In my Level-Up Challenge, I defined six levels of ancestral profiles. In this post, I will give you a basic research plan for an ancestor living in the 17th and 18th century for levels 1-4. Level 1: Names only I usually find the name of the person in records of somebody else I am researching. No specific research plan needed. Level 2: Vital statistics The civil registration was introduced in 1811 in most parts of the Netherlands (around 1795 for some parts of Limburg and Zeeland). Before … [Read more...]
Dutch Ancestors Research Plan – 19th century
28 April 2023 by 1 Comment
In my Level-Up Challenge, I defined six levels of ancestral profiles. In this post, I will give you a basic research plan for an ancestor living in the 19th century for levels 1-4. Level 1: Names only I usually find the name of the person in records of somebody else I am researching. No specific research plan needed. Level 2: Vital statistics The civil registration was introduced in 1811 in most parts of the Netherlands (around 1795 for some parts of Limburg and Zeeland). I try to find all … [Read more...]
Level up challenge – 2023 progress report
13 January 2023 by 1 Comment
Two years ago, I issued my level-up challenge. I wanted to take my research to a higher level by gathering more complete information and documentation about my ancestors. See the original blog post for an overview of the levels. In this blog post, I will reflect on my progress in the past year. My goal for 2022 was to get my generation 1-6 ancestors to level 3 or higher. Progress Here's my starting point in 2021: Situation in 2022: Situation now in 2023: Some of these … [Read more...]
Dutch Ancestors Research Plan – 20th century
16 December 2022 by Leave a Comment
In my Level-Up Challenge, I defined six levels of ancestral profiles. In this post, I will give you a basic research plan for an ancestor living in the 20th century for levels 1-4. Level 1: Names only I usually find the name of the person in records of somebody else I am researching. No specific research plan needed. Level 2: Vital statistics Birth record. Birth records are public after 100 years. Marriage record. Marriage records are public after 75 years. Death record. Death … [Read more...]
Level up challenge – 2022 progress report
21 January 2022 by 5 Comments
A year ago, I issued my level-up challenge. I wanted to take my research to a higher level by gathering more complete information and documentation about my ancestors. See the original blog post for an overview of the levels. Starting point in 2021 This chart shows the starting point in January 2021. This shows how complete my research was : the higher the number the more complete. Situation January 2022 You can see here that I made the most progress in generation 4 and 5, getting … [Read more...]
Level 4 Checklist – Property ownership, military service, religion, criminal activity
21 May 2021 by 4 Comments
A few months ago, I issued my Level-Up Challenge, challenging you to assess how complete your research is. By level 2, we know the names of our ancestors and where and when they were born, married and died and by level 3, we also have to know their occupations, places of residence, and their children and spouses. To reach level 4, we also need to know what property they owned, if they served in the military, what religion they were, and if they were involved in any criminal activities. In … [Read more...]
DNA Painter adds Level-Up Challenge as Dimension!
17 April 2021 by Leave a Comment
DNA Painter, the website with all sorts of cool tools for people interested in genetic genealogy, added the level-up challenge I wrote about in January as a dimension to their family trees. You can import your tree or build it from scratch, and then add a dimension to your tree to manually indicate the research level for each ancestor. See Jonny Perl's blog post about the new dimensions feature for detailed instructions and examples of other dimensions you can now add to your … [Read more...]
Level 3 Checklist – Occupations, residence, children, spouses
26 March 2021 by Leave a Comment
Two months ago, I issued my Level-Up Challenge, challenging you to assess how complete your research is. By level 2, we know the names of our ancestors and where and when they were born, married and died. To reach level 3, we also have to know their occupations, places of residence, and their children and spouses. In this blog post, I will explain which sources I feel I need to have found or searched for in order to say I have reached level 3. Occupation I want to find at least one source … [Read more...]
Level 2 Checklist – Vital Statistics
19 February 2021 by Leave a Comment
Last month I issued my Level-Up Challenge, challenging you to assess how complete your research is. Level 2 is vital statistics only. In this blog post, I will explain which sources I feel I need to have found or searched for in order to say I have reached level 2. For each vital event, I want to have found at least one of the sources indicated here so I know where and when a person was born, married, and died. Date and place of birth Birth record (civil registration) I want to find … [Read more...]
Six Levels of Ancestral Profiles – Level-up Challenge!
22 January 2021 by 49 Comments
I had an interesting discussion with fellow genealogist Willem Vermeulen the other day, about the importance of going beyond the vital information to document your family and meet the Genealogical Proof Standard. I mentioned that I have different 'levels' of ancestral profiles, that I am now working to improve and expand. I have been working on my tree for thirty years, and not all of the work on my ancestors is up to my current standards. I decided to make these levels explicit to see where I … [Read more...]
