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Looking for your ancestors from the Netherlands? Yvette Hoitink is a professional genealogist in the Netherlands who does research throughout the country. Read about our services, fees, and example projects or read testimonials by clients like you.

If you want to learn more about researching Dutch ancestors, make sure to read the blog.

Featured article

Map of the Week – Connections in Utrecht, circa 1919

This map, created shortly after the end of World War I, shows the different connections in the province of Utrecht The legend identifies the different types of lines on the map: railroads tramways paved roads gravel roads provincial border dikes hills. The 1800s saw a tremendous increase in infrastructure. This map captures the rail and […]

Featured article

View of New York with ships in the front

Named Fellow for the New Netherland Settlers project

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation has awarded a $12,000 grant to the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society to support a Fellow for their New Netherland Settlers project. I am honored to announce I have been named in that position. As a Fellow, I will research underrepresented and underexamined populations within New Netherland such as […]

Map of the Week – Overijssel, 1680

This map of Overijssel was originally created by Nicolaas ten Have and printed by Frederik de Wit in 1680. Such maps can be useful to understand the location where your ancestor lived. It shows the major roads and rivers. It also shows the jurisdictions, in this case the Land van Vollenhove in blue, Salland in […]

Featured article

Dutch term – Kerkdienst

A kerkdienst is a church service. In most places in the Netherlands, churches are no more than 10 km (6 miles) apart, so anyone can walk to church within an hour (two if the roads are muddy). In the image below we see a group of people leaving a church, drawn around 1654. At that time, […]

Map of the Week – Leiden, 1574

This week we are looking at a map of Leiden from the  atlas Civitates Orbis Terrarum by Braun and Hogenberg. The map dates from 1574, during the Eighty Years’ War or the Dutch Revolt, whereby the Netherlands fought for independence from the Habsburg Empire, ruled by King Philip II of Spain. 1574 is a key […]

Tip of the week

Quick tip – Access Restrictions For People Born More Than 100 Years Ago

In the Netherlands, privacy laws restrict access to records of people who may still be alive. But this often affects records of people who were born (much) earlier too. A few examples: Death records are only public after 50 years. My great-grandmother was born in 1893 but her death record only became public this year […]

Term of the week

House number 28, with faint number 36 next to it

Dutch term – Omnummeren

Omnummeren means to renumber. In the past, addresses often changed from one census/population register to the next. The houses would be omgenummerd; renumbered. This can make it difficult to find the modern locations of historical addresses. See tips for finding the address where your ancestors lived for some ideas. Some archives have omnummerlijsten (renumber lists) […]