Readers' questions: Find a professional genealogist

Bob asked me:

Can you recommend a person or service that would assist me (for a fee) in tracing our Dutch roots ? I have a family 'bible' from the 1700s written in old Dutch (German?)

And David asked:

I read some Dutch, and often can do a good job translating to English. But sometimes it would be helpful to have a native Dutch speaker check my translations. Do you know of any genealogists or translators who would be willing, for a fee, to take a look at a Dutch document and my translation? Do you have any other suggestions?

Most provincial archives have a list of professional genealogists working in their region. You can find addresses and websites of the archives in the regional genealogy section on Trace your Dutch roots.

The Central Bureau for Genealogy (CBG) also maintains a list of professional genealogists. You can find it here (PDF, you will need Adobe Acrobat or a similar program to read it). Researchers marked with an asterisk * do research in (post-1811) BMD records, researchers marked with two asterisks ** do research in all relevant archives. Region or specialty of researchers is usually listed. Bob will need a researcher marked with two asterisks, for David it depends on the type of documents that need to be translated.

A third option is to find someone on Genealogy Freelancers, but I don't know if they have any freelancers specialized in Dutch genealogy. I have no experience with this organization.

I would advise Bob to find out whether the text in the bible is Dutch or German before hiring a (paid) genealogist. Post a scan on the internet (for example on flickr) and ask people to look at it - ask at internet forums (see the regional genealogy section and the Getting help chapter on Trace your Dutch roots online for addresses; I recommend soc.genealogy.benelux), or ask the readers of this blog (leave a comment below).

David can also look for Dutch translators in his local yellow pages, or for English translators in the Dutch yellow pages. There used to be several free translation services on the internet (like e-transcriptum.net and Translate-Free.com), but they seem to have disappeared. Maybe a Google search will turn up similar services. If David does not have too many translations, he can also try internet forums like soc.genealogy.benelux.

UPDATE: Deborah Irwin, CEO of Genealogy Freelancers, informed me that they do indeed have Dutch researchers: "We do have researchers in the Netherlands so I hope we can be of service to your readers [...]."

Do you also have a question about Dutch genealogy that you want me to discuss? Leave your question in the comments below this post, or use the contact form.

Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Homepage - Search forms

Yvette's Dutch Genealogy Homepage - Search forms:

"There are many Dutch websites out there that provide access to genealogical records. Many of them use a search form that is available in Dutch only. Knowing the standard terms will enable you to use these forms."

Yvette lists (and translates) Dutch words and phrases that you may encounter on search forms for online genealogy resources, such as Genlias. Many of these phrases are specific to website search forms, and are therefore not listed in my Dutch genealogy dictionary (this dictionary is based on actual acts, not on websites). A very useful list if you are tracing your Dutch roots online.

Times in Dutch acts

Dutch acts usually contain the time of birth, death or marriage. In the 19th and early 20th century, times were usually rounded to the nearest half hour, and written in the 12-hour notation. After that, times became more precise, and the 24-hour notation was used.

Whole hours are easy to understand, you only need to know the first twelve numerals: één (or een), twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht (in older acts also agt), negen, tien, elf, twaalf. You can also find these numerals in any Dutch dictionary, or in the Dutch genealogy dictionary. The time will often be written as om .. uur, ten .. uur or ten .. ure: om zes uur, ten zes ure , at six o'clock.

Half hours will have the word half before the numeral of the next hour, and the word uur is sometimes dropped. So om half zes and ten half zes uur (litt. half six) both mean at half past five, and not at half past six!

Modifiers used to distinguish between a.m. and p.m. can be voor de middag, des voormiddags, des voordemiddags (litt. before midday) for a.m., and na de middag, des namiddags, des nademiddags (litt. after midday) for p.m., or they contain the part of day: des nachts (at night), des ochtends or des morgens (in the morning), des middags (in the afternoon), des avonds (in the evening). The prefix des is occasionally (in modern Dutch usually) abbreviated to 's.

Some examples:

des middags ten twaalf uur	noon
des morgens ten negen uur	9 a.m.
des namiddags ten acht ure	8 p.m.
des namiddags te half drie ure	2:30 p.m.

Translation exercise: The death act of Catharina Johanna Maria Foppen

If you have studied Reading and understanding Dutch birth acts and have a copy of the Dutch genealogy dictionary, you should be able to understand most Dutch acts. As an exercise, translate the death act below. Use your dictionary and the Dutch genealogy dictionary, but try not to look at the solution yet.

The act, death act 86 of the year 1912, municipality Gorinchem, is the death act of Catharina Johanna Maria Foppen, the wife of Pieter Johannes Koopman. She lived in Woudrichem at the time, but she died in Gorinchem, in what was then district B number 130 - further research showed that this address was the hospital of Gorinchem. Woudrichem is a small city, across the river Merwede from Gorinchem.

The act does not present any special difficulties. The only thing to watch out for is the time of death: ten half zes ure, litt. at half six o'clock. Half six means half an hour before six o'clock, so ten half zes ure is half past five, not half past six.

