Genealogical research done by Wim van Beek and other persons

Last update this page: 9 January 2026
Last update Genealogical data: 14 September 2025
last update Dutch-pages: 7 July 2025

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Welcome. With this homepage I hope to find persons belonging to my family or persons who are researching the same families as I do. Perhaps you came here in search of someone with a name as found in my family.
Furthermore, I like to show that it can be fun to research your family when you look up more as birth, marriage and death data. I've tried to make the pages in Dutch and in English because I know that somewhere abroad some relatives may exist. About one of them, which I believe he went to the USA, I have a question, see Wanted...
The ancestral chart and the genealogies are made by Pro-Gen, the computer program I'm using to keep record of all persons belonging to the family. The program had an English output but all data is gone to the output as it is, in Dutch. The ancestral chart is the Dutch one, but I think that wouldn't be a problem.
Nowadays there is an extra for Pro-Gen to get a more compleet output in other languages. But that means that for every person and every mariage in the files the text must be translated in the chosen language. I've done a lot of translations, but it's a real job. And I have now, January 2026, about 34.800 persons in my files...

For reasons of privacy the given amount of data is a part of the data in the Pro-Gen database. In case you like to know more details, please send me an e-mail. If I got interesting news, I put it on this page. So if you are interested, stay in touch.

Someone asked me in an e-mail 'who's picture is on the left?'. I always took for granted that everybody assumed it was mine, and so it is.

Help. I did my best to write correct English. But perhaps it's double Dutch. Please let me know about the mistakes you found.

At first I didn't add links to other genealogic-sites to the English part of my webpage. Some of the 'links' are only in dutch. The site that belong to the makers of Pro-Gen has an English version. The CBG is a kind of archive in the Hague, the site had a lot of links to other sites. The third site is the site of the regional archive at Tiel. If you like to try these sites, choose links in navigation menu.

You can mail to:
Wim van Beek,
Burgemeester Wapstraat 56,
NL 2381 XR Zoeterwoude,
The Netherlands

or use the 'send e-mail' button

Zoeterwoude, Noordbuurtseweg.
Former workshop and stores of building-contractor 'Erven Paardekooper'.

Research for genealogy Gerrit (Jansen) van Beek

Gerrit Jansen van Beek is born at Garderen, January 24th 1792. He married March 23rd 1817 (Garderen) with Arisje Jans Blom(mink), later named Arisje Jans. Gerrit died at Otterlo October 12th 1855, Arisje died Ede April 30th 1862. They had nine children.

The name 'van Beek' is original a kind of nickname, meaning living near to a brook. The part of the Netherlands where this family was living, the Veluwe, has a lot of little streams. We now know that there were some millers - at a watermill - between the ancestor of Gerrit. Until Napoleon ordered the use of surnames as we use nowadays in the Netherlands, patronymic names where mostly used in this region. So the father of Gerrit Jansen van Beek was Jan Gerritsen.

A lot of people choose the name 'van Beek' as their surname in the Napoleonic time, without being related to each other. But some persons belonging to the family made a choice for a different name. The new data I got gives some of those family members with names as Verbeek, Rutgers and Nijhof. These names I got from Els Harwijne - van Beek. With help from Bertus van der Pol, Arend de Haan, Ineke van Coolwijk and Theo de Waard she started her own family research. And with a little bit of luck she came in contact with me so I could help with my part of the family.

A problem for me was that a lot of microfiches with records of the Veluwe at the archive I regular visited in The Hague are of poor quality. In a case like this, where just a few persons with this name belong to the family, it doesn't stimulate the research. In Ede en Arnhem are some important records lost in the 1940/45 war. The loss of those records is making it very difficult to find to which places someone moved.
Luckily there is nowaday a computer system that brings a lot of records at our homes, often with a scan of the record. Els Harwijne-van Beek worked with it as soon as that was possible and did find in about a year more family as I did in fifteen years. Because Els found a lot more family members I decided to go on with the Coers/ Koers family and gave Els space to go with the van-Beek research.
At a moment years ago, Els did dicide to put her genealogical at a halt to have time for other hobbies. She did send me her Pro-Gen files and I merged them with my files.

