Dorenbos/Hoogeveen/Leur
Dorenbos Hoogeveen Leur
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Search Tips
The Dorenbos and Hoogeveen Family
Databases are simple text databases with no “intelligent search”
capability. To perform a search in it you need to provide the intelligence. This page can help you get started.
Activate Page Search Box
To search this database you need to
use your browser’s “Find on Page” text-search feature (this is not your
Internet search engine, say, Google, Yahoo, ...). The page search box is opened by clicking (or
tapping) as follows:
Internet Explorer: (Tools Icon) ->
File -> ”Find on this page”-> search box at upper left
Safari (Win): (“Menu for the current
page” Icon) -> Find -> search box at upper right
Safari (Mac): (Apple Icon) -> Edit
-> Find -> Find -> search box at upper right
Safari (iPad): Search -> main search
box -> “On this Page” at bottom of drop-down suggestion list -> search
box above virtual keyboard or at lower right
Chrome: (“Customize and control” Icon)
-> Find -> search box at upper right
Firefox: Edit -> Find -> search
box at lower left
All these browsers have convenient
“next” and “previous” navigation symbols, and all except the iPad will skip to
the next hit when you press the “Enter” key.
Search Strategies
The Dorenbos Family Database contains
more than 6,000 primary (Dorenbos) names, and the Hoogeveen Family Database,
more that twice that. All entries have
the same surname (family name) and few have unique given names. Your best bet is to review everything that
you know about the relative you are seeking, and search for any one of
the following data items (without quotes):
Given
name, if uncommon
Spouse’s
surname
Spouse’s
given name, if uncommon
Spouse’s
given name and surname together (see caveats, below)
Birth
year – search for “(9999-“ (also try the
birth year +/- 1)
Death
year – search for “-9999)”
Marriage
year – search for “(9999)”
In your initial try, pick an above
item for which you have data and that you estimate will bring the fewest search
results to analyze. Often your target will
come up quickly and you don’t have to look any further.
Once you get a result with a
manageable number of hits, step through those hits looking for one that also
matches the rest of your criteria, including other known relatives in the
neighborhood of the hit. If none of them
looks right to you, repeat this process with alternative spellings or other
criteria in the list above. Take into
account the fact that some of my data as well as yours may be flawed, so be
ready for occasional conflicts.
If you still haven’t found a
satisfactory hit, use the same process to search for other known relatives with
the same surname. Once one of them is
found, the original object of your search should be located nearby in the tree.
Caveats & Tricks while Searching
1.
Spelling is a perpetual problem with names. Errors are endemic in the data sources used
for this database, and further errors accrue during indexing (and, I must add,
during construction of this database).
Be sure to try all known spelling variants of your search names, even if
you are sure you have the “correct” one.
Use partial names where practical, such as “Marg” for Margarita,
Margrita, Margriet, etc., “beth” for Elisabeth, Elizabeth, Lijsbeth, etc., and
“ornel” for Cornelis, Cornellis, Kornelis, Cornelius, etc., to avoid some
common spelling problems.
2.
A search for multiple names, say “Maria Kuiper” may fail because of
intervening names or characters in the database. An alternate name, a middle name, or
patronymic might have been inserted, like “Maria (Marijke) Kuiper” or “Maria
Jacobs Kuiper”. Also, a surname might
appear in parentheses, which indicates a patronymic conversion. This is done to alert the reader that sometimes
this person’s name is documented in patronymic form, i.e., without the surname,
in case the reader intends to do further research on him/her. There’s no easy way to work around these
problems except to search for “Kuiper” and then step through all the results
looking for “Maria” and other relevant data as described above, if the combined
name doesn’t work.
3.
Also think hard about your search terms to reduce spurious hits. For instance “van Dijk” might be better than
just “Dijk”, and “ Hoff“ (note the space) eliminates names like “Noordhoff” if
you want just Hoff. “Hoff “ would
probably work well to avoid “Hoffman”, for instance, but it is possible to miss
your target if the name happens to appear at the end of a line (no space). Still, it never hurts to try all these
different ways. There is no one formula
that works well for every situation.
4.
Not every detail is known for every entry in the database. If you get no hits with one of your search
criteria—say, birth year—it does not mean that the object of your search is not
there; it’s just that his birth year might happen to be unknown (or
wrong). Keep trying, using whatever
other search criteria you have.
5.
If, after trying all these options, you still haven’t found your relative, report your case to me along with all relevant
information you have and I will help you find him/her. If this person has the name Dorenbos, Hoogeveen,
or Leur, and lived in the Netherlands, then he/she either is in this database or should
be in it.
© 2016 Annelies J. Schlitt The use of any material
derived from this website for commercial purposes without permission is
strictly forbidden.