Some Dutch Ancestors

Please visit the main genealogy page, and from there more pages on other areas: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, southern Maine, the Hudson Valley of NY, and Ohio.

This report has been prepared by Dave Pane-Joyce. Bobbi Schirado, his sister, has done the original research on the more recent generations and Dave, her brother, the research on the more remote generations.

This report is registered with GENDEX.

Ancestor table for Wilhelmina Cornelia Hamelink (1891-1986).

Some ancestor charts.

Surname Index for the report

Individual index for the report:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z

Sources for the report

Sources for Dutch genealogy resources on the web. In the last couple of years a lot has appeared on the web. Here are the most useful places I've found.

• GenLias, the State Archives Genealogical Search Program at http://www.genlias.nl/. This database includes records from all the provinces of the Netherlands. Mostly there are civil records including marriage and death records, and some birth records, mainly form the last of the 18th century to the early 20th century.

  You can access the records in either English or Dutch. If you want English, choose it first so all the links will be in English. The first time you use GenLias, you'll have to register your name. There's no cost and you'll get immediate access. Record on paper the usercode you get and the password you give so you only have to create the account once. When you come back to GenLias, just "Logon" with this usercode and password. Then you can query the database.

  Learn how to enter a query to get just what you want. That will take some experience. If you know the province or town, then you can restrict the search to exclude unwanted results, but sometimes you don't know, or perhaps you're interested in two or more provinces, so you can't restrict the search. Learn how to use patronymics. In the early period some families didn't have surnames, so use the patronymic in place of a surname, but many did, and the combination of surname and patronymic can help restict your search to make it more manageable. Also, restrict the range of years to get only relevant replies.

  Once you've got a long list of replies, you can sort it by year, or first name or a few other things.

  Sometimes you don't get some records you want, so you can enter just the beginnings of names and mark the "beginning with" checkbox. No doubt, you'll get too much, but at least you'll have what you want.

• The Zeeuws Archief ISIS at http://database.zeeuwsarchief.nl/. You can search the records of the Zeeuws Archief (Zeeland Archives). Probably the best place for civil records of Zeeland from the the last of the 18th century to the first part of the 20th. Many marriage and death records, lists of inhabitants, emigrant records, and mortgage registers. You can access the records either in English or Dutch, and you don't have to register to use the database.

  A lot of the records are the same ones you can find at GenLias, but, of course, only the records of Zeeland are at the Zeeuws Archief. Usually, a little more of the original record is transcribed into the Zeeuws Archief, namely, occupations and other notes, so if you know it's Zeeland you want, you'll probably want to start with the Zeeuws Archief.

  The modifications to the queries you can make at the Zeeuws Archief are useful, so take a little time to see just how to use them. For instance, you can add an exclamation point to a surname to pick up similar names (something like soundex equivalents). For instance, if you enter "Keukelaar" for a surname, that's all you'll get, but if you enter "Keukelaar!" you'll also get Quakkelaar, Kwakkelaar, and even Kögeler, and some of those others might be the ones you're looking for.

• Church records (baptisms, marriages, and burials), and other records. There are few in the databases mentioned above. Here are a few more places I've found on the web. This is not a comprehensive list, just the ones including some towns I'm interested in.
  • Some towns in Drenthe, including IJhorst-De Wijk, Koekange, Ruinerwold Staphorst, & Zuitwolde, at http://home.wanadoo.nl/poortman/bronnen__index.htm
  • Herman de Wit's http://www.de-wit.net/bronbewerkingen.htm includes a variety of resources including some records of Axel & Hoek in Zeeland.
  • A list of resources for Zeeland at http://geneaknowhow.net/digi/zeel-ni.html

• Cyndi's List, of course, has Netherlands links

David Pane-Joyce


Created 17 May 2005 with the help of
Reunion, from Leister Productions, Inc.