Sep 02, 2026
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Tracing Your Drenthe Roots
Uncover your family’s Dutch heritage through archives, records, and the Netherlands’ oldest province.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
There’s an old saying in the Netherlands: God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland. Drive across Zeeland, past the Delta Works, and you start to understand. Or stand at Kinderdijk at sunrise, when the windmills catch the first light and the canals are mirror-flat, and you can feel 800 years of stubbornness built into the landscape.
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Photo: FotoDutch via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
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In today’s email:
- Discover Your Drenthe Ancestry: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- At The Café — Café Locus Publicus — Rotterdam’s Belgian Beer Headquarters
- Around The Web — Discover Your North Brabant Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History, Discover Your North Brabant Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam: Complete Visitor’s Guide (2026) + more
- From Love Netherlands — 3 Days in Amsterdam: The Perfect Itinerary for First-Time Visitors (2026)
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Stroopwafel — The Dutch Biscuit That Became a Ritual
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Discover Your Drenthe Ancestry: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
👉 Read the full story
Most people skip Drenthe. They fly into Amsterdam and head straight to the canals. But if you carry Dutch blood, this quiet northeastern province may be where your family story truly begins. Drenthe holds the Netherlands’ oldest monuments. It built a farming culture that lasted centuries. And when times turned hard in the 19th century, it sent thousands of families to South Africa, America, and Canada. Tracing your Drenthe ancestry takes you deeper into Dutch history than almost any other province can. This guide shows you how to find your roots — from the village your ancestors left to the archives that hold their names today. The Oldest Province in the Netherlands Drenthe sits in the northeast of the Netherlands, bordered by Groningen to the north and Germany to the east. For five thousand years, people have lived on this land. The hunebedden prove it. These prehistoric megalithic…
👉 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 Locus Publicus — Rotterdam’s Belgian Beer Headquarters
Locus Publicus is a wood-panelled café on the Oostzeedijk in Rotterdam, with more than 200 beers on the menu and a chalkboard of rotating Belgian taps that changes every fortnight. Rotterdam is mostly modern after the 1940 bombing, but Locus is the city’s quiet exception — wooden floors, candles in glass jars, a cat that sleeps on the bar. Locals come for the Trappist selection and the kitchen’s straightforward menu of stoofpotten and good charcuterie boards. It’s the bar that proves Rotterdam has the same drinking culture as Amsterdam, just told quieter.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Three days in Amsterdam gives you enough time to walk the canal ring, stand in front of a Rembrandt, eat raw herring from a street stall, and still catch the golden light on the Jordaan at dusk. This itinerary covers the essential experiences while leaving room to follow your curiosity down a side canal or linger over a second coffee. It works for first-time visitors and works equally well if it’s your second visit and you want more structure…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Stroopwafel — The Dutch Biscuit That Became a Ritual
A stroopwafel is two thin waffle layers, bound together with warm caramel syrup, served on top of your coffee cup so the rising steam softens the middle. It was born in 19th-century Gouda, where a local baker used up the day’s leftover dough and the last of the syrup barrel. The result is the small daily joy of every Dutch café — placed on your saucer without asking, warm against your fingers, gone in three bites. A real stroopwafel should be slightly chewy in the middle, not hard like the ones in supermarket bags. The best ones are still sold fresh at market stalls in Gouda on Wednesdays.
👉 Read the full story
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