Aug 26, 2026
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Finding Your Overijssel Ancestors
Unlock Dutch family history through Zwolle’s archives, Deventer’s records, and diaspora communities across the globe.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
The first thing you notice when you arrive in the Netherlands is how much of it is water. The second thing is how comfortable the Dutch are with it. They cycle past canals, they eat herring leaning over the side of a railing, they build cities below sea level and make them look effortless. It’s the quiet confidence of a country that knows exactly what it is.
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Photo: Shutterstock
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In today’s email:
- Discover Your Overijssel Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- At The Café — Café De Jaren — Amsterdam’s Light-Filled Reading Café
- Around The Web — Tracing Your North Holland Heritage: Archives, Records and Ancestral Towns, Maastricht, Netherlands: The Complete Visitor’s Guide (2026), Best Time to Visit the Netherlands: A Month-by-Month Guide (2026) + more
- From Love Netherlands — Edam Day Trip from Amsterdam: Cheese, Canals and Genuine Dutch Charm
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Bitterballen — The Small, Dangerous Joy of the Dutch Evening
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Discover Your Overijssel Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
👉 Read the full story
Your great-grandparents left the flat, green land of Overijssel. They crossed the IJssel River for the last time and sailed to a new world. Now you stand here, wondering about your Overijssel heritage and the people who shaped your family name. Overijssel is a province in the east of the Netherlands. Its name means “across the IJssel River”. The province stretches from the ancient market town of Deventer on the IJssel to the Saxon farmlands of Twente on the German border. In the north, the Kop van Overijssel hides quiet canals, peat bogs, and thatched farmhouses. Zwolle, the provincial capital, stands at the heart of it all. This guide will help you trace your Overijssel roots. You will learn where Overijssel families settled abroad, which archives hold the records, and how to plan a meaningful visit to your ancestral province. Overijssel: A Province of Three Distinct Regions Overijssel…
👉 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 De Jaren — Amsterdam’s Light-Filled Reading Café
Café De Jaren on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat is a wide, two-storey grand café with a sun-drenched terrace built right out over the Amstel. It opened in 1990 in a former bank, and the high ceilings, white walls and stacks of newspapers in twelve languages give it the feel of a public reading room with espresso. Locals come for breakfast with the FT, for long afternoon meetings, and for the canal-side terrace where on summer afternoons every chair faces the water. The kitchen does proper meals all day, the cake counter is generous, and nobody minds if you stay three hours.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe Edam is just 30 minutes north of Amsterdam. Most people know the name from the round red-wax cheese sold in supermarkets worldwide. But very few visitors ever find the actual town. That is your advantage. The town sits quietly beside its own canals and drawbridges. While nearby Volendam draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year,…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Bitterballen — The Small, Dangerous Joy of the Dutch Evening
A bitterbal is a small, crumb-coated sphere of slow-cooked beef ragout, deep-fried until crisp and served burning hot with a dish of sharp Dutch mustard. Walk into any brown café on a weekday evening and you’ll see them on half the tables. The rules are: wait two minutes so you don’t burn your mouth, bite off the top to let the steam escape, dip in mustard, eat in two bites, and order another round. Their name has nothing to do with being bitter — it’s from the old Dutch word bittertje, an aperitif served at pre-dinner hour. The name stuck long after jenever stopped being the drink of choice.
👉 Read the full story
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