Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category
How much did you say? Converting Dutch Historic Currencies
Friday, November 12th, 2010
Old Dutch daalder minted 1686.
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
Whenever you venture into the research of your ancestor’s possessions, you typically hit this question pretty soon: How much was that in current-day money? What does it mean that your great-great-grandfather bought a house for 300 guilders? Go to our Historic Dutch Currency Calculator to quickly convert old Dutch guilders to modern-day major currencies. Keep on reading to find out what’s a guilder, how it evolved over the centuries and how you can calculate the conversion by hand.
Ever since the Middle Ages the Netherlands used a coin named “guilder”. The name refers to a golden (gilded) Florentine coin. The Florentine origin of the guilder remained visible in the symbol for the guilder, which is an “f” or “fl”, and the old word “florijn”. That the coin had the same name for centuries can lead to the false impression that its value and the way it used to be split up in smaller coins was the same for centuries as well. This, however, is not the case.
In the 1600s, every one of the seven provinces of the young Dutch Republic would have its own mint and produce their own guilders. In that time, a silver or gold coin was worth as much as its weight. There was no standard weight for a coin and some mints would mix the gold and silver with other, less valuable metals, hence devaluating the coins. To add to the general confusion, criminals had soon found out that you could easily scrape some metal off existing coins to make illegal new ones. In short, you never new how much your guilder was worth. Therefore, a new occupation arose, that of coin weigher. Coin weighers would travel around to weigh the coins to make fair trade possible. If a forger was caught, he or she would be sentenced to death.
The Toko In Semarang
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
A Toko in Semarang
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
When researching my own tree I stumbled upon an ancestor named Henri Francois Grivel that seemed to have disappeared into thin air after his birth. I could not find any records on him except for his birth certificate. I had the rest of his family complete. I knew the fate of his parents and his siblings. But nothing on him, and that was nagging me…
Then, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Dutch Library) came to the rescue. They had only just completed scanning and indexing over a million newspaper pages starting in 1640, and put it all online! When I searched for “Grivel” literally dozens of hits turned up for an Indonesian newspaper from the mid 1800s. Intrigued, I clicked on the hits and to my amazement, they were newspaper ads, placed by my ancestor Henri to promote his shop in Semarang.
He sold furniture, books, baby clothing, rain boots, photo cameras, tools, candles and a myriad of other things a Dutch colonist would need to deal with life in the tropics. Suddenly Henri had come to life…
Ever since, I have frequently used the site of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek to put real-life flesh on the bones of my clients’ family trees. Sometimes it doesn’t yields anything, but other times, it provides fascinating clues to people’s daily life.
Go ahead and have a go at it yourself. You can feed any Dutch texts you find to Google Translate to get a grasp of what it says.
The Secret Message of Baptism Witnesses
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
The Christening by Jan Steen
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
When looking at a baptism record we tend to look for the primary data like date and place of baptism and birth, names of the parents and name of the child. Witnesses are often ignored, which is a shame because they can provide a beautiful insight into the kinship and friendships.
Witnesses aren’t just people that happened to be there when the child was baptized; they are usually very close relatives or dear friends. I most cases, the witnesses are the grandparents. This can be vital information to push your tree back in time.
You can even hypothesize about the relationship of the witness to the child using naming patterns. Usually, the first boy is named after the paternal grandfather, and the second boy after the maternal grandfather. All subsequent boys are named after the father’s brothers. The first girl is usually named after the maternal grandmother, the second girl after the paternal grandmother, and all following daughters after the mother’s sisters.
Let’s have a look at some examples to see this in action:
Gerrit and Marie de Vries have their first son Klaas baptized. The witnesses are Klaas de Vries and Jelke Oldeman. Following the naming patterns, these are probably the paternal grandparents.
Two years later the same couple have their first daughter Antje baptized. The witnesses are Henk van Buuren and Antje Hendriks. These are probably the maternal grandparents.
Several years later, a third girl is baptized Petronella. The witnesses are Arie Olthof and Petronella van Buuren. These are probably a maternal aunt and her husband.
So, the next time you have a look at a baptism record, have a close look at the witnesses as well. They can tell you a lot about older generations.
Want to know more about dealing with Dutch births and baptisms?
Read our article: Dutch Birth Records Basics.
Download our free e-book: Dutch Birth Records And Rituals.
