The term wijlen means 'the late,' or 'deceased.' You will often encounter the term in marriage records or death records, where one or both parents are deceased. The record might say "zoon van wijlen..." [son of the late...] or "dochter van wijlen..." [daughter of the late...]. Sometimes, the word is abbreviated to 'w' and you will see svw or zvw [soon/zoon van wijlen: son of the late] or dvw [dochter van wijlen: daughter of the late]. These abbreviations are most commonly found in church … [Read more...]

Parenteel is the Dutch word for an overview of descendants in the male and female lines. A parenteel can be represented in a narrative form or in a chart. It can include people with many different last names, as the descendants of daughters and their spouses are traced too. Some Dutch genealogists publish parentelen online, so a search for the term parenteel combined with a surname or place name of interest may lead you to these publications. Example: Parenteel of Egbert Mierdinck The largest … [Read more...]

An ambtenaar is a civil servant or government employee. In civil registration records, you will often see an ambtenaar van de burgerlijke stand (clerk of the civil registration) officiating the marriage or registering the birth or death. During your research you can encounter ambtenaren in two ways: your ancestors may have been ambtenaren themselves but they also would have dealt with ambtenaren like clerks, teachers, soldiers, police officers or town criers in their every-day lives. The … [Read more...]