Quick tip – Video about using WieWasWie

FamilySearch features a helpful video where Fritz Juengling explains how to use the website WieWasWie (Who Was Who) for researching your ancestors in the Netherlands. Go to the video … [Read more...]

Quick tip – Beta version of WieWasWie

WieWasWie, the website where many Dutch archives publish their indexes and scans of genealogical sources, has a new website. It is in beta, which means that they are looking for user feedback. Try the beta version of WieWasWie … [Read more...]

Free Alternatives to WieWasWie

WieWasWie, the largest genealogical database in the Netherlands, introduced a paid subscription earlier this year. Here are some free alternatives. 1: Use the free version of WieWasWie You can try to make do with the free version of WieWasWie. All of the information is still available for free, but the search options are pretty limited. You can work around that by always searching for the full name. This can work if the name you search for is unusual. You can't use wildcards, but always … [Read more...]

Why You Are not Finding Anything in WieWasWie

If you are using WieWasWie to search for records about your ancestors, you may have trouble finding them. Here are three of the most common reasons why you have no results when you search in WieWasWie. You fill in too much information WieWasWie only finds records that exactly match everything you search for. Since the introduction of the paid subscription earlier this month, you can't use wildcards or 'begins with' to search for parts of a name, which severely limits your chances of finding … [Read more...]

WieWasWie Introduces Paid Subscription

The largest genealogy website in the Netherlands, WieWasWie, will introduce a paid subscription starting 1 January 2016 [Update: this has been postponed to 8 February]. The data can still be accessed for free, but some of the advanced functionality will be behind a paywall. Paid version The following functionality will be behind a paywall: Advanced search options: searching for 2 persons, using wildcards, option "begins with." Saving searches and documents as favorites. Email … [Read more...]

Dutch Genealogy Webinar – Questions about Records

During the webinar "Researching Your Dutch Ancestors," the viewers had the most interesting questions. I got to address some of them during the webinar, but thought they all deserve a reply so I'm dedicating this post to answer some more. There were so many great questions that I will have inspiration for several follow-up articles, so please stay tuned and follow this blog or newsletter to read them all. In this first article, I will answer the questions about records in the … [Read more...]

Where to find Dutch genealogy records online

So you found out that your immigrant ancestor is Dutch. Perhaps you notice that the websites that you normally use don't have many Dutch records. Where do you go go next? Here are my favorite free websites to find records of our Dutch ancestors. All these websites provide free access to indexes, although some will charge to access or download scans. WieWasWie WieWasWie [Who Was Who] is the largest genealogy website of the Netherlands. It has indexed records and links to scans from many … [Read more...]

Ask Yvette: What happened to Genlias?

Between 1995 and 2012, many archives in the Netherlands published indexes of birth, marriage and death records on Genlias (www.genlias.nl). Genlias was taken offline in 2013 and replaced by WieWasWie. Genlias was the most popular genealogy site in the country, and many people used it for their research. Ancestry.com still links to Genlias, even though all the links are broken now. This is why I still get asked about Genlias, even though the website has been offline for over … [Read more...]

Quick tip – Find out what’s in WieWasWie

In discussion groups, I will often see people wondering why they can't find their ancestors' records in WieWasWie (WhoWasWho). WieWasWie is the largest website with genealogical sources in the Netherlands, a collaboration between dozens of repositories throughout the country. It has over 100 million references to people in the database, but is far from complete. Each repository has its own schedule on how they enter information. They all started with the marriages and most continued with the … [Read more...]

Quick tip – Not everything is on WieWasWie

Most Dutch genealogists quickly fall in love with WieWasWie, the website where archives from all over the country publish their genealogical data. But there are plenty of archives, historical societies and genealogists who publish genealogical sources elsewhere on the web. So if you can't find an ancestor on WieWasWie, try other sources as well. The website Digital Resources Netherlands and Belgium has a great overview of what else is available online. … [Read more...]