Netherlands Emigration and Immigration

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The FamilySearch moderator for The Netherlands is Daniel Jones.

Netherlands

Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

• 1600-2000 Netherlands, Archival Indexes, Miscellaneous Records at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1633-1795 Netherlands, Dutch East India Company Crew Index, 1633-1795 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• 1839-1920 Emigrants from Zeeland (1826) 1839-1920 (1950)
• 1860-1913 Netherlands, Limburg Province, Certificates of Nationality, 1860-1913 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
• 1881-1894 Dutch Immigrants: New York Passenger Lists, 1881-1894 ($)
• 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Netherlands
• 1900-1974 Netherlands Passenger Lists Holland-America Line, 1900-1974 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
• 1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Netherlands
• 1914-1919 Netherlands, Tilburg Emigration Records, 1914 - 1919 at MyHeritge; index & images ($)
• Bridging the gap in Dutch-Indonesian Genealogy (theindoproject.org)
• Emigrants from Texel, Noord-Holland
• Limburgse Landverhuizers (Limburgs Emigrants)
• Passenger lists, Digital Resources Netherlands and Belgium In the left sidebar, select "Passenger lists" - until 1736 or after 1736
• Stamboomgids emigratie

Netherlands Emigration and Immigration

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. (See Immigration into the Netherlands.)
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Emigration from the Netherlands

• Emigration from the Netherlands has been occurring for at least four hundred years, and may be traced back to the international presence of the Dutch Empire and its monopoly on mercantile shipping in many parts of the world. Dutch people settled permanently in a number of former Dutch colonies or trading enclaves abroad, namely the Dutch Caribbean, the Dutch Cape Colony, the Dutch East Indies, Surinam, and New Netherland.
• Overseas emigration of the Dutch started around the 16th century, beginning a Dutch colonial empire. The first Dutch settlers arrived in the New World in 1614 and built a number of settlements around the mouth of the Hudson River, establishing the colony of New Netherland, with its capital at New Amsterdam (the future world metropolis of New York City). Nowadays, towns with prominent Dutch communities are located in the Midwest, particularly in the Chicago metropolitan area, Wisconsin, West Michigan, Iowa and some other northern states. Sioux Center, Iowa is the city with the largest percentage of Dutch in the United States (66% of the total population).
• The Cape of Good Hope was first settled by Europeans under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company, which established a station there in 1652 to provide its outward bound fleets with fresh provisions. The company offered grants of farmland to its employees under the condition they would cultivate grain for company warehouses. Prospective employees had to be married Dutch citizens, considered "of good character" by the Company, and had to commit to spending at least twenty years on the African continent. In 1691, there were at least 660 Dutch people living at the Cape of Good Hope. This had increased to about 13,000 by the end of Dutch rule. Since the late nineteenth century, the term Afrikaner has been evoked to describe white South Africans descended from the Cape's original Dutch-speaking settlers, regardless of ethnic heritage.
• Another wave of Dutch immigration to South Africa occurred in the wake of World War II, when many Dutch citizens were moving abroad to escape housing shortages and depressed economic opportunities at home.South Africa registered a net gain of 45,000 Dutch immigrants between 1950 and 2001.
• Since the end of the Second World War, the largest proportion of Dutch emigrants have moved to Anglophone countries, namely Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, mainly seeking better employment opportunities. Postwar emigration from the Netherlands peaked between 1948–63, with occasional spikes in the 1980s and the mid-2000s.
• Dutch emigration to Canada peaked between 1951 and 1953, when an average of 20,000 people per year made the crossing. This exodus followed the harsh years in Europe as a result of the Second World War. Relations between the two countries specially blossomed because it was mainly Canadian troops who liberated the Netherlands in 1944-1945. According to Statistics Canada in 2016, some 1,111,645 Canadians identified their ethnic origin to be Dutch.

"Dutch diaspora", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_diaspora, accessed 22 April 2021.</ref>

Notarial Records

For the period before 1812, look at notarial records of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other harbor towns such as Dordrecht. There are comprehensive indexes for most of these places. Immigrants often obtained notarized documents before leaving the country. For more information, see the "Notarial Records" section.

The collection Noord-Amerika Chronologie (North America Chronology) contains 5,000 cards abstracted from Amsterdam notarial records. It covers 1598 to 1750 and gives places of origin of immigrants to New Netherland (modern day New York, New Jersey, and Delaware). The collection is available on microfilm at The New York State Library. The address is:

The New York State Library
Cultural Education Center
Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12230
Telephone: 1-518-474-5355
E-mail: circ@mail.nysed.gov 
Internet: www.nysl.nysed.gov

Immigration into the Netherlands

• Cross-border migration to Belgium and Germany has become more common since 2001, driven by the rising cost of housing in major Dutch cities.

Dutch Immigration Records by Country of Destination

South Africa-Afrikaners

South Africa Online Sources

• South Africa Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include Netherlands

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United States

United States Online Sources

• !820-1880 Dutch Immigrants to America, 1820-1880, ($), index
• United States Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include Italians

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For Further Reading

Many additional sources are listed in the FamilySearch catalog:

• Netherlands - Emigration and immigration

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