We cannot study our family history well without looking at the context in which things took place. Traditions play an important role in our own life as well as that of our ancestors. Especially in the last weeks of the year traditions are key; whether it is Thanksgiving Day, Sinterklaas or Christmas. Sinterklaas has been Read more…
Tag: Dutch culture
The colorful story of a family history
It was a sunny Saturday morning in June. I arrived at 9.45am in Bergen op Zoom, a former military town in the western part of the province of Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. This was the moment that I would meet an American couple: Jim and Kathy VanVliet of Tacoma, Washington. Four months earlier they asked me Read more…