Many people of Dutch origin have an Indo-European family history, due, or example, to the fact that their ancestors worked in the Dutch colony and started a family there. Researching that Asian past is often a challenging task. Administrative trails are often absent, and frequently sources have either not been saved or are difficult to access. Furthermore, you need to have a certain amount of knowledge about the European presence in ‘the East’ and about social relations in Indo-European society.

Nonetheless, there is still much material to be found. In this introduction to the research into your Indo-European family tree a number of steps have been given that you can follow to carry out your research methodically. . The historical and societal background of the relationships between Europe and Asia will be comprehensively addressed.

Dutch presence in the Dutch East Indies

Family relationships have existed between people from the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies since about 1600. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century roughly one million people in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) travelled to Asia. Approximately half of them came from abroad. The rest, roughly half a million, were men and a couple of thousand women of Dutch origin. Many of them would never set foot on their native soil again. They died at sea or settled in the Dutch East Indies.

When Indonesia became a colony of the Netherlands in 1816, the number of Europeans that lived there remained stable for a long time. The majority of them worked in the service of the government, as civil servants or in the Dutch East-Indian army. The proportion of Europeans in a non-governmental position increased after the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the government adopted laws that gave free rein to private industry. As a result, many agricultural and mining enterprises and trading companies established themselves in the Dutch East Indies, especially on Java.

Most Indo-Europeans of Dutch origin who lived in the Dutch East Indies at the time of the Japanese occupation (1942-1945) are therefore (in the male line) descendants of Europeans who had settled in Asia after 1870. However, long before then, from the 16th century, a European-Asiatic mix of cultures existed, often originating in the female line.

This dossier deals with European families, mainly from the Netherlands, but also from the German-language countries and Scandinavia, who settled in the East and entered into relationships with Asian women.

The colonial order

Firstly, before we go any further, a couple of remarks schould be made about the colonial state that the Dutch East Indies were, and the sharp lines of demarcation in society between on the one hand a small group of privileged Europeans and those who were designated as their equals, and on the other hand ‘natives’ (in the language of the day) and ‘foreign Easterners’ (Chinese and Arabs, among others), that made up the vast majority of the population. Where the first were subject to European law, the Asians were under the authority of their ‘indigenous’ chieftains and thus had their own legal system.

The answer to the question as to who belonged to the first, privileged group, is not as easy as you might think. Simply said, someone was legally a European if his father was, and if they were born within wedlock, or were legally recognized by their biological father or another European man. This was a very large group. In addition, Asian wives of European men were also considered European, as well as Jews and African soldiers in the employ of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL), the so-called belanda hitam.

From a legal viewpoint there was no difference between white Europeans (‘totoks’) and Indo-Europeans, that is to say people of mixed European-Asian descent who were also considered to be part of the European population. In practice the chances of ‘Indos’, as the latter were called, to climb the social ladder were limited. Furthermore, in the course of the nineteenth century their position seems to have been weakened, although there were enough Indo-European men who were able to gain good positions.

One good example of this was Christiaan George Burgemeestre. He lived from 1812 to 1895 and both his grandmothers were Asian women. He started of as a civil servant and moved on to become secretary to the board of orphanages in Batavia. As such, he earned 700 Dutch guilders per month. In comparison: an assistant resident and a legal clerk had to make do with 100 guilders per month less.

The inequality between Europeans and non-Europeans created important societal demarcation lines, and also has major consequences for genealogical research. For example, only Europeans were included In the  civil registry of the Dutch East Indies that was introduced in October 1828. This means that births and deaths of within the Asian population were initially not recorded. As of 1919, Chinese people were included, Indonesians a few years later.

Enquire within your (greater) family

The first step in the search for your Indo-European family history is no different from any other: start your research close to home, with your parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Ask them what they know about the family. Ask for (full) names, occupations, careers, dwelling places and family anecdotes. If you interview them, refrain from asking suggestive questions. Take notes as much as possible, but take into account that what you hear might be based on memories that are often faded. Always check the information the family has given you later, when you continue your research in the archives.

It is also important to ask for photos and documents. If you are lucky, old boxes or ring binders that are hidden in a cupboard or attic contain interesting papers. Extracts from registers of the Indonesian civil registry for example, or decisions on appointments, certificates of ownership, personal documents, letters or postcards, or an old 'Asal Oesoel' – a proof of descent that Europeans were obliged to have drawn up during the Japanese occupation in order to establish the percentage of European or Asian blood they had in them. If in the eyes of the Japanese they had enough Asian forebears, they would not be sent to a prison camp’. For example, if you had a Javanese mother, chances were that you would be able to stay out of the camps.

Find out what has been written about your family

You can save yourself a lot of work by checking if anything has been published before about your family. Start with the CBG Genealogical Directory. It contains references to books or articles in which a minimum of three generations of a family are described. The Directory is up to date until 2015. You will find the result by typing in a family name in our library database CBG Bibliotheek.

