Do you have a brick wall in your Dutch genealogy that you can't get through? Are you looking to find more information on the ancestor that 'came from Holland'? A dead-end in your family tree that just doesn't go anywhere? I've been there. For the first few years of my genealogical research I lived in Canada: couldn't understand the dutch language, didn't know the history behind what the documents were telling me, didn't know what the options were to further my research.
My name is Sandra Hamelink-Muys. I’m married with 2 young children. At the moment I am a stay at home mom. However, I am also a genealogist. In 1998 I came to The Netherlands from Canada to finish working on my genealogy.... I’m still here, and still working on it. After almost 15 years I’m not yet done; but I have found more than 12000 people who are some how connected to me.
My husband Edwin Hamelink, is also a genealogist in his spare time. He is a document manager / archivist at a local port authority. He’s been working on his family tree for over 20 years as well. He is a board member of the local historical society and regularly writes articles about the history in Terneuzen and area. He has more than 7500 direct ancestors and a database with more than 15000 people, everyone of them in some way connected to him.
Together we offer you the following:
- fact based research; (if it doesn’t seem right, we’ll double check it!)
- a unique knowledge of the area and insights into how and why certain events in the life of your relative may have happened.
- not only the what but sometimes also the why - what were the historical events at the time that affected what your ancestor was doing?
- we are also historians and we are interested in the stories behind the people.
- we go farther than just the basic born - married - died. We check for other sources. We do NOT use other people’s genealogies as sources. We go back to the original documents or transcriptions of them to find out the information.
- we will provide you with a searchable PDF/A file that you can keep. Other formats are also available.
- when possible we will find out if there is still something to see from when you ancestor or relative was here in the area. We are able to provide digital photos with GPS co-ordinates as well (apart fee).
- we will not combine the information found for you in another database. Research done for you is yours. It will also not be published online unless specifically requested.
We have both had courses in reading old handwriting (Paleografie).
Outside of our own ancestors, we have had experience in searching for immigrant ancestors (US ->NL; NL -> AU) and also searching for Jewish families.
We have extensive in house resources for Terneuzen and area, as well as Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and The Netherlands. We also are well experienced with ancestors from Drenthe and Scheveningen / South Holland. Because of our many emmigrant ancestors / family members, we have also ammassed many resources outside The Netherlands.
What do we need to start?
1. We need to start with the first person who left The Netherlands. If you can provide us with as much of the following as you can::
Full name and full name of spouse
Ages or date of birth
Place of birth
Date of emmigration
Any known locations.
Also all known childrens’ names.
2. A clear definition of what you want. I will then email you a quotation and we can discuss payment options.