Have you found the Geboorten, Overlijden, and Huwelijken records for your Dutch ancestors?

That was a mouthful and that was only the appetizer. It is great to hear from speakers who have tremendous enthusiasm for their subject. Alex had that and shared his knowledge with us this week. He always starts with some history to give us context for why records might be found in particular places. This presentation started with that as well.

My biggest takeaway was that wherever you are planning to research outside of the United States do the “home” work first. Gee, we have never heard that before! Research from the present to the past. Get all the information you can out of the more recent and more local resources and then look for those records in The Netherlands or whatever location you are going to.

• Do you know the history of the settlers of the American location?
• Are there Dutch settlements or neighborhoods in the area? Some of the neighborhoods took of the names of the Dutch provinces or Dutch cities.
• Do you know their religion? What do you know about the history of that religion? Many of our ancestors were leaving because they were parting ways with a belief system in their homeland, only to find the same beliefs here so they changed religions or churches or started their own. It might be the Dutch Reformed Church in The Netherlands and the Dutch Reformed Church of America in the US.

Eventually you will get to when and where. Can you narrow down when they might have immigrated? That could suggest why they were leaving and where people were landing in America at the time and then working backwards perhaps where they departed from? So much history and geography to learn. I have to get some old maps or go to HQRL and use theirs.

One of the best resources, in my opinion, from all our speakers, is the list of recommended readings and resources they provide. Alex suggested like many others that you connect with genealogy and history societies in the areas you are researching. He also suggested the local libraries, sometimes that is large ones, sometimes small local ones, and sometime University libraries. Examples in this case were Calvin College in Michigan at Hekman Library and Hope University in Holland, Michigan. Both have a Dutch community connection. There were so many options to explore.

If you missed the class, we did record this one and if you go to the HQRL Store on our website, you can purchase that recording and see what you missed. While you are there check out the class on WikiTree which is our next class. Go to www.wikitree.com and see what they are all about. It is too much for me to put in here.

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com