Dutch genealogy presents a large number of pitfalls to
researchers from an Anglo-Saxon background. We discuss some
important issues you should be aware of during your research.
Names
Names starting with Van, Vander, De
etc.
Infixes (tussenvoegsel in Dutch) are seperate words,
not capitalized, and ignored when sorting: van Kampen,
van den Berg, de Jong (sorted under K,
B and J respectively).
Many Dutch genealogy search engines have a separate field for
the infix. Don't include the infix as part of the name - you will
not find anything! If there is no seperate field, infix may or
may not be part of the name field - best is to try both.
Please note that rules for similar looking Flemish (Belgian)
names are different.
Immigrants in the New World often anglicized their names. That
could mean anything from a slight spelling change to a completely
new name. If you know your ancestors are Dutch, but you can't
find your surname on any Dutch website, chances are your name is
spelled differently over here.
Parents usually named their children after relatives. The
first two sons were named after the grandfathers, the third after
the father. The first two daughters were named after the
grandmothers, the third after the mother. Other children were
named after aunts, uncles and sometimes greatgrandparents.
When a child died, the first child (of the same sex) born
after its death often had the same name. But if you find two
children with the same name you cannot conclude one of them died
young: Sometimes two children would get the same name, because
they were named after different relatives with the same name.
Deviations to the naming patterns do occur, but if you find
that no children were named after the grandparents you are likely
to be on the wrong track, and it's time to re-evaluate your
sources.
Except in some special circumstances (such as adoption), names
don't change. In particular, women's names don't change after
marriage. In practice, women will often use their married name,
but official documents, including death certificates, will
contain a woman's maiden name. This also applies to church books:
In a baptism record, maiden names will usually (but not always)
be used for the mother and any female witnesses.
The letter combination ij is very common in Dutch names
(and in Dutch words in general) - so common that Dutch
typewriters and keyboards have a separate key for ij. In
older, handwritten, documents ij and y are often
used interchangeably.
ij still has a special status in the Dutch alphabet. It
is sometimes treated as a single letter, sometimes not.
Dictionaries sort words containing ij as you would expect,
but some phone books sort ij as if it were y (the
name index on my ancestry website sorts
like this). Occasionally, you may find the ij sorted just
before (or just after) the y.
If a name starts with ij, both letters are capitalized:
IJsbrand, van den IJssel.
Dutch immigrants in the US often replaced ij in their
name with y. So if you can't find your de Rooy
ancestors in Wie Was Wie, it
could be because they were listed as de Rooij.
Dates
Dates are nearly always in the format day-month-year, so
5-7-1875 will mean the fifth of July, not the seventh of May.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced between 1582 and 1701
(depending on the province), something to keep in mind if you're
researching 17th century ancestors. Julian and Gregorian
calendars co-existed for over a century. Some documents contain
both dates (e.g. 2/12 Mei means 2 May Julian, or 12 May
Gregorian).
Locations
A census lists your ancestor's birthplace as "Holland". This
doesn't necessarily mean they were Dutch. There are also several
towns and villages in the US called Holland. You would not be the
first to search (and fail to find) your ancestors in The
Netherlands, only to discover they were actually from Holland,
Michigan.
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