Readers' questions

In this post I try to answer some questions from my always overflowing mailbox.

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Three people asked about the meaning of their surnames: Oosting, Borgh and Hooijer.

The best place to find information about a surname is the Corpus of Family Names in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, though you can search this site in English, all information is in Dutch.

According to this corpus, Hooijer is a beroepsnaam, a name derived from an occupation. The name is derived from hooier, which means hay-maker.

There are many Hooijers listed in Genlias, the Dutch BMD database.

Borgh is a rare name in The Netherlands. There were only 22 people with that name in 1947, and 23 in 2007. (The name Borg is more common.) The corpus of family names states Borgh is an adresnaam, a name derived from a location. In this case the location is probably a manor-house in the north: borg(h) can mean manor-house (in the north, the names of many manor-houses end with -borg or -borgh). My dictionary lists a few other meanings of the Dutch word borg, including castle and surety.

Oosting is also listed as an adresnaam. It is probably derived from Oost, east, so it may mean someone from the east (not necessarily far to the east - the east side of the village, most likely). Another possibility is that the surname is derived from the name of a farm. The name is common in the northeast of the country, especially in the province Drenthe.

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Gerda asks about her ancestor, Gerrit Adrianus Vink. Unfortunately her request does not have enough information to positively identify Mr. Vink (dates, places and name of partner/parents are missing). Genlias only has one person with this name, though, so I'll assume this is the one Gerda is looking for (she will have to verify that herself):

Gerrit Adrianus Vink, son of Pieter Vink and Pietertje Greyn, born on 8 August 1888 in Piershil, married Dirkje Krijna van Rees, daughter of Jan van Rees and Krijna Maria Groeneweg, on 29 February 1912 in Klaaswaal.

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Raymond wants to know more about his ancestor Roosje de Lange. She was born 1882 in Den Haag, married to a Mr. Teitelbaum, emigrated, and remarried.

Scans of BMD records from Den Haag are online, but finding anything on their website is a daunting task, so I just include the birth record below.

The certificate states that Roosje, daughter of Nathan de Lange and Petronella Weijl, was born on 6 May 1882 in Den Haag.

I could not find a Teitelbaum-de Lange marriage in Den Haag, or in any major database. Maybe they married in Amsterdam (marriages are not online yet), or abroad. The population register of Den Haag (not online yet for the years we need) may have more information.

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I will answer more questions next month. Send me a message, or leave a comment, if you have a question that you want me to answer. Try to be specific in your question: The more specific the question is, the more useful the answer can be. If you just give me a surname all I can do is give you very general advise or point you to Genlias.