2014 has been a wonderful year for me. It’s the year my company Dutch Genealogy Services really took off, which allowed me to quit my job and dedicate myself full-time to being a genealogy professional. Here are some of the highlights of my year.
Client projects
- Worked for 35 clients from 12 different countries.
- Did research in 11 of the 12 provinces in the Netherlands. The only province I did not do any research in was Flevoland, a province that only was established in 1988 so not many people have ancestors from there.
- Research covered sources from 11 different countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Suriname, Netherlands Antilles, Indonesia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United States).
- Met five clients in person, including Roberta Estes with whom I made a trip through Friesland.
Professional network
- Quit my job as project manager at the National Archives to become a full-time genealogist by September 2014.
- Hired my first employee on an on-call basis, to help with some heir search cases.
- Got elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Genealogists in October.
- Attended Who Do You Think You Are? Live! in London in February
- Attended Who Do You Think You Are? Live! in Glasgow in August
- Attended Virtual workshop “Setting Business and Marketing Goals for 2015”
Publications/lectures
- Published article “Finding your Dutch Ancestors Online” in the October/November issue of Internet Genealogy magazine.
- Published article about orphan chambers in latest issue of the quarterly magazine of the Tilburg Chapter of the Dutch Genealogical Society.
- Wrote report for Europeana about collaboration opportunities with genealogy suppliers (to be published).
- Wrote four columns for Gen, the quarterly magazine of the Central Bureau for Genealogy in the Netherlands.
- Had blog posts republished in several newsletters of historical and genealogical societies (feel free to ask me about this)
- Gave lecture about emigration from the Achterhoek in the 19th century for the Historical Society of Aalten, Dinxperlo and Wisch.
- Worked on my portfolio to submit to the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
Website
- Welcomed almost 100,000 visitors to the DutchGenealogy.nl website.
- Published 150 blog posts: usually one Dutch term, one quick tip plus one longer article per week.
- Sent out 52 newsletters (one per week) with the latest blog posts.
Most popular articles:
- Top 10 most common Dutch surnames (16 August 2013). This article is the most popular in search engines.
- How to find the father of an illegitimate child (26 September 2014). Even though only published towards the end of the year, this article had the most views of any article written in 2014.
- Prefixes in surnames (10 April 2005). Written almost ten years ago, but prefixes continue to intrigue people!
- How to order my own birth certificate from the Netherlands (9 August 2013). This one is popular among genealogists and people who are trying to become Dutch citizens based on their mother’s nationality.
- English versions of Dutch last names (15 May 2005). Another golden oldie that scores well in search engines because many people are looking for the original version of their names.
Looking at this list make me realize that only one of these articles was written this year. It’s great to see my old content doing so well but it would be nice to get more attention for my new articles too.
Goals for next year
Some of my goals for next year are:
- Submit my portfolio to the Board for Certification of Genealogists (and become certified).
- Attract more clients New Netherland ancestors (Dutch colony in North-America) and research their ancestors in Dutch sources.
- Write articles for magazines like the Association of Professional Genealogy Quarterly, National Genealogical Society Quarterly.
- Attend the National Genealogical Society conference in St. Louis, Missouri in May 2015.
- Give a webinar about finding your Dutch ancestors.
What are your goals for 2015? Do you have any suggestions for me to improve or expand my services in 2015?
Add DNA testing to your toolkit.
I have been using DNA testing for my own research since 2012 and have also been advising clients about DNA testing where appropriate. Very powerful tool indeed!