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Starting Genealogy in the Netherlands

Introduction

This document is not about learning genealogy, but intended for genealogists starting research in the Netherlands. It explains the administrative system, and what can be found in it.

Registration

In the Netherlands, particular events in a person's live are officially recorded. The typical events are just what genealogists are looking for: birth, marriage and death. The current administrative system is called the Burgerlijke Stand (civil registration, abbreviated ‘BS’). And there are the Volkstellingen (census) which were held every 10 years, but abandoned in the 1970's.
Before the introduction of the Burgerlijke Stand in 1811 there was a comparable but less extensive system in Church Records.

Note: In the Dutch system, a woman keeps her maiden name after marriage (certainly in the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’, but it was common before that). She may use her husbands surname in front of her surname, separated by a hyphen. E.g. when a Sylvia de Boer married a Klaas Jansen, she may call herself Sylvia Jansen-de Boer. In every day's life she may be known as Sylvia Jansen, but for any official administration she remains Sylvia de Boer (married to…).
Children will get the surname of the father. Modern legislation allows more flexibility, in particular for children, but that is of no consequence for genealogists researching the past.

Spelling:

Spelling is definitely an issue. Most people couldn't read or write, and the spelling of names is what the official understood of the local accent. So even after the standardisation of names and spelling in 1811 it is not strict. And before 1811 –with the use of patronymics–it is really free for all.

Note: Dutch surnames often have a preposition ('van', 'van der', 'de', 'ter', …); such prepositions are part of the surname but not used in alphabetic ordering or in a search. E.g. you will find 'van Diemen' indicated and sorted as 'Diemen, van'. For a search you can often specify the prepositions in a special entry called 'tussenvoegsel'. See Spelling for more on prepositions, spelling and ordering of Dutch names.

Akte:

The official record of an event is called an Akte (record, deed, certificate). They were written in books which are now in an archive (Dutch: ‘archief’). Each municipality has its own archive, but the civil registration sections which are now public are concentrated in the Provincial Archives and the archives of major towns (like Amsterdam and Rotterdam). People (which includes genealogists ;-) can visit those archives and view the books (commonly via micro fiche).

Note: that the dates are recorded in 'European' format: dd-mm-yyyy or dd month year.

Digitisation:

Genealogy is a very popular hobby in the Netherlands, and many genealogists are doing volunteer work in transcribing old registrations. Most ‘Akten’ have now been digitised and made accessible via the internet, so you don’t have to travel at all and can research the records from the comfort of your home. Regarding civil registrations, the Netherlands is one of the most digitised country in the world (with Iceland as first ?). There are various forms of digitisation:

Images of ‘akten’: images of the original record, like micro fiche, but now on the internet (e.g. JPG-file).
These provide the most information, but are hard to read. Furthermore, as there are in general no indexes, you have to leaf through them page by page. Not good as a starting point, but when you know a date or record number it is extremely useful because of the amount of details.
Transcribed ‘akten’: i.e. sometimes full text, but mostly excerpts of records in computer readable format, e.g. PDF or text files.
Very useful as you can let the computer search for names, but limited to one type of registration (birth/baptism, marriage or death/burial) in one municipality/church community over a limited time (e.g. ‘Doopboek Enschede 1748-1762‘).
Database: Names of persons and other relevant data of the event (birth/marriage/death) entered in a (genealogical) database. Some databases refer to an image of an ‘akte’, which is very nice.
Extremely useful; you can use a number of search criteria to narrow down your research, and you get relevant data.

Obviously, the last form provides easiest access and allows you to search for a specific person, potentially in a specific region, in a specific time frame, and potentially search for the combination of 2 names (e.g. husband and wife). But the database version contains in fact an excerpt, so sometimes you have to fall back to the full text (image) of an ‘akte’ to clear up some details (see ZoekAkten as source below).

Note that:

Not all of the original record books have survived the ravages of time (due to fire, flooding, acts of war, or just missing).
The digitisation has not been completed yet; volunteers are still working on it.

Witnesses:

At all events witnesses were required at the registration to make it official; they are mentioned in an ‘akte’ (but commonly not mentioned in the databases). For birth and death records, one of the witnesses acted as ‘aangever’ (declarant, primary witness).
Typically, the primary witness at birth was the father or the midwife, and the 2 other witnesses were some close relatives or neighbours. For marriages they include the best man.

General notes:

In the past the Netherlands –like most other countries at that time– was only sparsely populated (in respect to modern standards): in 1800 less than 2 million people in an area where 16 million lived in the year 2000 (see Disasters, Population size).
And –again like most other countries– most people lived in rural areas (there were only a few small cities) and most people were involved in agriculture (apart from the occasional craftsman and merchant they were farmers, tenants, farmers hands, maids, …). Industrialisation started slowly around 1850.

In the past life was pretty miserable for most people in the Netherlands (and almost everywhere else). Don't be surprised to find many children dead before their 10^th birthday. If you find a child with the same name as a previous one, the previous one has probably died.
But in general adult men and women didn't get old either (illnesses, plagues, famines, men due to occupational accidents, women at childbirth), so the widow/widower would marry again to take care of the farm, the animals, the household and the children.

BS: Burgerlijke Stand

In 1811 –when the Netherlands was occupied by Napoleon– all people had to take on a surname, and the government started to register births, marriages and deaths as ‘akten’ in the respective books. This system was kept after the French occupation, and –although evolved over time– is still in operation today.
For a genealogist these books of registration records are the primary source for events after 1811. Copies of all books were made for safety reasons, and stored elsewhere. Still, some books are completely lost. Sometimes, notes from genealogists made before the loss may serve as replacement.