In addition you may consult Janssen’s Indisch Repertorium, an index of family names that appear in printed genealogical and related publications about the Dutch East and West Indies. Janssen's Indisch Repertorium currently contains more than 278 thousand references to 65 thousand family names. The Directory is part of the website of the Indische Genealogische Vereniging (Indo-European Genealogical Association).

Also, do not forget Google in your research. You can find a lot of published family histories online, and, who knows, maybe also about your own family.

Please be aware that in many online publications sources are not included. So never just take data at face value, always check them against the official sources.

Send in a request for personal record cards

Now is the moment to start your with research in the archives. starting with the period around the family’s departure from the East Indies.

Suppose your grandmother was born in the Dutch East Indies but died in the Netherlands, then you can begin by sending in a request for her personal record card to the CBG|Center for family history. These and the personal record lists from the Nationaal Register Overledenen (National Register of Deaths) provide information about persons who have died in the Netherlands after 1939. They do not only contain all the data about the deceased, but also state the names of their parents, and somethimes when and where exactly in the Dutch East Indies they were born. That could well have been in Batavia, Surabaya, Bandung or Semarang – in 1930 more than one third of all Europeans lived in one of these towns or cities.

Get to know all you can about the war years and repatriation

Dutch Indo-Europeans who went to live in the Netherlands after the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlans to Indonesia in 1949 had been through some very tumultuous times. Various sources and databases at the CBG and the National Archives can help you gain some insight into the consequences that the last days of the colonial society had on the lives of your family, and into the traumas that many people suffered during that period.

Internment cards

The National Archives have an online database with Japanse interneringskaarten (Japanese internment cards) of Dutch prisoners of war covering the period 1942-1945. These can be searched by name, and you can see scans of the cards online. The data that you can find on the cards include military rank and occupation , place of imprisonment, any illnesses suffered and the handover to the allied authorities after the war.

Red Cross war archives

The Red Cross war archives contain documents about the war in Asia with regard to 1.5 million people. The material consists, among other things, of camp administrations (a cartographic library), deportation lists and repatriation lists (boat lists). The post-war Search process for missing persons is documented in various dossiers. The archives are lodged with the National Archives in The Hague.

Old Passport Archive

The Old Passport Achive contains roughly 150,000 requests from the Indo-Europeans for Dutch passports. It covers the period 1950-1959. In order to obtain a passport, the applicant had to establish that they had the Dutch nationality and supply records of antecedents back to at least 1892 (the year in which the Netherlands Nationality Act came into force). The applications consist of a pre-printed card with information about the applicant and an attached passport photo or group photo. Included on the card are the date and place of birth, nationality, the applicant’s occupation, spouse and children (if any) and parents. The card also includes a description of the applicant and the reason for the request.

The application cards are published online; you can search the index by typing in the family name. On the basis of Dutch privacy laws, a scan of the front of the card will only be shown if all the persons mentioned have died. The back of the card will not be shown.

Option statements

After Indonesia’s independence more than thirty thousand Dutch people chose Indonesian citizenship. To be able to do so, they had to provide a so-called ‘option statement’ before the end of 1951. Most of them regretted their decision and wanted to return to the Netherlands after all. These so-called spijtoptanten were given the opportunity to do so in the 1960s, when the Dutch government’s admission policy became less strict.

Lists of option statements were published in the Indonesian Official Gazette. The CBG has photocopies of these lists, that containfamily names and first names of the persons in question, their place and date of birth, and the place and date where the statement was drawn up. The option statements are the property of the Ministry of Justice, but are lodged with the CBG. They also contain details of the parents and their spouses and (minor) children, if any.. Both the lists and the statements are not publicly accessible, but the under certain conditions the CBG may provide information stated on them. If you wish to do so, please send an email to service@cbg.nl.

Moluccans to the Netherlands

When you are looking for Moluccan family members who came to the Netherlands in 1951, you may start your research by consulting the database Molukkers naar Nederland (Moluccans to the Netherlands) at the National Archives. This contains the personal data of more than twelve thousand Moluccan servicemen and their family members who arrived in the Netherlands on board twelve ships. The database can be searched by name. Information that you can come across includes full names, birth data, (the man’s) army number and rank, their place within the family (on arrival), the mode of transport by which they travelled (including the ship’s name) and a passport photo (if provided).

Knowledge Center Repatriation

The Indonesian Memorial Center is currently working on the website Knowledge Center Repatriation. The aim is to provide access at one central location to all passenger lists of Dutch Indo-Europeans who left for the Netherlands, so that an accessible search engine is created. The Knowledge Center Repatriation is not yet online; you can find information on the website of Indisch Herinneringscentrum (Indonesian Memorial Center). This center works in collaboration with Herman van Oosten, on whose website you can find lists of ships and passenger lists from the period 1945-1964. Currently, not all the information he has gathered about private citizens and military personnel who were transferred from the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea and