Netherlands Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

 * 1600-2000 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1633-1795 Netherlands, Dutch East India Company Crew Index, 1633-1795 at Ancestry; index only ($)
 * !820-1880 Dutch Immigrants to America, 1820-1880, ($), index
 * 1839-1920 Emigrants from Zeeland (1826) 1839-1920 (1950)
 * 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 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

Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the Netherlands. 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.

If you cannot find your ancestor, you may be able to find emigration information on your ancestor’s neighbors. People who lived near each other in the Netherlands often settled together in the country they emigrated to.

Records were created when individuals emigrated from the Netherlands. Other records document their arrival in the destination country. This section discusses the following subjects:


 * Finding the emigrant’s town of origin.
 * Emigration from the Netherlands, including the historical background of Dutch emigration.
 * Records of Dutch emigrants in their destination countries.

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

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: [mailto:circ@mail.nysed.gov circ@mail.nysed.gov] Internet: www.nysl.nysed.gov

For Further Reading
Many additional sources are listed in the FamilySearch catalog: