How to search your Dutch Ancestry?
To say it’s simple would be wrong. But there is a lot of information available, even on the internet. Let’s just post a simple step-by-step plan to get you started.
1. Start with you and the things you know. Try to get back at least a 100 years or things will be difficult!
2. The ‘burgelijke stand’ is the registration in the Netherlands of all Dutch citizens. Data about births older than 100 years, Marriages older than 75 years and deaths older than 50 years are public, though not necessarily publicized on the internet. The best tool for searching in the ‘burgelijke stand’ is http://genlias.nl. Though not (by far) complete yet, this will probably help you along quite nicely.
3. Before the ‘burgelijke stand’ was installed by Napoleon in 1811 (few years later in the North of the Netherlands) churches were responsible for registration of people. They would register marriages, baptisms and burials. Many of these records have been digitized and are available on the internet, many have not. This way you will probably be able to go back to the 17th century.
4. before the 17th century the chance your name was written down somewhere was slim unles you ‘were someone’. Nobility and important citizens would be noted somewhere and some records still exist. Note that these records are not necessarily very reliable. Many are available on the internet and it’s quite possible to chase your roots back to the likes of Charlemagne and his ancestry. A good resource for that is http://kareldegrote.nl
5. Note that actually visiting the archives themselves will remain necessary, especially if you want to create a story, rather than a long list of names and dates…
Good luck
Willem Kossen
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