The Yvette behind Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Homepage is Yvette Hoitink, a Dutch amateur genealogist with an interest in emigration research. The information on this website represent her personal views and do not reflect the opinions of her company or employers.

Yvette became interested in genealogy at the age of 14 and has been doing it ever since. Her paternal ancestors come from the eastern part of Gelderland, mainly from Winterswijk, Aalten, Bredevoort and Dinxperlo. Her maternal ancestors come from Noord-Brabant (the area around Breda and Tilburg) and Zeeland (western Zeeuws-Vlaanderen).

In 1993, Yvette started studying computer science and management studies at the University of Twente. Because her faculty provided internet access for students, Yvette became one of the first Dutch people to have her own website: Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Homepage. Because there were hardly any people outside the United States online, the website was focused on Americans with Dutch ancestors. That has remained the focus ever since.

Using the internet, Yvette got in touch with Mary Risseeuw and other descendants of 19th century emigrants from the Netherlands. This sparked her interest and she started researching why those people left the Netherlands and where they ended up.

As a result of this, Yvette attended the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Phoenix disaster in 1997. The Phoenix perished on Lake Michigan in 1847, carrying mainly Dutch emigrants. Yvette researched the backgrounds of these passengers. Researchers in the United States, including Ione Heinen and Mary Risseeuw, researched what became of the survivors.

For the last nine years, Yvette has run a computer company together with her boyfriend. The company, Heritas, is aimed at historical applications of information technology. Because of her work, Yvette has been involved in many websites that are related to genealogy like Genlias, Archivenet, the Dutch National Archives, the Overijssel Historical Centre, etc. Since March 2006, Yvette works as a ICT consultant and project manager for the National Archives in The Hague. Yvette was also involved in creating the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines so people with disabilities can access online information.

Because of her knowledge of historical applications of information technology, Yvette gives lectures and workshop on using the internet for genealogy. In 2002, she wrote a book on this subject together with her friend Jeroen van Luin which was published by the Central Bureau of Genealogy in The Hague. A revised edition was published in 2007.

Yvette's own research focuses on the following areas:

• Population reconstruction of Winterswijk prior to 1811. This database is available online.
• Emigration from Winterswijk in the 19th century, with the focus on finding out who left and where they ended up. The ancestors of the emigrants are researched as well, to tie in with the population reconstruction of Winterswijk (see the above database).
• Researching her own ancestors both in male and female lines.
• Reconstructing the population of Bredevoort in the seventeenth century. She was able to pinpoint the location of the house of Hendrickje Stoffels. She was not only mistress of the famous painter Rembrandt van Rijn but also a sister of an ancestor of Yvette. See her Dutch site Heerlijkheid Bredevoort.
  
• Reconstructing the population of Sint Anna ter Muiden to determine who lived where prior to 1832. See her Dutch website Sint Anna ter Muiden.