In het jaar negentienhonderd twaalf, den dertienden der maand Juli, zijn voor ons Daniel van der Zee Ambtenaar van den Burgerlijken Stand te Gorinchem, Provincie Zuid-Holland, verschenen: Dirk den Besten, oud vijfenvijftig jaren, van beroep lijkbezorger, en Arie Willem van Dalen, oud achtendertig jaren, van beroep schilder, beiden wonende te Gorinchem, die ons verklaarden, dat Catharina Johanna Maria Foppen, oud zesenzestig jaren en een maand, zonder beroep, geboren te Maastricht en wonende te Woudrichem, gehuwd met Pieter Johannes Koopman, dochter van Johannes Foppen en Johanna Jansen, beiden overleden, op den dertienden Juli dezes jaars, des voormiddags ten half zes ure, is overleden in het huis staande Eind wijk B nommer honderd dertig binnen deze gemeente. En hebben voormelde comparanten deze akte, na gedane voorlezing, nevens ons onderteekend.

D den Besten

A W v Dalen

Van der Zee

When you have translated the act, compare your translation with my solution. Let me know how well you did - leave a comment, or write in the guestbook.

Translation Web Sites

George G. Morgan wrote in his "Along Those Lines ..." blog:

George G. Morgan's " Along Those Lines ... " Blog - Translation Web Sites: "At some point in your genealogical research, you will want and need to translate some document from one language to another. Libraries are a fine place to lay hands on a language translation dictionary for this purpose, but it can be very tedious indeed to work word by word, and then there is no guarantee that you have a grasp on the syntax, grammar, and masculine/feminine variations."

[...]

"I'd like to share with you some of the best language translation Web sites available today. I hope you will find support for your target languages among these translators. Some of these, however, may require you to go to your browser company's Web site (such as Microsoft) and download/install the character set. These include simplified and traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, and Russian Cyrillic. This will be the case with all of the translators listed below."

George then discusses several translation websites, including AltaVista:

"AltaVista was one of the earliest Web sites, actually a search engine, to provide translation. Its Babel Fish translator can be found at the AltaVista site (http://www.altavista.com/) and translates between many of the common languages. The search results also allow you to translate on the fly.

I tried AltaVista on a Dutch birth act. The translation opened:

Present pine sixteenths May eighteen hundred five and fifty, compareerde for our Joannes Antonius the Sonneville alderman civil servant of pine Burgerlijken score of the municipality The Hague: Theodorus Pardoen, old seven and twenty years, verwer, living alhier.

This paragraph does not really make sense to me. It seems that AltaVista is not (yet?) able to translate genealogy records. Free online translation websites like AltaVista may help you to get the gist of a Dutch article, but are not very useful for (Dutch) genealogy records.

George Morgan also mentioned e-transcriptum, a website where you can send in a transcription that will then be translated by human translators. If you have any records that need translation, e-transcriptum may be worth checking out. Note: I have no experience with them (I did not know they existed until now).

The next issue of my newsletter will have a short article on translating Dutch acts.

Check out my list of words and phrases if you want to translate a Dutch act yourself.

Understanding Dutch genealogy resources

Reading Dutch acts is a skill that you can learn, even if you don't speak Dutch. The form of Dutch acts from the civil register is relatively constant. With practice, patience, perseverance, and a good dictionary, you can understand most acts, even though you won't be able to understand every word. Other sources, such as church books and the population register, are mere lists of names, dates and places - with just a few Dutch words, you can understand what it is all about.

To help you to get started, I will provide a list of Dutch words and phrases and their English translation. All words and phrases are taken from major Dutch genealogy resources, such as civil register acts, population registers and church books. Many of these words and phrases are not in your Dutch dictionary, but you may still encounter them in Dutch acts.

If you don't know Dutch, this list will help you understand Dutch genealogy acts. But even if you do know some Dutch, this list can be very useful if you want to translate Dutch acts.

The first 150 or so words and phrases are now available: http://www.van-kampen.org/roots/dict.htm.

ij or y

From the August issue of Trace your Dutch roots: 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. 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 Genlias, it could be because they were listed as de Rooij.

Names of months II

While we are on the topic of month names, let us discuss one other pitfall on this topic. Months have many nicknames, usually related to farming. You are unlikely to see them in genealogical records, and most nicknames are long forgotten. But some of these ancient, almost forgotten nicknames became the official names for the Dutch months in 1809. That did not last long: In 1810 Holland became a part of the French empire of Napoleon and French became the official language, and when The Netherlands regained their independence a few years later, the old names were restored. In records for the years 1809-1810 you will encounter the following names for months: Louwmaand (January), Sprokkelmaand (February), Lentemaand (March), Grasmaand (April), Bloeimaand (May), Zomermaand (June), Hooimaand (July), Oogstmaand (August), Herfstmaand (September), Wijnmaand (October), Slachtmaand (November), and Wintermaand (December).

Names of months

Dutch names of months will not present any difficulties for English readers: Januari, Februari, Maart, April, Mei, Juni, Juli, Augustus, September, Oktober (in older documents usually October), November, December. Slight spelling changes do exist in older documents (in particular, the final -i of some months is often replaced by -ij or -y), but the months will still be recognizable, even if you don't speak Dutch. But there is a catch. Just as in English, the names of the last four months are based on a Latin numeral: septem (7), okto or octo (8), novem (9) and decem (10) - the numbers 7 to 10, for the 9th to 12th month. Sometimes september, october, november and december are abbreviated to 7^ber, 8^ber, 9^ber and 10^ber, or VII^ber, VIII^ber, IX^ber and X^ber. Watch out: 7 and VII mean July, 7^ber and VII^ber (or the genitive 7^bris and VII^bris) mean September! (And the -ber suffix is sometimes barely readable.)