If you are looking for notarial records, be sure to check in neighboring towns too. Unlike civil registrations or court records, there was no requirement to go to the notary in your own town. Sometimes, people lived in the countryside and the notary of a neighboring town was more convenient. Your ancestor could also appear in notarial records in another town if the seller or purchaser lived elsewhere and created the record there.
When looking for notarial records of my ancestors Martinus Trouw and Petronella Oomen, who lived in Etten-Leur, I found the most relevant records in the notarial archives of Princenhage and Oudenbosch, even though Etten-Leur had its own notaries. One notarial record from Princenhage, imaged below, included the sale of all the moveable goods, as sold by Petronella’s second husband, including cattle, household items, and crops, which tells me a bit about the kind of farm they were running. They had one cow, one ox, and one pig, and grew potatoes and wood.
Sale of moveable goods, 4 July 18901
- G.W. Brossers, notary (Princenhage), records 1890, no. 3276, auction of moveable goods belonging to Cornelis Voeten, 28 June 1890; call no. 50, notarial archives Breda and surrounding municipalities, Stadsarchief Breda, Breda; “Bladeren in bronnen,” images, Stadsarchief Breda (http://stadsarchief.breda.nl : accessed 29 November 2020).
About Yvette Hoitink