Surnames:

In towns, most people already used surnames. But in rural areas the use of patronymics was common. Taking a surname is reflected in the (‘akten’ of) ‘Naamsaannemingen’.
In some early Burgerlijke Stand ‘akten’ you may find a remark like the following in a marriage record: "bruidegom (Hendrik Lubbers) ook bekend als Hueskes" (= groom (Hendrik Lubbers) also known as (Hendrik) Hueskes).

Availability of ‘Akten’:

The general database at WieWasWie is almost complete. But then, it is a ‘work in progress’: some records are duplicated, and some are poorly transcribed, so there is maintenance carried out. Note also that nowadays DTB records (see further below) are also added to the BS records.
For privacy reasons, the records are only released to the public after decades (and then they still have to be digitised before you can find then in a database):

Type of record	Availability
birth	100 years
marriage	75 years
death	50 years

In fact current privacy laws allow shorter periods for release, but archives in general stick to the old rule. So if you are from Dutch descent, your parents won't be in the public records. But your grandparents should.

A major consequence of the formal administration was that patronymics were not used anymore, and that spelling of names became consistent. However, mistakes were (and are) still made.

For various dealings with the authorities you needed an ‘uittreksel geboorteregister’ (= excerpt from birth register). For example for a marriage. But when the handwriting was poor, they may have changed the spelling of the groom's surname, and all the children from that marriage may have got the changed surname.

Images:

If you look at the images of records, you will notice that the early records were all in handwriting, but later records changed very soon to pre-printed forms (with the names and dates still in handwriting of course). The legibility varies with the author; the wording is a bit formal but comparable to modern Dutch, however spelling is old fashioned (machine translations may present unpredictable results).

Gemeente

(municipality): Administration was organised in ‘gemeenten’. At the start, administration was the only concern for a municipality; later more tasks and responsibilities were given to a municipality, and it got a democratic representation.
Originally a municipality covered an area limited by what a person could reasonably travel in those days (say 1 hour on foot). Rivers are obviously a big obstacle, and formed a natural border.
Note that the word ‘gemeente’ is also used for a church community.

Sometimes, a municipality had separate administrations for the town and for the surrounding area. Typically the distinction was indicated in ~Stad (town) and ~Ambt (county). Examples: Doetinchem Stad and Doetinchem Ambt, or Hardenberg Stad and Hardenberg Ambt. In rare cases they had totally different names, like e.g. Enschede (town) and Lonneker.

As municipal tasks –and methods of transportation– changed, the area covered by a municipality were enlarged as well (‘gemeentelijke herindeling’ = ‘municipal restructuring’, mostly merges). And that is still ongoing.
See Gemhis for historic municipalities (and places) (only in Dutch).

The name of a municipality is not unique (in rare cases). There is a municipality Hengelo (with a village Hengelo) in the province Gelderland, and there is a municipality Hengelo (with the town Hengelo) in the province Overijssel. So sometimes you need to include (the abbreviation for) the province in the place name (e.g. Hengelo,Gl). If you run into an ‘akte’ from (municipality) Hengelo, you have to check from which archive it came: Gelderland or Overijssel.

Places:

All recordings took place at the municipal office, so the place of the recording (municipality) is not always the same as the location of the event (in rural municipalities certainly not).
In early digitisations you will find only the municipality (e.g. as place of birth), not the actual place (as found in the image of the 'akte'). In later digitisations this is corrected.
As there are a lot of places with the same name, the name of the municipality may serve as the means to uniquely identify the place.
Due to municipal restructuring, a particular place may be found in distinct ‘gemeenten’ over time.
See www.van-diemen-de-jel.nl/Gemhis/ for historic places, municipalities and provinces, and Metatopos.eu for current places in the Netherlands.

Dates:

A birth or death may occur on a Sunday or on a holiday, i.e. when the municipal administration was closed. Such an event needed to be reported within 5 days. This also implies that the date of the recording is usually not the date of the event (commonly 1 day later).

Above remarks regarding places and dates do not apply to marriages: they were held on a working day (which included Saturdays), and always at a municipal office (i.e. day of the recording equals day of the marriage, place of the marriage is always the municipality).

The registration was carried out by a civil servant of the municipality (‘ambtenaar van de gemeente’), in early registrations that was often the mayor (‘burgemeester’).

Common data in records:

Every record (‘akte’) has the following data in common:

Akteplaats or Registratieplaats	(place of recording/registration): gemeente (municipality where the event was recorded), see note above
Aktedatum or Aangiftedatum	(date of recording/registration), see note above
Aktesoort or Soort Akte	(type of record): geboorte (birth), huwelijk (marriage) or overlijden (death). Also, scheidingsakte (record of divorce), in general treated as a special type of marriage record
Aktenummer	(record number): a sequence number, restarted every year
Opmerkingen	(remarks, notes)
Toegangsnummer	(access number): Code in the archive
Inventarisnummer	(inventory number): Archive's identification of the book containing the ‘Akte’

Geboorte

The following should be present in a ‘geboorteakte’ (birth certificate):

Kind		(child): name of the child (first names + father’s surname)
	Geslacht	(sex, gender): M/Man (male) or V/Vrouw (female)
	Vondeling	(foundling, abandoned child): N/nee (no) or J/ja (yes)
Vader		(father): first names + surname (N.N. for illegitimate children)
	Beroep	(profession, occupation)
	Leeftijd	(age)
Moeder		(mother): first names + surname
	…	Potentially the same attributes as the father
Geboortedatum		(date of birth)
Geboorteplaats		(place of birth): In early digitisations you may find the name of the municipally as birth place (which is not incorrect but not accurate)

Officially, the spelling of che child's name in the birth certificate has priority over any variant in other records.

Sex:

The indication of the sex of the child is often not present, and has to be derived from the first name(s). Most first names are gender specific. Often there is a male and a female variant of a name, for example Willem (male), and Willemina (female). Also the diminutive of a name (names ending in ~tje or ~ken, e.g. Jantje and Willemken) indicates a female.

Stillborn

children are a special case; in fact they didn't make a birth ‘akte’ but only a death ‘akte’ with birth date and death date the same, and birth place and death place the same. The name will be ‘N.N.’ or ‘levenloos’ (lifeless) or ‘doodgeboren kind/zoon/dochter’ (stillborn child/son/daughter), but often there is no mention of the sex of the stillborn.

Illegitimate children:

When the mother was not married when the child was born, or when she was a widow and her husband had died more than 1 year before the child's birth, the child is considered illegitimate (‘onwettig’). It received her surname (the father is indicated as N.N.).

A pre-marital child (‘vóórkind’) was not uncommon, but could also be the unwanted consequence of extra-marital activities. When the father was not married, he was urged to still do that. And when he didn't, you may find that the mother refers to him by using his name for the child.
When the father married the mother of the child, he should acknowledge the child as his and legalise it (‘wettigen’ or ‘erkennen’) during the marriage formalities (and recorded in the remarks). The child’s birth certificate was amended accordingly with the father's surname.
So when you can't find the birth of a first child with the father's surname, try again with the mother's surname.

Akte van Bekendheid

(Record of Acknowledgment): You have a problem getting an official birth or christening certificate when those records are not available. That happened a lot at the start of the Burgerlijke Stand (due to missing Church Records), but it may also occur in more recent times due to fire, flooding, war, etc. To solve that, there is an ‘Akte van Bekendheid’: 4 adult witnesses must each testify for a judge when and where you were born, and explain why there is no birth certificate. Than the judge will issue an Akte van Bekendheid as a replacement record for the birth certificate.

Example

of a birth record (from WieWasWie.nl in English version)

Child:		Gerrit Korevaar
	Gender:	Male
	Place of birth:	Sliedrecht
	Date of birth:	Friday, october 13, 1865
	Vondeling:	(foundling) N
Father:		NN
Mother:		Barbera Korevaar
Event:		Geboorte (birth)
	Date:	Friday, october 13, 1865
	Event place:	Sliedrecht
Source type:		BS (Burgerlijke Stand = Civil Registration)Geboorte
Organisation:		(heritage organisation of the archive) Nationaal Archief
	Place:	(of the archive) Dordrecht
	Collection region:	(of the archive) Zuid-Holland
Record number:		237
	Record date:	(registration date)14 october 1865
	Record place:	(registration municipality) Sliedrecht
	Record type:	Geboorteakte (birth record)
Opmerking:		(remark) Kind erkend bij huwelijk tussen moeder en Albert Vink d.d. 26-10-1865 te Sliedrecht (Child acknowledged at the marriage between mother and Albert Vink d.d. 26-10-1865)

The remark regarding the acknowledgement of the child implies that the child is known as Gerrit Vink from than on (there will be no birth record for Gerrit Vink, and no death record for this Gerrit Korevaar).

Huwelijk

People may marry in a church as well, but the official registration was only at the municipality (by convention at the municipality of the bride; the father of the bride is supposed to pay for the festivities). And a marriage needed to be announced at least 2 weeks before through the publication of marriage banns at the municipal offices (‘gemeentehuis’) where the bride and where the groom lived. The publication allowed people to oppose to the marriage (e.g. when marriage promises were made to them). With the publication, the couple went into a state called “ondertrouw” (litteraly 'submarriage', bound to be married).

The following should be present in a ‘huwelijksakte’ (marriage certificate):

Bruidegom		(groom): name
	Beroep	(profession, occupation)
	Leeftijd	(age) In early ‘akten’ (i.e. short after 1811) you may find a ‘Doopdatum’ (date of christening), which than is the correct word But the term ‘doop’ is also used in more recent akten when there are already valid birth certificates around. And when the true birth date is known, that will be used here (often under the misleading name ‘doop’). Note that if WieWasWie specifies birth/christening-date 1^st of january of some year, read it as in that year.
	Doopplaats Geboorteplaats	(place of christening, or place of birth): for births it will be the municipality (i.e. the administration). Sadly not present in all databases. Place of residence will be in the ‘akte’ but is not copied to databases.
Bruid		(bride): name
	…	Same attributes as the groom
Vader bruidegom		(father of the groom): name
Moeder bruidegom		(mother of the groom): name
Vader bruid		(father of the bride): name
Moeder bruid		(mother of the bride): name
	Beroep Leeftijd	The fathers and mothers may have attributes (in the databases), typically profession and sometimes age
Opmerkingen		(remarks): When applicable (and when digitised) remarks like:
	Weduwnaar van	groom is widower of «former wife’s name»
	Weduwe van	bride is widow of «former husband’s name»
	Dispensatie	dispensation, e.g. when marrying the deceased wife’s sister or the deceased husband’s brother, or other close relative
	Wettiging 1 kind	legalisation of 1 child i.e. the child was born before the marriage but accepted by the groom as his child; see Illegitimate children.
	Voogd Toeziend voogd	guardian, custodian and supervisory guardian for bride and/or groom when her/his parents had deceased and she/he was not of age (for a long time 23 years).
	Scheiding	divorce when the couple later divorced, (sometimes) a remark was made in the original marriage certificate.

