Are you investigating and sourcing your ancestors in the Netherlands?

Question

To all our new members who recently joined Wikitree.

If you like to research your ancesters in the Netherlands there is a broad variety of Archives. Almost all of the archives in the Netherlands are free of charge (only registering in some cases). However in the Netherlands we do things a bit different. That's why we have a great page to guide you through the Dutch Naming Convention. You can find that page here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Dutch_Naming_Convention

Because the Netherlands Project have their own Project Pages, they are not part of the Global Project. You can find all kind of information including specific pages per province at this location: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Netherlands

2 important things to remember. In the Netherlands we do not use Middle Names and married women keep their maiden name. If you want to find a married woman you need to search with her own LNAB.

I hope you enjoy the search for your ancestors.

Comments

Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention.

And for the ones working on profiles of people born before 1811/1812: please take extra care when using last names as large parts of the Netherlands did not use family names before that date (which causes a large number of LNAB changes unfortunately).

---

Thank you for sharing this, and reminding us, Margreet.

In the case of married women: should one put

a) the husband's surname in the "Other Last Name(s)" field?

b) use the hyphenated surnames (e.g. Maneschijn-Flint as my grandmother used to write her name)? or

c) use the husband's surname in the "Current Last Name" field?

d) not use the husband's surname at all?

---

Officially you should ask this to the members of the Netherlands project.

If you should ask me personally, I always would advice D.

Current last name I always fill in for example when the LNAB is being used for a patronymic name and at marriage or death, there is a family name known.

Other last name I use for different spellings of the same name. For example Beers could be spelled like Baers or Bears during the years

And a hyphenated surname is causing ‘suggestions’ if I’m correct.

For me the reason NOT to use the husband’s last name is the fact that all the archives in the Netherlands are only accessible via the maiden name.

I hope this explains my own way of working.

---

Thank you, Margreet, for your answer, and apologies for posting my question as a comment on yours.

Answer 1

Thank you so much, Margreet This can be so helpful.

Answer 2

For the Province of Friesland before 1811 you can ask me for help

Answer 3

Thank you for this.  I have struggled with this, especially when finding 2 brothers with the same first name and my incorrect assumption they had the same last name. Most of my great grandmothers line was pre 1811 in the Netherlands.

My great grandfathers is a hodgepodge of New Netherlands confusion in America post 1650.

Comments

Thanks for sharing your example. Indeed, the pre-1811 names in your ancestry should be patronymic. Also, you show nicely that the unsourced trees on eg FamilySearch or Genealogieonline are not so good...