Your Guide to Finding Ancestors
from Netherlands

Netherlands is one of four contries that comprise the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There are now 12 provinces, the 12th (Flevoland) created in 1986.

• Brief history of Netherlands
• 
  Learn more about the country at Wikipedia

• Netherlands

• Use this chart for information about each province

General Guides * Professional Researchers * Maps * All Netherlands Websites *Language and Name Aids*
* Finding and Using Records * Queries & Help * More Links *

Guides to Netherlands Research

Books and Articles

• Van Drie. Dutch Roots: Finding Your Ancestors in the Netherlands. 2012 (find in a library)
  • Here is a rather lengthy review of the above book.
  • You can purchase a Kindle verson from Amazon. (but not the paper copy).
• Perry. Finding Your Dutch Ancestors. 2004. (find in a library)
• Franklin. Dutch Genealogical Research. 1982 (find in a library)

Guides on the Web

• FamilySearch Wiki: Netherlands
  • See also their research outline for Netherlands, which has been replaced by the Wiki, but is still handy to use and can be printed out. Be careful, though. It is 154 pages. Go through it first and select which pages you want to print.
• Trace Your Dutch Roots Online -- note especially the many links on the right to more indepth topics.
• About.com offers 17 articles on Dutch genealogy. About.com has a lot of ads, but their genealogy articles are very good.
• 19th Century Dutch Research

Professional Researchers

I have not used these services and can not evaluate them.
I note them here in case you want to explore further.

• FamilySearh.org list of researchers -- be sure to click on the link for each researcher to get information about that resarcher or research company.
• One of the researchers on that list, Yvette Hoitnink, has a blog, Dutch Genealogy, that is interesting.
• She also offers some videos that you might find helpful.

Maps

• InfoPlease Map of Netherlands
• Ezilon Political Map of Netherlands
• A good map of the Provinces
• World Atlas Map
• When you click on the province from the Wikipedia chart of provinces you will get a map of the province and a list of the municpalities in that province. (note you can open these maps up and click on them to make them larger)

All Netherlands Websites

• World GenWeb: Netherlands There should be a link for each province, but unfortunately not all of them have an active page.

Language and Name Aids

• Family History Wiki: Netherlands Language and Languages
  • Netherlands Wordlist
• FamilySearch.org offers a three part lesson on Reading Dutch Handwritten Records
• You may also need Old Latin (for Catholic churches) and Old German (for Lutheran churches) and some older records are in French.
• Translations of Words & Phrases in Dutch Church Records
• Glossery of Dutch Terms
• Dutch Language: Genealogical Basics
• Common Dutch abbreviations
• Dutch Occupations
• English to Dutch/Dutch to English
• Frisian/English translations
• Google Translate (use the dropdown to select Dutch)
• If the website you are at is not in English, look for a link in the upper right. It might be the word English or it might be a British or American flag. Some sites provide translations of at least portions of the site.
• Here is an example: Dutch Family Name Index (in this case the flag is in the upper left corner)
• Dutch Given Names Database
• Dutch Baptismal Names
• Surnames from Patronymics
• Dutch Naming Patterns
• Dutch Names and Nicknames and Their English Equivalents

Finding and Using Records

Records are kept at the local level, so you must know the town. Before 1811, Church records are the main source of information; 1811 forward civil registration is in effect. (1795 in Southern provinces)

• Subscription website: WieWasWie -- this link should take you to the English version.
  • Genlias shut down in 2013 and WieWasWie took it over (both maintained by the Dutch government). It contains births, deaths and marriages from 1811 forward, some s well as some pre 1811 church records, some military records and family notices from newspapers. Mostly indexed and abstracted material, but some scanned images. Material is included from the Archives of every province. It is the most comprehensive sorce of Netherlands information on the web.
  • About Who Was Who (the English translation)
  • Subscriptions are not yet in place-- read more ( I think it is simply operating free, but I'm not sure.)
  • Not all pages have an English translation; use Google translate or some other translation service for those pages
  • FamilySearch provides a lesson on Using the Website WhoWasWho
• Digital Resources Netherlands and Belgium has links to online records. (some English translation)
  • About (in English)
  • The pages linked won't be in English of course.

Queries and Help

• Netherlands Message Boards at RootsWeb/Ancestry

More Links

• Cyndi's List: Netherlands/Nederland