Note that the order of items may vary.

Huwelijksbijlagen

(marital record supplements) are additional official papers, not stored with the marriage certificate but separately. They are listed in the original ‘huwelijksakte’ but not in the digitisations. They typically consist of:

For bride & groom extracts from the birth register, or copies of the christening records. When those were not available, an ‘Akte van Bekendheid’ was required.
‘Bewijs van voldoening aan de Nationale Militie’ (Proof that the groom has fulfilled (his obligations to the) National Militia as there was a draft system).
Extracts of death certificates of spouses from previous marriages, divorce records.
Potentially extracts of death certificates or notary deeds of consent of absent parents (as they should approve of the marriage). In that case often information regarding grandparents is listed.

Marriage records –in particular when available in database version– are extremely valuable for genealogical purposes as the combination husband & wife (for groom and bride, and/or their parents) are commonly unique, and they provide a lot of information (bride & groom, and their parents, birthdays or age, place of birth). It is the ideal start for a search; you will find the marriage record for bride & groom, their death records, and birth, marriage and death records for all their children.
The ‘huwelijksbijlagen’ are also very valuable as they provide detailed information more back in time; however, they are hardly available on the internet.

In images or full text transcriptions you may encounter the word ‘wijlen’, which indicates ‘the late’ (i.e. that person has deceased).

Echtscheiding

(divorce): The termination of a marriage can only be pronounced by a judge (in the Netherlands, foreign marriages are commonly accepted as valid, but foreign divorces are a problem). The distribution of the assets and the arrangements regarding children are taken care of.
The verdict (‘rechterlijke uitspraak’) of a divorce is in general entered in databases as a special type of marriage record (commonly with a referrence to the marriage date).

Example

of a marriage record (from WieWasWie.nl in English version)

Groom:		Hendrik Verhoef
	Place of birth:	Polsbroek
	Age:	39
	Father of the groom:	Cornelis Verhoef
	Mother of the groom:	Adriana Korevaar
Bride:		Lijntje de Jong
	Place of birth:	Lekkerkerk
	Age:	31
	Father of the bride:	Pieter de Jong
	Mother of the bride:	Johanna van Zoest
Event:		Huwelijk (marriage)
	Date:	Friday, January 08, 1915
	Event place:	Stolwijk
Source type:		BS (Burgerlijke Stand = Civil Registration) Huwelijk
Organisation:		(heritage organisation of the archive) Nationaal Archief
	Place:	(of the archive) Gouda
	Collection region:	(of the archive) Zuid-Holland
Record number:		2
	Record date:	(registration date) 8 January 1915
	Record place:	(registration municipality) Stolwijk
	Record type:	Huwelijksakte (marriage record)
Comment:		Weduwnaar van Pietertje Timmer (Widower of Pietertje Timmer)

The comment indicates that the groom is a widower (i.e. this is his second or third marriage). Such remarks are not always present or transcribed (sadly), so the absence of such a remark doesn't indicate that it is a first marriage.
You may also find remarks for the acknowledgement of pre-marital childrem.

Overlijden

The following should be present in an ‘overlijdensakte’ (death record):

Overledene		(the deceased): name
	Geslacht	(sex): M/Man (male) or V/Vrouw (female)
	Beroep	(profession, occupation)
	Leeftijd	(age)
	Geboorteplaats	or Doopplaats (place of birth or place of christening). For Place of Birth it is commonly the name of the municipality (administration). Not all attributes are always present in digitised versions.
Overlijdensplaats		(place of death) If not mentioned, assume the municipality of the recording ('Akteplaats').
Overlijdensdatum		(date of death)
Vader		(father): when unknown to the witnesses: N.N.
Moeder		(mother): when unknown to the witnesses: N.N.
Partner Echtgenoot/echtgenote Weduwe/weduwnaar		name of spouse, sometimes (husband/wife), implying that the partner is still living at the time. Or (widow/widower) indicating that the partner has already died.

Note that there is no a cause of death in a Dutch death certificate (in rare cases you my find a specific cause of death like drowning in the image version).
When the deceased has no name (or N.N.) and there is a remark "levenloos" ('lifeless'), it concerns a stillborn.

When a person died in a municipality where he/she did not lived, a copy of the local death record was sent to the municipality where that person used to live. So you may find 2 ‘overlijdensakten’: one by the municipality where the death occurred and one by the municipality where that person lived. The last one should have a later ‘aktedatum‘, a distinct ‘akteplaats‘ and ‘overlijdensplaats‘, and probably has a remark like “Art. 50/51. Overleden in andere gemeente” (Article 50/51 (law on municipalities). Died in another municipality). Or a remark like “Uittreksel uit het overlijdensregister van «municipality» d.d. «date»” (Excerpt from the death register of … dated …).

A word of caution regarding the details in a death record; when the witnesses (who reported the death) were not very familiar with the deceased, these details may be incorrect (however, the issue is that in the databases the witnesses are commonly not mentioned — the image versions should help). So when the parents are indicated by N.N., consider yourself warned (e.g. don't trust the mentioned age).