At the start of 2018 Els has send me a lot of material.
For me that was a moment te decide that it was time to check the files for mistakes, made by merging the Pro-Gen files, and I did find lots of them. Nearly all have been fixed, But some parts are in lots of letters and notes that Els made when she was visiting and phoning relatives.
A part of her work is now available in the Decendants van Beek.
We also decided to start the Decendants with an earlier forefather, Jan Roelofsen who was born before 1648.

When Covid was around the world, Els dit send me a lot more information about several families. Before 2018 I had about 9,000 persons in my files, December 2024 there are about 30,000 persons in my files.
And Els has started in August 2024 with updating the Van Beek data because most of it is gathered 20 years ago.

Warning! There are so much 'van Beek' families that I think there is at most a 1% chance for someone with this name that he or she belongs to my family. If you think there's a possibility that Gerrit and Arisje belong to a family on which you're doing research, or if you interested otherwise, please contact me.

You can mail to
Wim van Beek,
Burgemeester Wapstraat 56,
NL 2381 XR Zoeterwoude,
The Netherlands

or use the 'send e-mail' button

Who answers these questions...

Hendrik Willem van Beek (H. W. Bakhuis)

Everdina Bakhuis (see foto page), born at Hengelo prov. Gelderland August 15th 1837, had unmarried a son born at Hengelo November 29th 1867. He was called Hendrik Willem (Henry William). At her mariage - Arnhem, August 23rd 1871- with Willem van Beek (see research genealogy Gerrit (Jansen) van Beek) Willem stated that Hendrik Willem was his son (often done this way, if it's true or not). So from that moment Hendrik Willem Bakhuis is named Hendrik Willem van Beek. Willem and Everdina had 5 other children born, only the last of them called Evert Willem (my grand father) stayed alive.
Until my research showed otherwise, all members of my family thought that Evert Willem was the only child of Willem and Everdina. But seeing the facts my fathers youngest brother remembered some jokes their father made about an uncle that his children had in America (USA). We think its this half brother who probably went to the States. When this is true, he went very young, so I didn't find him in the Ellis-island-records. Also because of the 1940/45 war, some for my research important records at Arnhem are lost forever.
Who knows: Where did Hendrik Willem van Beek (or H.W. Bakhuis) went from Arnhem. Did he really go to the USA, or to some other country? Was he married, where has he died? All details about his life, possible wife and children are welcome.

You can mail to:
Wim van Beek,
Burgemeester Wapstraat 56,
NL 2381 XR Zoeterwoude,
The Netherlands

or use the 'send e-mail' button

Links

Centraal Bureau voor de Genealogie (CBG)
Streekarchief Rivierenland
Pro-Gen

Just three links, with a description below:

The CBG is an archive with a wide variety of collections for genealogy. It's not far from the village where I live (by train) and situated near The Hague Central Station. It is in the same building as the Dutch National Archive.
Alas, they have closed their study, some of the records are avalible in the National Archive. Others are avalible online. Their site had a lot of links to other archives and sites related to genealogy but after a new format of their site those are disappeared.

Luckily there is an other site with this information, but that is also in Dutch. You will find it here.

The Regionaal Archief Rivierenland is an archive where I can find a lot of details about the Coers/Koers family. The former Streekarchief Bommelerwaard has moved into this archive.
The Bommelerwaard archive had a lot of digitized information to find on their site and that has also moved to the site of archive Rivierenland. You can download a lot of information on this site.

The program I use for family-database is Pro-Gen. For me it's the best there is. But I always give persons who are in search of such a program the advice to tryout several programs. Only that way you find a family-database program suitable for you. A part of this site -ancestral chart and genealogies - is made by Pro-Gen. It's a very flexible program and with some extras it can produce output in several languishes.