Date modified 08 feb 2020

This site is dedicated to the ancestors of Henny van der Harst and Hans van den Bos

Years ago we were invited to attend an exhibition on the Jewish life in Hoogeveen before WWII. Then we realized we hardly knew anything about them and started working on a family research, in the beginning after Henny's Jewish ancestors, later also after our other ancestors.

When investigating your roots, you discover a lot of surprising details. This makes you more curious, and step by step your hobby becomes an addiction. In the beginning you're just interested in your ancestors and the data, but the further back you go, the larger the number of relatives becomes, the more and more your interest in history grows. This interest starts on a local scale, but when the origins spread also the scale grows. This is what happened to us when practising genealogy. Examples are:

The devastating impact of World War II on the Dutch Jewish community. A well known fact but when your own family is involved and when you see how few of them survived, this makes you better aware of what really happened.

The immigration wave from the south in the late 16th and early 17th century, and its effect on knowledge, culture and prosperity, resulting in the Golden Age.

And in general:

The mixed heritage of the people living in the Netherlands. Some came here as mercenary, some as refugee and others just for economical reasons.

The harshness of life in ancient times. Misfortunes like the loss of children and partners at young age were common, irrespective of wealth. Many of my ancestors have lived in moderate to extreme poverty, only a few must have known some kind of wealth. Wealth could turn into poverty easily after losing ones husband. Good education was rare and the practisation of primitive labour at young as well as old age was inevitable to cover the living costs.

You'll find a brief overview on the data we've discovered, first (to be) presented as a brief description of our family history , second as a presentation of our family tree.
If you happen to tie into our family tree, let us know.
We welcome any contribution which can help us improve this site. Send an e-mail to: bosharst@xs4all.nl , it will be appreciated.

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