Example

of a death record (from WieWasWie.nl in English version)

Deceased:		Abraham van Ommen
	Gender:	Male
	Age:	59
	Father:	Klaas van Ommen
	Mother:	Johanna van der Vin
Relation:		Adriana Koorevaar
	Relation type:	Weduwnaar (widower)
Event:		Overlijden (death)
	Date:	Friday, August 03, 1849
	Event place:	Gouda
Source type:		BS (Burgerlijke Stand = Civil Registration) Overlijden
Organisation:		(heritage organisation of the archive) Nationaal Archief
	Place:	(of the archive) Gouda
	Collection region:	(of the archive) Zuid-Holland
Record number:		570
	Record date:	(registration date)4 August 1849
	Record place:	(registration municipality) Gouda
	Record type:	Overlijdensakte (death record)

DTB: Church Records

The Church Records are commonly known by genealogists by the abbreviation DTB for respectively the Doop (christening, baptism), Trouw (marriage) and Begraaf (burial) records (books). It seems similar to the system of the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ though it recorded slightly different events. But in practice there is a huge difference.

The ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ used more or less a standard text where places, names and dates needed to be filled in. Not so with the church records; there were some conventions on the text but no obligatory formulation (i.e. more or less a free text). And in general very limited on information.

The Church Records start between 1600 and 1700. And where the records of the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ are complete except for a small number of exceptions, the reverse seems to be true for the DTB (but they are also going back in time for more than 200 years). The church's minister or priest wrote the event in a book (i.e. all handwriting). The minister or priest was commonly not a local, and he wrote down the local names –pronounced in the local accent– as he deemed appropriate. And most people at the time couldn’t read or write so they couldn’t check: spelling is definitely inconsistent. Together with the fact that common people didn’t have a surname but used patronymics, searching these records becomes quite a challenge.
When searching, you have to take various spelling variants into account. Some databases allow the use of wildcards. Also, searching via the name of the spouse may help finding some records with misspelled names.

The incompleteness of the books with records is a serious problem. In some areas many DTB books were lost due to fire (e.g. Enschede), war (almost everywhere) and floods (in particular Zeeland). In general you should be able to get to the late 1600’s, but than the records are getting so fragmented that research runs out of sources. For some branches you may be lucky in encountering nobility (where they kept their own records, and changes for survival were better anyway).

As the Church Records are far from complete, and as they contain less information than the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ anyway, you have to involve other sources to get confirmation (and sufficient information).

Churches:

The records were kept per church, so another village or another religious denomination implies another record book. The most important denominations are:

NH: Nederlands Hervormd (i.e. a protestant church), originally known as Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk. The Hervormde Kerk was the official state church for quite a long period.
RK: Rooms Katholiek (Roman Catholic church): for a short period after the reformation banned, but later tolerated, and 1853 fully accepted. The records are kept in ‘church Latin’.
Doopsgezinden (Mennonites): They form a genealogical problem area as they practised adult baptism. I.e. there can be 20 years between birth and christening.

Above is only a very short summary, in practice it was much more complicated (see e.g. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Church_in_the_Netherlands).

A church community, i.e. the group of people who gather in a church regularly for religious purposes, is called a ‘(kerkelijke) gemeente’ (the same word as for municipality).

At about the end of the 18^th century, the government issued rules for what should be recorded as a minimum. But before that you will find that the records miss vital information (for genealogical purposes, compared to the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’).

Patronymics

is a naming system referring to the (first name of the) father. When a Hendrik Wullink got a son he named Willem, the son will be indicated as Willem Hendrikszoon in full, but commonly as (Willem) Hendriksz, Hendriks or Hendriksen. For Aaltje, daughter of an Adriaan, it would formally be Aaltje Adriaansdr, but commonly (Aaltje) Adriaanse(n) or Andriaans.
When there are not too many Hendriks and Adriaans around, the indication is unique for an area and a restricted time (there were less than 2 million people in the Netherlands before 1800; see Disasters.html). But obviously, in densely populated areas (towns) this naming system poses a problem (so it is no surprise that the early surnames occurred in towns). In the rural areas of province Friesland for example, the system of patronymics was used consequently up to 1811.

A particular use of naming occurred in some eastern parts of the Netherlands (in the Achterhoek (region in the province Gelderland) and in particular in Twente (region in the province Overijssel)): the name of a farm acts as surname for its inhabitants (today this is still common use in rural Twente). It also means that when the farmer or farmershand moved, which happened a lot in Twente as the farmer was only a leaseholder (serf), his “surname” changed. And over time, distinct families living on a particular farm will have the same “surname” but are not related at all. A man who married a farmer’s widow may take her deceased husband’s “surname”. Imagine the genealogical problems.

Digitisation:

Not only the names are a problem, the basic text is a problem as well. It may vary form case to case. It is all handwriting, sometimes really poor, with large curly capitals which may comprise 3 lines (i.e. over other text). It uses old Dutch with old –often inconsistent– spelling, which is hard to understand even for modern Dutch people, and uses a lot of specific abbreviations. Luckily, there are a lot of good transcriptions around, and they have started to enter the records in the existing genealogical database as if they were records from the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’. Such a digitisation can be recognised by the use of the word ‘retroacta’ (recording afterwards).

Also, as the records were not numbered, and there were several records on a page, you will find something like the following to identify the record:

Kerkelijke gemeente	(church community): place name (not a municipality)
Toegangsnummer	(access number): 1234 Retroacta Burgerlijke Stand
Inventarisnummer	(archive inventory number) indicating the book
Pagina	(page number). Actually a sequence number as the pages were commonly not numbered
Volgnummer op pagina	(sequence number on page) as there were multiple records on a page

Note however that these digitisations are new, and not without flaws. I have seen several records where the name of the child and the father were swopped.

