Aug 02, 2026
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Tracing Your Gelderland Heritage
Uncover your Dutch ancestry and reconnect with family roots across generations and continents.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
The Dutch have a word — gezellig — that doesn’t translate. It’s the feeling of a candle on a wet Tuesday. It’s a bar full of people who’ve known each other since school. It’s the brown café where the owner remembers your order and the rain outside makes the windows glow. You can’t chase it. You can only notice when it finds you.
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Discover Your Gelderland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- At The Café — Café Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
- Around The Web — Tracing Your Family in Drenthe: A Heritage Travel Plan, Tracing Your Family in Utrecht: A Heritage Travel Plan, Gouda Day Trip from Amsterdam or Rotterdam: The Complete Guide (2026) + more
- From Love Netherlands — Rotterdam Food Guide: Where to Eat, Drink and Explore the Market Scene (2026)
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Boerenkaas — The Farmhouse Cheese With a Protected Name
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Discover Your Gelderland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
👉 Read the full story
Gelderland is the largest province in the Netherlands. It stretches from the Rhine and Waal rivers in the south to the great Veluwe forests in the heart of the country. For millions of people worldwide, it is also the place their ancestors called home. If you have Dutch roots, Gelderland Dutch heritage may be part of your story. Gelderland sent emigrants across the globe. Dutch-American families in Michigan and Iowa often trace their roots here. Afrikaner families in South Africa carry Gelderland surnames. VOC sailors from Nijmegen and Arnhem sailed to Asia and Africa centuries ago. Their descendants are spread across every continent. This guide shows you where your Gelderland ancestors came from, which names are linked to the province, and how to begin tracing your family history. Whether you are in America, South Africa, Australia, or Indonesia, this is where your search starts. What…
👉 Read the full story
Have you been there? Do you have a memory of this corner of the Netherlands? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to hear your story.
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At The Café
Café Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
Café Hoppe on the Spui has been pouring beer since 1670 — long enough that the wooden floor has sunk slightly at the door from three and a half centuries of footfall. It’s the kind of place where the bartender knows the regulars’ orders, the tourists get treated exactly the same as the locals, and the bitterballen come out exactly hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth if you don’t wait. It sits right in the middle of the city, a few minutes’ walk from the Dam, and it’s one of the last genuinely authentic brown cafés you can still find without trying. Come in the late afternoon, sit outside on the pavement, and order a beer.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Rotterdam is the food capital of the Netherlands — and that surprises almost everyone who hears it. Amsterdam gets the attention, but Rotterdam’s rebuilt, experimental character has produced a food scene unlike anything else in the country. Whether you are spending a day here or making the city your base, this Rotterdam food guide covers where to eat, what to order, and which markets and neighbourhoods deserve your time in 2026. Love the…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Boerenkaas — The Farmhouse Cheese With a Protected Name
Boerenkaas is the protected designation for cheese made on a Dutch farm with raw milk from that farm’s own cows, by the farmer themselves, with no industrial shortcuts. It tastes nothing like the supermarket Gouda. Younger wheels are creamy and sweet; aged ones develop deep crystalline cracks and a flavour that lingers for minutes. Every Friday, in Alkmaar’s old Waagplein cheese market, you’ll see boerenkaas being weighed on antique scales — a pageant for tourists and a real trade for cheesemakers. Pair it with apple, walnut and a glass of jenever.
👉 Read the full story
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