"How many of you want your work destroyed after you're gone?" This question was asked by Thomas W. Jones during a lecture. The crowd laughed; of course that was nobody's intention. Still, this will be the reality for most of us. We've invested a lot in our research; in time but also in money. Books, subscriptions, memberships, travel costs, copies or scans we ordered: most of us have spent thousands of euros/dollars. If we don't make arrangements, not much will be left in a hundred … [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.
Quick tip – Create a Town Timeline
14 December 2016 by 2 Comments
To understand your ancestors' lives better, it can help to create a town timeline showing you what was going on at the time. Here are some samples from my own research projects that show how understanding local history can help: During the Eighty Years' War, the Dutch Republic recruited regiments from all over Europe to help fight the Spanish. Some of these foreign regiments were stationed at a town where my ancestors lived. One of the Scottish mercenaries married a local … [Read more...]
Free Alternatives to WieWasWie
9 December 2016 by 2 Comments
WieWasWie, the largest genealogical database in the Netherlands, introduced a paid subscription earlier this year. Here are some free alternatives. 1: Use the free version of WieWasWie You can try to make do with the free version of WieWasWie. All of the information is still available for free, but the search options are pretty limited. You can work around that by always searching for the full name. This can work if the name you search for is unusual. You can't use wildcards, but always … [Read more...]
Quick tip – What Organizations Was Your Ancestor Involved in?
7 December 2016 by Leave a Comment
In the 1800s and 1900s, there were many organizations for every aspect of a person's life. Here are some examples I encountered in my research projects: Honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of the Musical Arts. Chairman of a local branch of the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij [Anti Revolutionary Party], a Christian political party. Deacon of the Dutch Reformed Church. Secretary of the Teacher's Association. Guardian of the Weavers' Guild. Director of the … [Read more...]
Celebrating Sinterklaas
2 December 2016 by 4 Comments
In the Netherlands, we celebrate St. Nicholas' Eve on the 5th of December. Sinterklaas arrives in the country about three weeks before, on his steam ship from Spain. He is accompanied by his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten [Black Petes] who pass out small spiced cookies called pepernoten and candy to the children. Sinterklaas then gets on his white horse and parades through town, cheered on by hundreds of young kids. My grandfather used to be Sinterklaas at the airbase where he worked and for … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Find Out When Your Ancestor Was Born
25 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
How do you find out when your ancestor from the Netherlands was born? Here are five different ways. … [Read more...]
Quick tip: Did your widowed ancestor make a settlement?
23 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
If a widow or widower with young children wanted to marry again, often they first had to make a settlement with their minor children so they received their share of the deceased parent's inheritance. These records can be helpful to prove family relationships, to get insights into the economic circumstances of the family, and to find out about subsequent marriages. These settlements can be found in orphan chamber records, voluntary court records, or notarial records, depending on the time and … [Read more...]
Ask Yvette – Where is “Friesland” anyway?
18 November 2016 by 4 Comments
Holly (De Fries) Flaherty wanted to know more about Friesland. Her paternal grandfather was from Friesland and spoke Dutch, but her maternal grandfather was from Friesland and spoke German. She heard that there were two provinces called Friesland - one German and one Dutch. She wanted to know if they were connected, historically, and whether Denmark was once considered Friesland. To answer this question we have to go back. WAY back. Once upon a time, in the first centuries BC … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Access to restricted records
16 November 2016 by 2 Comments
Dutch privacy laws restrict access to recent records. As a rule of thumb, access to records that may contain information about living people is restricted. For example, you can only access birth records of people born more than 100 years ago, and you can only access notarial records after 75 years. In many cases, access restrictions are set for the entire series, even when your ancestor is no longer living. Take the Central Archives of Special Jurisdiction for example, the court that … [Read more...]
The Curious Case of Bastiana van Breugel
11 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
Pretoria, South Africa, 11 October 1901; the height of the Anglo-Boer War. The Dutch Consul-General in South Africa wrote to the Secretary of State in the Netherlands about a possible spy that was discovered: a Dutch nurse was suspected of slipping classified information to the Boers. The story took a strange turn when the female nurse was discovered to be a man. … [Read more...]
