Tuesday 4 September 2012

Trove Tuesday - The Dutch Connection


I didn’t really expect to find anything when I entered the “van Bergen” name into Trove seeing as they didn’t arrive here until 1952 and the newspapers are only digitised to about 1954. But going off on tangents is fun.

I certainly didn’t expect to find a photo!
I think most of us tend to think of Trove as mainly newspapers as that is where most of the ‘stories’ come from that fill in the gaps of our ancestors’ lives.

So imagine my surprise when up came a photo of my father-in-law from 1967 – linked from the National Archives of Australia through Picture Australia – a Department of Immigration and Multiculturalism photo in their ‘Migrants in employment’ series.

My inlaws came here post WWII and worked hard as did many migrants. There were photos taken of them published ‘back home’ in Holland to promote Australia as a migration destination. My husband didn’t know of this photo being taken and was quite excited to see it – I might get him hooked into genealogy after all!




4 comments:

  1. What an exciting discovery! Trusting your instincts and going off on a tangent certainly paid off.

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  2. Hi Jackie:
    I learned about your blog via Geneabloggers.
    Being Dutch myself, I was interested to see the Van Bergen name. I also have a blog with many genealogical subjects. One of my posts shows a survey of foreign genealogical blogs/sites showing Dutch origin surnames. The URL is http://www.patmcast.blogspot.com/2012/05/dutch-ancestors.html. The idea is to try and establish contacts between people who have an interest in the same surname. There are numerous cases in The Netherlands where people emigrated centuries ago without leaving a trace in Dutch archives. With my blog I try to bring Dutch and foreign genealogists together. I realize that the Van Bergens came to Australia after WW2 but still I think it would be a valuable addition to my blog.
    Therefore, I like to have your permission to show your site in my a.m. blog.
    I look forward to your reaction!
    Kind regards,
    Peter
    PS I am probably not telling you anything new but I noticed that the Van Bergen name to a very large extent comes from a village named Gennep in the eastern part of The Netherlands.

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  3. Hi Peter, sorry for not replying sooner. You are welcome to show my blog on your blog. My husband's van Bergens come from Limburg, predominantly Maastricht, some still live there. I have a lot of names going back but not many stories to write up on my blog yet. Regards, Jackie

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  4. No problem Jackie and thank you for your permission to show your blog on mine. If you want me to change/add anything, please let me know.
    And as far as those stories are concerned, they will pop up in time, I'm sure. And when you publish them, I'll see them cause I am following your blog :-)
    Regards and happy writing,
    Peter

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