Johanna Piek (1860-1930). She would have known her … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Dates in Population Registers May Be Incorrect
22 August 2018 by Leave a Comment
If you're using population registers, keep in mind that these registers were often copied from older registers and may contain copy errors. The birth dates mentioned in them were often not written close to the time of birth, and the informants may have made mistakes. If you find a birth date in a population register, always verify that information using other records. More reliable sources for birth dates are birth records or baptismal records that were created shortly after the birth, with … [Read more...]
