Noord-Holland is a province in the north-west of the Netherlands. It borders on the IJsselmeer, Utrecht and Flevoland in the east, Utrecht and Zuid-Holland in the south, and the North Sea on the west and north.

The capital city of Noord-Holland is Haarlem. The capital city of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, is also situated in Noord-Holland. Other larger towns are:

• Alkmaar
• Den Helder
• Enkhuizen
• Zaandam
• Amstelveen

Genealogy in Noord-Holland

There are no specific naming traditions that researchers need to take into account when doing research in Noord-Holland. Most families had fixed surnames centuries before the civil registration made that mandatory. Some regions did use patronymics in addition to the family name.

Most genealogical records of the province are kept by the Noord-Hollands Archief. The records of Amsterdam are kept by the Amsterdam municipal archives. Unfortunately, neither website is available in English.

Many of the marriage records from Noord-Holland can be found in Genlias. This does not include Amsterdam, which in itself accounts for about 10% of the total number of marriage records in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam marriage records are not available online and will not become available for at least another couple of years.

Emigration from Noord-Holland

Noord-Holland has always been one of the more prosperous parts of the Netherlands. Amsterdam especially has always drawn many immigrants. As a result, Noord-Holland wasn't struck particularly hard by any of the major emigration waves. Many enterpreneurs, especially from Amsterdam, left the country to live in colonies or tradeposts around the world.

Amsterdam was also home to the largest chamber of the Dutch East-Indies Company which also sent many people across the world.

Online images

There are several online sources for images of Noord-Holland:

• Noord-Holland image database. Select 'Zoeken' (search) and then type the name of the town or person you're looking for in 'Vrij zoeken' (free search) and press 'OK'.
• Noord-Holland provincial atlas 1865-1870. This atlas contains both a map of the entire province and maps of the municipalities.

Map of Noord-Holland

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.

When Dutch people arrived in the United States or other English-speaking countries, often their names got changed. This was either done on purpose, to make the name easier to write and remember, or by accident because the clerk didn't know how to spell the name and wrote it down phonetically. For this reason, a single family name can often be found in many different spellings in different documents.

This article gives an overview of the types of changes that names underwent and also gives a list of English versions of Dutch last names. This list is not complete and even for the names that are listed, chances are that many people with those names used even more exotic variants as well.

Marriage records are a part of the civil registration. Marriage records contain the following information:

• Name, age, profession and place of birth and residence of the bride and groom
• Names of their parents, and if they are still alive their professions and place of residence
• If any: names of previous spouses (either divorced or deceased)
• Name, age, profession and place of residence for 4 witnesses

Drenthe is a province in the north of the Netherlands. It borders on the province of Groningen in the North, Germany in the east, Overijssel in the south and Friesland in the west.

The capital city of Drenthe is Assen. Other large towns are:

• Emmen
• Hoogeveen
• Meppel

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.