Dates:

In full text transcriptions and images, dates are often indicated as something like 16^th ditto (or 16^dt) where ditto refers to the same month as a previous record (and the year is even further back in the book). Also names of months were written slightly different than in modern Dutch, and were often abbreviated:

Dutch	English
jan. januari	January
feb. februari	February
maa. maart	March
apr. april	April
mei	May
jun. junij juni	June
jul. julij juli	July
aug. augustus	August
sep. 7^ber september	September
okt. 8^ber oktober	October
nov. 9^ber november	November
dec. 10^ber december	December

Keep in mind that our current calendar –the Gregorian calendar– was introduced in the Netherlands region by region from 1582 till 1701. Before that we had the Julian calendar. Not that it makes very much difference. And it's only relevant when you are so lucky getting that far back in time.

Doop

The baptism or christening records were extremely short; in the older records they only mention the first name(s) of the child, and the father. The entries as listed below were commonly not present, but the information was written as a short message.

Datum	date of the christening (not birth). Later records may also specify a birth date.
Kind	(child): in full text commonly only the child's first name(s)
Vader	(father): name
Moeder	(mother): only present in later records
Get.	(abbreviation for ‘getuigen’, witnesses): up to 2 or 3 names. The witnesses were usually close family and potentially a neighbour. Their names may help to identify the parents with more certainty. In RK church, the witnesses were the godparents which usually means close family.

Specific abbreviations: (in images and full text transcriptions)

Abbr.	Dutch*	English
s.v.	soon van	son of
d.v.	dogter van	daughter of

*) old Dutch spelling

Note that in many cases a word –or a name– was not abbreviated by a period (".") but by a colon (":").

In RK church it was common to baptise early, i.e. the same day as the birth or the next day at most. So the mother was commonly not present (and sometimes misnamed). And the text will be in ‘Church Latin’.
But in NH church you see delays for a month or more. And with ‘Doopsgezinden’ (Mennonites) it could be 2 decades. Or none at all if they didn't went to church.
Sometimes you may find group baptism when the family had to ask for church charity; the church would request their affiliation and henceforth baptism. So you might see father, mother and several children baptised on the same day.

Note that the RK church will Latinise first names, and use saintly names. The common day-to-day first name was the variant in the local dialect.
Latin terminology:

baptiza est	was baptized
filius	son (of)
filia	daughter (of)
p. or pat. or pater	father
m. or mat. or mater	mother
patrinus	godfather (in Dutch: peter)
patrina	godmother (in Dutch: meter)
patrini	godparents
s. or sus. or susceptores	baptism lifters (doopheffers)
testes	witnesses

Examples:

“Den 5 jann. Hermen – Claas Teunissen”

The 5^th of January (1709 Doopboek Zelhem) Hermen (was baptised) – (son of) Claas Teunissen (i.e. Claas son of Teunis).

	“1802, 21 Julij
Hermanus	v. Hermanus Bulte
geb. 20 Julÿ	m. Zophia Huurlinks”

Image

1802, the 21^st of July
Hermanus (Bulte was baptised), born 20^th July
father: Hermanus Bulte
mother: Zophia Huurlinks

“den 24 8b. – Is Klaes van d' Bulten sijn soon Willem Teunnis gedoopt.
Getuigen – Duunsborgs soon Jan en Pelle dochter van d' Bulten”

The 24^th of October (year 1697 was earlier on the page) – Klaes van de Bulten his son Willem Teunnis was baptised.
Witnesses – Duunsborg's son Jan, and Pelle daughter of de Bulten.

“1748 den 29 junij - baptizata est Hendrina
filia Wilhelmi Klasen et Herminae Blekkenpoel
patrini Gerrardus Klasen et Aleida Blekkenpoel”

June 29^th 1748 – Hendrina was baptised
daughter of Wilhelmus Klasen and Hermina Blekkenpoel
godparents (are) Gerardus Klasen and Aleida Blekkenpoel

Trouwen

‘Trouwen’ is the Dutch word for marrying (the verb; ‘huwelijk’ is the word for marriage); it is used in this context as the related church records are called ‘trouwboek’.

Marriage in church required 3 announcements (‘proclamatiën’, proclamations) in the church of the bride and the groom; if they used to attend different communities, it was done in both churches. If there were no objections the marriage was executed. And everything occurred on a Sunday. Sometimes the marriage execution was held directly after the third announcement. So getting married took at least 3 weeks.

When the bride and groom attended distinct church communities or had moved the last 6 months, they needed a statement (/certificate: ‘attest’ or ‘attestatie’) from one church community to the other confirming that there were no objections. You will find the phrase “met attest naar…” (with certificate to…) or “met attest van…” (with certificate from…). But you may also find marriage executions in each community, most likely with distinct dates.

Arond 1700 a tax on marriage was introduced; this tax was called “impost”. The administration was kept in a ‘Gaarders’ register.

In the registers (in images) you will often find a table with distinct columns for the name of the groom, the name of the bride, the dates of the 3 announcements and the date of marriage execution.
But in other cases the announcements and the marriage execution were recorded in distinct books, and when the marriage book is lost you have to do with the announcement(s). The archives don't make much distinction between the recording of the announcements and the actual marriage, so you find the records called “(onder)trouwboek”. In the databases you may find multiple dates due to the multiple announcements and hopefully including the actual execution of the marriage; the latest one is closest to the actual marriage.

Also there was a period where the Nederlands Hervormde kerk (NH church) was the state church, and the only church allowed to officialy execute a marriage. The Roman Catholic church was not recognised, so you may find that a Roman Catholic bride and groom –potentially after marying in the RK church– marry in the NH church as well, or marry before a judge (“voor het gerecht”, which literally means before the court of law).

