Tag: Center for Family History

52W Mark III – Week 32: Free Space

I had originally drafted this as a post separate from the 52 Ancestors Challenge, but then I noted “Free Space” as an upcoming post. So nice to be ahead of the prompt for a change!

The Database of Surnames in The Netherlands contains about 300,000 surnames found in the Netherlands in 2007, with similar data for 1947. It is maintained by the CBG Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis (“CBG Centre for Family History”) in the Netherlands, formerly called the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie (“Central Bureau for Genealogy”).

A swimming pool with my surname on it, located on Fluitpolderplein in Leidschendam, Zuid Holland. Our surname either comes from the polder on which this pool is located, or the polder is named after my ancestor. There’s also an adjacent library, where I tried to do a bit of family history research.

You’d be hard pressed to find many Vanderfluits/van der Fluits in North America. Yes, there are a few of us, mostly in New Brunswick and Alberta, and some in British Columbia (like me!). There are also a few in the United States.

Fluitpolderplein in Leidschendam, Zuid Holland.

There aren’t many van der Fluits in the Netherlands, either, but 218 (in 2007) seems like a huge number when I think of how few are on this side of the Atlantic.

Visiting my cousin in the Netherlands, whose house is on “‘t Fluitnpad” – which is actually the name he gave his driveway. In English, it says “The Fluit Path”.

It’s no surprise to me to find the concentration in Noord Holland (the bit below Texel, the largest of the islands on the map). It’s where my father was born and pretty much where all the van der Fluits who I know in the Netherlands live. What’s surprising are the pockets of van der Fluits in Gelderland and Noord Brabant (the south-east). I have no idea who they are or how they got there. Even more surprising is the dearth of van der Fluits in Zuid Holland (around The Hague and Leiden), especially since that is the primary source of the surname. There are *zero* in many of the municipalities where my ancestors came from.