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Since the doctrines and teachings of the French Reformed Church and the Dutch Reformed Church were so similar, it was not uncommon for French Protestants to have their children christened in either of these two churches. | == General Historical Background == | ||
The practice of keeping parish registers evolved slowly. The first surviving register is from 1542 at Deventer. Catholic churches in general began requiring baptism, marriage, and death records in 1563; Dutch Reformed churches after 1572. There are Dutch Reformed records for most places after 1650. Dutch church records are usually written in Dutch or Latin. | |||
Note the following points about Dutch church records: | |||
* Large cities have many churches, each serving part of the city. Rural churches often serve several villages and hamlets. Parish boundaries often changed, thus affecting where church records were kept. | |||
* Military churches in garrison towns and cities often kept their own records separate from those of other parishes. | |||
* In many parts of the Netherlands the death registers began later than the baptism and marriage registers. | |||
* The registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths from different geographic areas vary considerably in the amount of information they provide. Each jurisdiction had its own recordkeeping rules, and each recorder had his own style. | |||
* In some areas the records of people of other faiths were kept by the predominant church. The principal church in the Netherlands was the Dutch Reformed Church. | |||
For more information, see the "[[Netherlands Church History|Church History]]" and "[[Netherlands History|History]]" sections. | |||
'''Feast Dates'''. Each day of the year had several patron saints and was a feast day to honor those saints. Some vital events are recorded in church records only by the holy day (feast day) on the church calendar. For example, the feast day called All Saints Day [''Allerheiligendag''] is 1 November. To convert feast dates to days of the month for either the Julian (old style) or Gregorian (new style) calendar, use the following book: | |||
* Bukke, Inger M., et al. ''The Comprehensive Genealogical Feast Day Calendar''. Bountiful, Utah: Thomson’s Genealogical Center, 1983. (FHL book 529.44 C738; fiche 6054630.) | |||
There is an online source to convert the various calendars at: | |||
* http://www.calendarhome.com/converter/ | |||
=== Duplicate Church Records === | |||
Unfortunately, some of the church records of the Netherlands were destroyed in wars or when parish houses burned. Because of concerns about such destruction, authorities in some areas began requiring copies of church books in the 1700s. Copies were either stored separately or sent to a central archive. These copies are called transcripts or duplicates [afschriften or contra-boeken], and most are housed in state archives or central church archives. | |||
Use duplicates, where available, to supplement parish registers that are missing or illegible. Keep in mind that duplicates often differ slightly from the originals. | |||
=== Information Recorded in Church Registers === | |||
The information recorded in church records varied over time. Later records usually give more complete information than earlier ones. The most important church records for genealogical research are baptism, marriage, and burial registers. Other helpful church records may include confirmation lists, lists of members, church council minutes, and account books. The membership records (lidmaten) are especially helpful in locating people that were moving in or out of a parish, as the place where those people came from or are moving to. | |||
Most Catholic records were written in Latin. Protestant records were generally written in Dutch. Local dialects may have affected the spelling of some names and other words in the church records. | |||
There was no specific record-keeping style for church records. Early records were usually written in paragraph form. As record keeping improved, columns were often used in the entries. However, some places (especially Catholic parishes) used the paragraph format for a long time. | |||
=== Walloon Church === | |||
Since the doctrines and teachings of the French Reformed Church and the Dutch Reformed Church were so similar, it was not uncommon for French Protestants to have their children christened in either of these two churches. You can also find the French churches under the heading "Walloon Church", the services were mostly spoken in French. | |||
Effective research in church records requires some understanding of your ancestor’s religion and of the events that led to the creation of church records. | Effective research in church records requires some understanding of your ancestor’s religion and of the events that led to the creation of church records. | ||