Beginners

Begin with your own papers

Always start research into your family history with your own papers. Because records from the Civil Register are not opened to the public for between 50 and 100 years, you will need to use other sources to get back far enough. Sometimes a marriage certificate or other family papers are enough. Older family members may know more than you think. Once you find a wedding that took place before 1922, Genlias can help you.

Types of research

Many people start doing genealogy to find out where their family name comes from. They research their family tree in a straight male line.

Other people are interested in everyone with the same last name. These people start by finding their oldest male ancestor and then researching all his male offspring.

A more elaborate form of genealogical research is when both the male and female descendants of a distant ancestor are researched.

Finally, many people research all their ancestors in both male and female lines. The number of ancestors doubles each generation. This is sometimes called a pedigree or ahnentafel.

The terms family tree, pedigree and ahnentafel are used frequently in genealogical publications as well.

Central Bureau for Genealogy

In the Netherlands, the Central Bureau for Genealogy in The Hague has been founded specifically for those researching their family history. It holds a huge amount of family data, including a large number of useful genealogical sources from the Netherlands and abroad on microfilm and microfiche. For more information, visit www.cbg.nl.

Save yourself some effort!

It's quite possible that information about your family has already been published in genealogical journals or books. The regional archives have indices and bibliographies of the works available, so you can find out easily if that is the case. Consulting these first can save a lot of time and effort.

Internet

Internet is a rich resource for genealogy. Many websites like Genlias offer transcribed records. An overview of online records can be found at the website Digital resources Netherlands and Belgium.

Also, many genealogists choose to publish their data online. You can find these publications using search engines like Google. See the links section for more information about using the internet and using search engines for genealogy.