Archive for June, 2010
Historical Images That Make Your Family History Come To Life
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
The National Dutch Archive hosts probably the largest collection historical documents of the Netherlands. It preserves the archives of the Dutch Government and those of social institutions or people that have been of any significance to Dutch history.
Among a lot of other things they have an image bank that contain almost half a million pictures of historical places, people and documents. This is great material to illustrate a certain period or place related to your ancestors. And if one of your ancestors did anything significant to Dutch history you might even find pictures concerning them as well.
Image Bank Collections
So what exactly does that huge image bank contain? The primary collections are the following:
- 346.000 press photographs for the period 1945-1989
- 5.048 pictures of the Labor Inspection Department for the period 1900-1955, containing images of work environments, especially industry.
- 7.246 pictures of the Dutch military campaigns in Indonesia between 1946-1950.
- 47.000 press photos of the social/political magazine Elsevier for the period 1900-1980.
- 1300 pictures of the Royal Dutch Soccer Association 1894-1946.
- 27.000 government images on agriculture, fishery, industry and such for the period 1910-1970
- Original maps of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)
- Land Registry Department maps for South Holland.
- Administration of the KNVB, the Royal Dutch Soccer Association
- Staff records for Dutch East Indies government personnel for the period 1912-1952.
Using The Image Bank
Although the web site offers a button that says “English”, be aware that this only affects the interface. All results are still presented in Dutch. Searching the image bank is pretty straightforward:
- Go to beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl
- Press English in the upper menu.
- Type a keyword in the search field on the right and hit search.
- The results will appear in the main window.
- Click on a picture to see its details.
- If a shopping cart appears alongside the picture’s details you can order a copy of it online.
Try searching for your ancestors surname, place of birth/marriage/death, occupation or historical event during his or her lifetime. Who knows what you may find!
How the Khoikhoi lost their land to the Dutch
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
Jan van Riebeeck lands on the Cape
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
On January 16, 1647 captain Pieter Pietersz., captain of the Dutch East India Company vessel “Nieuw Haarlem”, set sail from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) back home to the island of Texel in the Netherlands. It was the beginning of what should have been just an ordinary trip home but it set in motion a series of events that in the end drove the South African tribe of the Khoikhoi off their native land…
When the Haarlem reached Cape Good Hope on May 25, 1647, it was caught in a nasty storm that smashed it on the cape. The marooned crew was left with no other option than to make the best of it until another Company ship would come to their rescue a year later. During their forced stay, the idea was born of setting up a permanent refreshment station that could supply passing Company ships with fresh water and fruits and that could harbor surviving crew of inevitable future shipwrecks.
The Company liked the idea and already in 1652 an expedition of five Company ships, the Reiger, Olifant, Walvis, Goede Hoop and Drommedaris, led by Jan van Riebeeck set sail for Cape Good Hope to make the refreshment station a reality. It was the only settlement the Dutch East India Company ever founded that had no trading purpose in itself. It would merely serve as a safe haven where all Company ships were obliged to moor for repairs, heal the sick and above all take in fresh fruits and vegetables to keep the crew strong and healthy.
Riebeek’s men built a small wooden fort –the Redout Duijnhoop, which was later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope– and a hospital. Furthermore, crops and fruits were planted to supply the ships. To work the fields some Company employees were relieved of duty and assigned a small piece of land. Employees that had a craft, from which the Company could benefit, such as carpenters and blacksmiths, were also given permission to settle at the Cape.
At first, the new settlers –also known as burghers (citizens)– had planned to buy the cattle they needed from the natives. However, to the Khoikhoi their cattle was much more than just food: they were high value goods worth far more than what the Dutch offered to trade. Therefore, the burghers decided to grow their own herds for which they needed ever more land.
Not only the need for raising cattle pushed the boundaries of the once so tiny settlement more and more into Khoikhoi territory. In addition, the arrival of burgher families and slaves to work the land made the settlement grow and so increased the hunger for land.
Clashes with the Khoikhoi inevitably followed, but they stood no chance against the Dutch firearms. Those who survived the battles were decimated by European diseases and the survivors ended up as slaves. And so, the Khoikhoi lost their land to what should only have been a refreshment station but ended up as the land we now know as South Africa…
Dig further
Read more about the Khoikhoi now known as the Khoisan:
www.khoisan.org
Insight in the Khoisan languages
www.africanlanguages.org
More on Jan van Riebeeck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Riebeeck
VOC Archives
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
If you have stumbled upon Dutch ancestors that emigrated from the Netherlands in the early 1600s an 1700s, then it is very likely that you can find them in the archives of the Dutch East India Company, also known as VOC. The reason for this is that many Dutch colonial territories started out as trade posts of the VOC and therefore early settlers were often VOC employees or passengers on a VOC ship.
There are a couple of great online resources for doing VOC research and I would like to share them with you here.
www.vocsite.nl
A lovely site with a database of over 2000 VOC ships!
www.vocsite.nl (Dutch version)
www.vocsite.nl (English version)
www.tanap.net
This is a joint effort of the National Archives of the Netherlands, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Western Cape Archives and Records Service (South Africa), the Tamil Nadu Archives (India), the British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections (UK). Their mission is to preserve and share their collections on the VOC. On their site, you can search their vast collection.
www.tanap.net (English)
vocopvarenden.nationaalarchief.nl
The Dutch National Archive has a specific online database for VOC employees. The database includes employee records on a staggering number of 655,000 people over the period 1700-1794.
vocopvarenden.nationaalarchief.nl (English)
