I just discovered there was a problem with the newsletter and it has not gone out for the past few weeks. These problems should now be fixed and newsletters should be sent again from Friday 4 September 2020 onward. My apologies for the inconvenience. The newsletter is sent every Friday and contains all the new articles that appeared on the website in the past week. It could be that the next newsletter contains all the missed articles, but if not, you can find all the articles in the blog … [Read more...]
About this website
Creating a website like this is a fun activity. There are so many options, so many choices. What do visitors want? What do I want? In this blog I will describe some of the things I encounter in developing and maintaining this website.
Case study – Using Death Duties Files to Gain Insights into the Financial Situation
28 August 2020 by 1 Comment
While researching my third great-grandfather Teunis van Nijkerken, I discovered he owned quite a bit of capital when he died in Winterswijk on 1 June 1887. His death duties file indicated he and his wife Johanna Vonhof owned over 2,000 guilders in assets, including 500 guilders in a bank account, and about 700 guilders in money lent to others.1 By the time Johanna Vonhof died on 24 July 1889, the value of the estate had shrunk to 1,700 guilders, which included almost 600 in the bank account … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Van der Aa’s Biographical Dictionary
26 August 2020 by Leave a Comment
A biographical dictionary from the 1800s is available online: Van der Aa's Biografisch Woordenboek. The 21 volumes contain thousands of lemmas about more or less famous people in the Netherlands. The dictionary is in the public domain so you can use it for your own research. To find entries, select the first letter of the last name and then browse alphabetically. The names have links behind them that will show the corresponding imaged book in the right pane. You can click the 'transcription' … [Read more...]
Using Proof by Contradiction to Focus your Research
14 August 2020 by 6 Comments
Those who came to genealogy from a science background are likely familiar with “proof by contradiction”—a way to prove a theory by demonstrating that its opposite leads to an insupportable contradiction.[1] Many genealogists use this technique, often implicitly. Whatever the name, genealogists benefit from understanding how to apply the technique to improve research efficiency and focus. Using proof by contradiction, a three-step mathematical example proves the theory that there is no … [Read more...]
Quick Tip – Use Google Translate App to Translate Publications
12 August 2020 by 3 Comments
Did you know you can use the Google Translate app on your phone to translate publications? Just click the camera icon in the app and point it at a printed text. Google Translate will show the translation in place. I first saw this when one of my clients used it to translate a Dutch plaque next to a monument and a Dutch menu. You can also use it to translate Dutch books, newspapers, or magazines. As long as the text is printed, Google Translate should be able to handle it. … [Read more...]
Dutch Genealogy News for July 2020
7 August 2020 by Leave a Comment
Here is an overview of the new sources, websites, and projects that were announced last month. Sources Breda and the former municipalities now belonging to Breda have been added to HisGis, the historical geographic information system. The map viewer shows the plots and ownership in Breda in 1832. 1200 maps of Drenthe from the 1600s to 1900s can now be consulted at the Drents Archief website. The Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum added scans of the aldermen's court records of … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Friesland Memorabilia
29 July 2020 by Leave a Comment
If you have ancestors from Friesland, you want to check out the website of Hessel de Walle: Memorabilia uit Friesland [Memorabilia from Friesland]. Hessel collects references to Frisian memorabilia with people's names on them, like mourning boards in churches, inscribed silverware, grave monuments, etc., and generously made his database available online. You can search the database in different ways: Gemeente - Municipality Plaats - Town Typen - Types Achternaam - Last name … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Assess Online Trees and Other Publications
24 July 2020 by 3 Comments
Many of my research projects start with a survey of published literature: journals, books, and online trees. Here are five ways I assess the quality and reliability of these publications. Sources The first thing I look for are the sources: If the publication has no sources, there is no way to evaluate the quality of the underlying research. If the publication only lists other trees or published genealogies as sources, that implies the compiler did not do original research. If the … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Magazines and Journals at Delpher
22 July 2020 by 1 Comment
The website Delpher is famous for its newspapers, but also has a large collection of magazines and journals. This includes many trade and professional journals that have information about people in these occupations, such as teachers and farmers. The majority of the periodicals dates from the 1850s to 1950s. … [Read more...]
Quick tip – 98% of Dutch People have Immigrant Ancestors
15 July 2020 by 1 Comment
Did you know that an estimated 98% of people in the Netherlands have an immigrant ancestor somewhere in their trees in the past 500 years? They could be descendants of German laborers, French Huguenots, Swiss or Scottish mercenary soldiers, people from former Dutch colonies like Suriname, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), or the Netherlands Antilles, or more recent immigrants like guest workers from Morocco or Turkey, or refugees from Iraq or Syria. … [Read more...]