Commonly you find:

Bruidegom	(groom): name His marital status (unmarried or widower) and commonly the name of the father.
Bruid	(bride): name Similar attributes as the groom
Getuigen	(witnesses): list of names

In early records even the names of the father were not mentioned. The list of witnesses should provide clues to the true identities of bride & groom.

In images you may find attributes like profession, age, and where bride & groom lived or where they came from.
Specific terminology and abbreviations: (in images and full text transcriptions)

J.M. or Jonge Man	literally “young man”, which doesn't say anything about his age but indicates the he has never married before
J.D. or Jonge Dochter/Dogter	similarly: she has never married before
n.g. or nagel. zn./dr.	nagelaten zoon/dochter son/daughter of the late …
Wedⁿ. or Weduwnaar	widower
Wed. or Weduwe	widow
woonachtig	living (in …)
onder	(litteraly (falling) under) living (in …)
afkomstig van	coming from (…), originating
Cop. or Copulatio	(Latin) execution of marriage
Sol. or Solemnizatum	(Latin) consecratory celebration (= execution)
Att., attest, attestatie	certificate (of consent)

Examples:

Nederduits Gereformeerde Gemeente Hengelo (Gelderland), Trouwboek 1685-1723: 03.01.1722

“d. 3 jann.
Teunis Claessen, j.m. soon van Claes Bulten uijt Zelhem, met
Henders Derksen, j.d. van Derk op 't Kleijne t'Joitink uijt Hengelo.
D. 25 dito copulati.”

On the 3^rd of January (1722)
Teunis Claessen, not previously married, son of Claes Bulten from Zelhem, (married) with
Henders Derksen, not previously married, daughter of Derk from (the farm) 't Kleijne t'Joitink from Hengelo.
On 25^th of the same month (the marriage was) executed.

Begraven

The burial records are probably the most disappointing ones: in most cases they just tell you when a person was buried. Commonly no spouse or parents is mentioned, so it is hard to identify the deceased.

The costs for the burial were registered in “Gaarders” registers. They used various levels: e.g. ‘pro deo’, fl 3, fl 6, fl 15 or fl 30 (‘f’ or ‘fl’ stands for ‘florin’, the indication for Dutch Guilders).

Standard information:

Datum:	date of the burial (not date of death). Sometimes there is a date for death as well.
Overledene	(deceased): name Sometimes with the name of the father and/or the spouse

Specific abbreviations and terms: (in images and full text transcriptions)

Ov. or ovl.	overleden died
begr.	begraven buried
zoon/dochter van wijlen …	son/daughter of the late …
‘t laken	sheet; the rental of a shroud
klok luiden	toll the bell
Obiit	(Latin) died, passed away

Sources

Types of Resources

Above we have discussed the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ and the ‘Church Records’ as primary sources for genealogical information. When going before 1811 you will find that the ‘Church Records’ are not enough to get a reliable picture. The most important secondairy resources (which are now (2014) only sparsely on the internet) are:

‘Akten van Naamsaannemingen’ Name taking records
The records for assuming a surname, for a lot of regions essential to make the transition over 1811. The head of each family had to register a surname for his family. It provides the old and the new surname for the family, the names of the children, and often their age.
‘Speciekohieren’, or ‘Verpondingskohieren’, which are tax registers.
Nearly everybody had to pay taxes, and certainly when a person had any belongings (land, house).
‘Volkstellingen’ Census records
About every 10 years such a record was made (but many are lost). It provides at least the first name and surname of the head of the family, the number of persons in the household (not necessarily children, but also servants and maids), and children below a certain age.
‘Bevolkingsregister’ Population registration
Record of who lived where, kept by the municipality from 1850 on. It is similar to the ‘volkstelling’ but kept up-to-date. It shows per address the whole family who lived there. If they moved, even to another municipality, it was recorded. Later this changed to ‘Gezinskaarten’ (family cards), and still later to ‘Persoonskaarten’ (person’s card).
‘Lidmaten’ Church membership records
It indicates when a person joined a church community, i.e. when he/she came of age, or after he/she moved.
‘Weeskamers’ Orphan boards
When the parents died and there were children left, these children were accommodated in orphanages. When one of the parents died, and the other could no longer take care for all of the children, some of the children were also sent to the orphanage (where they received a proper education). The board of an orphanage left records.
‘Gerechterlijke Archieven’ Judicial Archives
Contain both criminal cases and civil cases, and before 1811 also wills and property sales. In particular wills (‘Memories van Successie’, records of the distribution of the inheritance) can be very informative as they present the family relationships (but then the deceased must have had some possessions to distribute).
‘Notariele Archieven’ Notary Archives
A notary is a lawyer who may register certain deeds to make them official. E.g. wills, sales of property.
‘Registers van Nationale Militie’ Militia registers
As there was a military draft system (after 1811), all men became conscripts at their 18^th birthday (there were a few excuses). These men had to serve for 5 to 8 years, and they moved around a lot. These military records lists them, and sometimes provide additional information (physical description, where and when he was located).

Links

Most archives are only in Dutch. The Dutch word for source is 'bron' (plural 'bronnen').

WieWasWie

www.wiewaswie.nl ('Who-was-who')
The central (genealogical) database, covering the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ and the ‘Church Records’ (as far as available) for the whole of the Netherlands. Limited access to the corresponding images of ‘Akten’. It gets its information from the Provincial Archives.
They have chosen a very funny method for displaying the data (it looks ok, but it's a mess when copying it to text). Though it runs for more than 2 years now, it is still in beta version (some presentations contain a lot of non-info) but it is getting progressively better.
The good thing is that you can search for a name in any role (parent, spouse, child) and that you can search with 2 names (either in any role, or in specified roles).

