On the Bosdrift cemetery in Hilversum is a simple cross with the text “Jacobus van Rees 1854-1928”. Jacob van Rees, as he is known, was histology professor at the university of Amsterdam. He is now largely forgotten, but in his time was a well-known abstainer and vegetarian, who opposed vivisection and smoking, and sympathized with socialism, humanism and anarchism. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were many abstainers movements in The Netherlands, usually corresponding to religious and political groups...
read moreOn Saturdays I rummage through my old cabinet, pull out and dust off an item, and present it here on Roots. Today: A souvenir of the royal visit to Deventer in 1900. On 22 August 1900, Queen Wilhelmina and her mother, Queen Emma, visited and toured the city Deventer. After the visit, a souvenir guide with large photos was published, and a copy somehow ended up gathering dust in my cabinet. I inherited this souvenir guide from my grandfather, Hendrik van Kampen, but I don’t know how it came into his posession. In 1900, the year of the...
read moreIn December, I showed you the grave of bishop Guy van Avesnes, in the Domkerk, the former Utrecht cathedral. Until the reformation, the (arch)bishops of Utrecht were buried in this church. After the reformation, the Domkerk became protestant, and no new bishop was appointed for several centuries. The Utrecht archbishopric was restored in 1853, and Johannes Zwijsen became the first modern archbishop of Utrecht. I don’t know where Zwijsen was buried, but his successors, starting with Andreas Ignatius Schaepman, are buried in the St....
read moreDutch emigrants to North America The family trees on my genealogy websites have several emigrants to North America. Most of them went to the U.S., boarding their ship at the Wilhelminakade in Rotterdam, and entering the States a fortnight later via Ellis Island. Let me introduce you to some of these emigrants. They are descendants of Lourens van Kampen and Neel de Vos, or of Paulus Pardoen and Johanna Pietersen. If you recognize any of these people, maybe you can share your memories of them in a comment below. Additions, corrections, photos,...
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