My name is Jos van Deemter, born in 1966 in Groningen, the Netherlands.
In the 1970's, I started wondering why my surname is
"Van Deemter", and who are my ancestors. In the early 80's I was still living in
Groningen, and I found my way to archives in Groningen where I started
investigating the origins of the Van Deemter family.
I was very lucky, because it appeared
that (at least my branch of) the Van Deemter family lived in Groningen
and its neighbourhood for the last 400 years. I spent many holidays in those
archives and with lots of effort I
found a treasure of data; not only dates of birth, marriage and death
but also information on the
professions of the Van Deemter's, on the houses they owned, if they had appeared in court, and sometimes even very
detailed lists of their posessions when they died.
The amount of information is sufficient for
writing a book about the history of the Van Deemter family, and this is what
I have started to do recently. Unfortunately, my genealogical research was
postponed roughly from 1986-2001, because I started studying, later went working abroad, started
a career in industry and also started a family.
In mean time, I got contacts with several relatives who were also interested
in their origins. Although in the beginning I have been anxious to give away
some results of my research, I have now decided to publish a large part of the
data on the internet.
Why this page?
After those 15 years, I realised that it is very difficult, or even impossible,
to collect all the data (especially the recent data) from all over the world
without any help. Besides, it can sometimes be quite boring when you do the research all
by yourself. It would be much more interesting if could (virtually) meet all interested relatives
and enable them to contribute data to the research and in this way build the family tree together.
Fifteen years ago, this would be quite difficult to realise, but with the current
possibilities of internet it is quite easy to create a family homepage. This is the reason why this homepage was created. It can be found easily with any search
machine with the keywords "van deemter" and "genealogy" or "family tree".
Further, it will contain a number of interesting subjects (such as a family
tree, a guest book, information on the Van Deemter Genealogy, etc.) which make
it worthwhile to visit the page, especially for members of the Van Deemter
family.
Description of the Contents
The current homepage contains the following items:
Introduction. You are reading this intro now. It explains the
intention of this page and gives some general background information on the history of
the name "Van Deemter".
Van Deemter family tree. This is a set of linked HTML files (one per family)
and an alphabetic names list. With these files it is easy to locate a person in the
family tree and also to check relations between relatives. The set of files is
still under construction, mainly because I have to take into account with the law
protecting personal data of living people. In place since May 2005.
Ancestors of Alje van Deemter. This is a listing of the ancestors of my
grand-grandfather Alje van Deemter, both in the male and the female line.
It was published in the "Groningen Kwartierstatenboek 2, editors R.H. Alma et al.,
Groningen 2001". Under Construction.
Guestbook of Van Deemter family homepage. This guestbook enables visitors
of this homepage to leave a message. This can be used to let other visitors
know who they are, and possibly get contact with relatives
Status of the Van Deemter Genealogy. The genealogy of the family Van
Deemter is currently being written. It contains lots of information on the
"old" Van Deemter's, which is inevitable for learning to know the
past of this family. The familiy tree can be considered as the bare bones,
whereas all the other data are the meat and the skin completing the body. On
this page the progress of the book is given. People can add their names to a
list to get informed when the book is ready. Being on the list commits you to
nothing; you only will receive a message once the book is ready and get
information on the price and the contents of the book.
Acknowledgements. During the last 30 years and even before, many people
have provided information and help, whithout which the current family tree whould
never have become what it currently is. A list of contributors is set up (not complete yet).
The origins of the name Van Deemter
During the research in the archives and also afterwards, I discovered that
almost all Van Deemters are related (including some adopted family members);
until now I did not find a single Van Deemter
who can not be traced back to our common ancestors or have a close band with
biological Van Deemters. The name Van Deemter
comes from "Van Deventer" which means "from Deventer". Deventer is a city
in The Netherlands. In 1610 a guy named Johan Jansen went to Groningen
and was registered there as "Johan Jansen uit Deventer" ("uit" also means
"from"). Later, he called
himself Johan Jansen van Deventer and his children also used this name
Van Deventer. In 1750, the descendants of Johan Jansen used the name Van
Deemter for the first time. Van Deemter can be considered as a corruption
of the name Van Deventer by the Groningen dialect. After Napoleon conquered
The Netherlands, in 1810(?) the name Van Deemter was officially registered,
and since that time, the family uses the name Van Deemter. Meanwhile, members
of the family have moved all over the world: The Netherlands, South Africa,
United Kingdom, Canada, United States, etc.
How to help!!!
If your surname is Van Deemter, and/or if you can tell something interesting
on Van Deemters whom you know or knew, I would be obliged to you if you would
leave a message in the guestbook or send a mail to me. I would love to know who
is interested in the
Van Deemter family research. Also, it would be great if you could contribute to the history
of the Van Deemter family, but also just for fun you can leave a message in the
Van Deemter family homepage guestbook
or send a mail to: famtree, then an @ and then vandeemter.nl.
Thank you for visiting this page and for your cooperation.
Jos van Deemter
For more information on who I am, please see my homepage:
