Flevoland is the youngest province of the Netherlands and consists almost entirely of land reclaimed from the sea. It borders on Friesland and Overijssel in the east, Gelderland and Utrecht in the south, Noord-Holland and the IJsselmeer in the west and the IJsselmeer in the north.

The capital city of Flevoland is Lelystad. Other larger towns are:

• Almere
• Dronten
• Emmeloord

History

Except for a few former islands, the province of Flevoland consists of land reclaimed from the sea. In 1932 the Zuiderzee (Southern sea) was closed of from the North Sea by a dike. This turned the sea into a lake, the IJsselmeer.

The population of the Netherlands was growing rapidly, and new land was needed. In the 1940, the Noord-Oost Polder was the first part of the IJsselmeer to be turned into usable land. In 1957 and 1968, two more large areas were reclaimed. Flevoland became a seperate province in 1986.

Two former islands, Urk and Schokland, are now on dry land. To this day, people say they live 'at' Urk and not 'in' Urk.

Genealogy in Flevoland

Because most of the province is so new, there aren't many genealogical sources for Flevoland that are public yet. The genealogical records for Urk and Schokland are kept by the New Land Heritage Center. The civil registration and the church records of these towns can be found in Genlias.

Emigration from Flevoland

Flevoland doesn't have a long history, so it doesn't have a long history of emigration either. When the dike turned the sea into a lake, many fishermen around the new IJsselmeer lost their jobs. Many of them left the region to find a new life. Quite a few went to Twente and the neighboring German area where there was plenty of work to be found in the textiles factories.

Last week, my friend Mary Risseeuw from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin and I gave a presentation at the International Congress for genealogical and heraldic Sciences in Maastricht. The title was "We're all fresh and healthy. Emigration from the Netherlands to the United States in the 19th century. The slides are now available online.

I've just added a Dutch genealogy store to the site. In this store, visitors can buy books, DVDs and prints about Dutch genealogy, history and culture. I've selected publications that I think would benefit somebody researching his Dutch roots. The store is powered by Amazon. This website receives a commission for all sales, enabling this website to remain free.

In the days before the Civil Registration forced everyone to stick to a surname, people in the eastern part of the Netherlands were named after the farm they lived at. You can still see that in the surnames today: Derk te Kolste, Piet te Lintum, Gerrit Jan Hoitink, etc. Since the surname might change every time a person moved, this sometimes offers difficulties in tracing your ancestors. There are some strategies to help you solve those name puzzles.

Death records are a part of the civil registration. A death record lists the following data:

• Place, date and time of death
• Names of parents
• Names of spouses
• Name, profession and age of the one registering the birth
• Names, profession and age of the witnesses
• Often: address where the death took place

The province of Limburg is situated in the south-east of the Netherlands. The province borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, Belgium and Noord-Brabant to the east and Noord-Brabant to the north.

The capital city of Limburg is Maastricht. Other larger towns are:

• Heerlen
• Sittard
• Venlo
• Geleen

In the middle of the nineteenth century, conditions in Europe were poor. Crops were failling all over Europe and many people hardly made enough money to feed their families. For this reason, many people decided to emigrate to the United States, where farmland was plenty and people hoped they could begin a new life. In the Netherlands, some people also had religious reasons to emigrate. The had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church and were being oppressed by the goverment. The United States offered to them not only better economic prospects, but also the chance to celebrate their religion as they saw fit.