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Tracing Dutch footprints, Vol 2

Dutch traders built Fort Anping then known as Fort Zeelandia


Tags: Dutch Exploration Genealogy HistoryFormer Dutch parliamentarian and cabinet minister Embert van Middelkoop taught the Dutch Second Chamber an important history lesson when he urged them to consider how Dutch colonial history was viewed by many abroad as a positive interaction between ...

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Polar explorer Aarnout Castel an Alaska Pioneer

Connected Far North Coastal Villages With Freight Service


Tags: Dutch Exploration Immigration HistoryVlissingen's connection with Alaska! It is true, the history of the LowLands has an amazing global scope to it, be it by trading corporations such as the VOC and the WIC, by smaller trading partners, by explorers and adventurers, and immigrants. The ...

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Arrival of Dutch immigrants national news across Canada

Kota Inten and Tabinta delivered early waves in 1948


Tags: Immigration World War II HistoryCanadian troops had invaded the Netherlands just a few short years earlier, and now Dutch farmers and labourers were arriving by the thousands in Canada with their families after having crossed the Atlantic Ocean in hastily converted troop transport ...

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It is a Diamond Jubilee for post-WWII Dutch emigration to Canada

Massive coverage greeted new arrivals


Tags: Immigration World War II History

LANGLEY, BC - The faded memories of the New Beginnings of the post-WWII Dutch emigration to Canada in the late 1940s received renewed attention recently, when the glossy bi-monthly magazine Dutch in its September/October 2022 issue devoted ...

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Details of 1927 BC train robbery and murder of Dutch immigrant revisited

Victim Otto Bosch died in Vancouver hospital


Tags: Immigration Features History

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Back in 1992, almost 65 years after the July 23, 1927 murder of his then young bachelor uncle Otto Bosch, nephew Julius Bosch and his wife Beatrix (Ensel), stood at the Mountain View Cemetery graveside where the remains of his father Jan’s older brother had been buried. Puzzled why there was no sign of the headstone the family had paid for so long ago, he asked the attending cemetery employee where the grave marker could have gone. The man then poked around for it in the soil, and eventually hit something solid underneath. Soon, an overgrown vertical grave marker was uncovered from underneath a foot of dirt.

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Windmill Archives launches Facebook group

Focus on Dutch immigration and settlement


Tags: Dutch Exploration Immigration Features World War II Genealogy History

The story of Dutch immigration to Canada and the United States and the settlement of these pioneers in both countries is wide-ranging and extremely fascinating. Since its start in 1970, The Windmill Archives has collected much material on these subjects.

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At 50th Company Anniversary Focus now on Books

Langley, BC, Book Shop a Resource Centre


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Genealogy History

The printed word remains the focus of the company's activities, but now it is mainly books instead that of a newspaper. The final issue of The Windmill Herald was published back in August 2012 but shipments of books continue to come and go a...

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Volume contains more than genealogical data

Overijssel-clan of Goutbeck etc produces interesting history book


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration History

When 81-year-old John Goutbeck visited his native country the Netherlands, he made a short trip across the North Sea to England in search for a sister he had not seen for 62 years. Up until that time, the retired Dutch-Canadian potato farmer had assumed her to be dead for some years. She, as well, thought her elder brother had died. Via the Dutch embassy in London, Goutbeck received an address in the town of Thorne where he presented himself to an elderly woman who opened the door. 'Do you recognise me,' he asked her. No, she did not remember 'the stranger.'

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New owners re-open Dutch specialty store to the sounds of rare street organ

Dutch treats popular with visitors


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features History Dutch import groceries, delicatessen and household articles have been readily available in Chilliwack since the late 1950s. With the re-opening by new owners of an existing store as Holland Shopping Centre, the variety and product range increases s...

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Chilliwack's topography honours pioneer farmer Volkert Vedder

Attracted from California by Cariboo goldrush


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features HistoryThe most-widely known Dutch-descended people in Chilliwack were its earliest pioneers Volkert Vedder and his son Adam Swart Vedder who lent their surname to several geographical points: Vedder Mountain, Vedder Peak, Vedder Crossing, Vedder River and ...

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Chilliwack, BC Dutch Count replaced by numerous immigrating countrymen

Gentleman farmer Van Rechteren returned 'home' in 1947


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features World War II History

The fertile Upper Fraser Valley with Chilliwack as its hub, for many decades has been a destination for Dutch immigrants. It only was in the late 1940s that their numbers had grown into a small nucleus ready to receive and help settle a steady stream of newcomers. Its most prominent member, ‘the Count,' however just had retired to the Netherlands. The area attracted the biggest group during the first half of the 1950s when emigration from the Netherlands was at its strongest. Unlike most other areas in Canada, locally new Dutch arrivals kept coming in noticeable numbers into the 1990s (and beyond). By the late 1950s, the migration of Dutch immigrants from other areas in B.C., Alberta and beyond also helped swell the community's numbers.

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Book lifts veil on (Kleine) Deters clan

History of Veldhausen family highlights cross-border ties


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Genealogy HistoryThe road from Veldhausen in Germany's Bentheim to Noordbarge, near Emmen in Drenthe, the Netherlands, is as the crow flies rather close but Frederik Kleine Deters made a huge detour to get there. He first crossed the Atlantic Ocean to check out life ...

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Gaaikema’s whirlwind tour of Canada a success

Excerpts from the June 1969 issue of Goed Nieuws / The Windmill Herald


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration History

NEW YORK – Dutch entertainer Seth Gaaikema ended his whirlwind tour across Canada with a stopover in New York where he also gave several appearances of his show “Kom-kom, tut-tut, ho-ho.”

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Printing firm played key role in huge wartime counterfeit scheme

Translated excerpts of the May 1969 issue of Goed Nieuws / the Windmill Herald


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration History

AMSTERDAM - The wartime German occupation was very much on the mind of the printer Wil C.L. Keet (80) when his former employer Amsterdam commercial printer C.A. Spin en Zoon celebrated its 150th anniversary.

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Firebrand pastor crisscrossed country to coordinate resistance

Mother of five became powerhouse behind movement


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill World War II History

Introduction

In just over a month, it will be 50 years ago that well over 350,000 Dutch people resurfaced from hiding places in cellars, crawlspaces, lofts and barns, behind secret walls and cupboards and in dugouts, boats, sheds, haystacks and from 'normal' life with an adopted family. A large part of them had refused to work for or be otherwise made accountable to the enemy who had crushed Dutch armed opposition five years earlier 1). As the real intent of the German occupation revealed itself, more and more Dutchmen became alarmed at their country's precarious situation and the way certain groups were victimized by the bizarre and inhumane Nazi ideology. Many were slow to grasp the extent of the threat to civilization but some people understood what to expect from Hitler. They propelled into action, over time making it possible for hundreds of thousands to vanish from sight, and to remain in hiding till the coast was clear 2). Several prominent Dutchmen who had sharply warned against the rise of the Nazi's in Germany were people who at one time lived or studied in that country or who lived near the border. Among them was Professor Schilder whose publication 'De Reformatie' was soon banned because of its sharp attacks on Nazidom 3). Schilder had received his doctorate de in Germany, and kept a close eye on the German political situation. 'De Reformatie' was banned in August 1940, and Schilder arrested.

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