Provinciale Archieven

Provincial Archives. These contain the ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ and the ‘Church Records’ for that province. Only some provide an English version of the site.

Friesland	www.tresoar.nl Frisian Historical and Literary Centre
Groningen	www.allegroningers.nl
Drente	www.drenlias.nl
Overijssel	www.historischcentrumoverijssel.nl pre 1811: www.twentebestand.nl
Gelderland	www.geldersarchief.nl
Utrecht	www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl
Noord-Holland	noord-hollandsarchief.nl
• Amsterdam city archive	stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl
Zuid-Holland	included in the National Archive
• The Hague municipal archive	denhaag.digitalestamboom.nl/ (also an Englisch version)
• Rotterdam city archive	www.stadsarchief.rotterdam.nl
Zeeland	www.zeeuwengezocht.nl
Noord-Brabant	www.bhic.nl/het-geheugen-van-brabant Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum
Limburg	www.rhcl.nl/en Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg
National Archive (a lot of specific collections)	www.gahetna.nl

Digital Resources Netherlands and Belgium

www.geneaknowhow.net/digi/resources.html
The main reference for digital resources in the Netherlands (and Belgium). They do also refer to the Provincial Archives, but not in a very obvious way. Its value is in all other references.

Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie

Central Bureau for Genealogy (CBG) cbg.nl
Has a lot of genealogical collections, partly online.

Militia Registers

militieregisters.nl

FamilySearch

www.familyearch.org (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, LDS)
Has a lot of contributions, but the reliability varies. If you are at a loss regarding a particular person, a good way to try to get some information. But the information should be checked.
The nice thing though, decades ago they have filmed a lot of the Dutch ‘Burgerlijke Stand’ and ‘Church Records’, and all images are available online (sadly images are hard to search).

ZoekAkten

www.ZoekAkten.nl
Kind of index to the images of FamilySearch. If you have a date for an event and want to see the ‘akte’ itself, use ZoekAkten to access the film (still requires a lot of leafing through images).

Dutch Genealogical mailing lists

Organised per province, discussing various genealogical issues and helping each other. The language is Dutch, but everybody will understand English and respond in English. You can search for topics in the group, but in order to ask questions or join discussions, you must register.
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/«province»-Genealogy/info

Meertens Institute

www.meertens.knaw.nl
This institute is concerned with the research on Dutch language and culture. It has many interesting topics, including a database on the origin of surnames, and current distribution of a specific surname over the Netherlands.

Van Papier naar Digitaal

//vpnd.nl contains images of paper sources, sometimes with transcriptions.

Immigrant records

‘Landverhuizers’ movers to other countries	Nationaal Archief
USA	CastleGarden.org LibertyEllisFoundation.org
Canada	Library and Archives Canada - Immigration
Australia	National Archives of Australia
New Zealand	Archives New Zealand

The general internet

Genealogical data publicised on the web by other genealogist (with varying reliability).
Google with the word “genealogie” and the name of the person of interest (also try some spelling variants).

Naming of Children

[Original by P.J.M. van Enckevort, adapted]

The naming of children after ancestors (in Dutch ‘vernoemen’) was a wide-spread custom, but nowadays not much used anymore. It may be used to verify family relationships, or to predict the first names of grandparents. There is much confusion among genealogists about the applicable ‘rules’ (and exceptions, regional variants), but the following seems to be the case:

Children were named after family members who had deceased (not after living members).
A deceased family member was only referred to once.
When a child –for example named after his grandfather– died, the next child would be named after him/her (and not again to the grandfather though that results in the same).
Swopping gender of the name occurs often.
Many names have a male and a female variant. For example Jo(h)annes and Jo(h)anna, Willem and Willemina, Harmen and Harmina, etc. For Catholics, there is a male and a female derivative of the saintly name.
Naming had a pretty fixed ranking order:

Naming after a deceased parent.
This only occurred when the father died during pregnancy (before 1811 in areas where they used patronymics, the child may get the surname Posthuma, Postumus or Postma), or when the mother died shortly after child birth (and before baptism).
Naming after the deceased spouse of a previous marriage.
Death of a spouse in his or her fertile years was quite common; the first child in the next marriage was named after the deceased spouse (when he/she wasn’t already referred to in the name of a child from a former marriage, and that child was still living).
Naming after a deceased sibling.
Naming after a deceased brother or sister occurred a lot. When a child gets the same name as an older sibling, that older sibling has most likely deceased. Using the same name occurs sporadically only, and then with at least 10 years age difference.
Naming after a deceased grandparent.
Naming after a deceased grandparent occurred the most. When all grandparents had deceased, the first son was named after the grandfather on the father's side, and the next son after the grandfather at the mother's side. The first daughter was named after the grandmother at the mother's side, and the next daughter after the grandmother at the father's side.
When a grandparent died (and the others still lived), the next child would be named after him or her. It also occurred that the name of the grandparent who had deceased first was used first.
Naming after a deceased great-grandparent.
When the grandparents are still alive, the first children are mostly named after the greatgrandparents. But any deceased grandparent has priority over greatgrandparent.
Naming after deceased family members.
In large families it was common to name children after deceased uncles and aunts. After the fourth child the name of a deceased brother or sister of a parent will be used before the greatgrandparents.
Naming after a patron for the 7^th child.
In some areas it was common to name the 7^th child after a patron (e.g. the landlord).
For Roman Catholics, a similar thing happened when a grandmother was called Maria or Catharina (which has no male saintly name equivalent) and the child was a boy, it was named after the church patron. The next daughter would than be named after the grandmother.

=O=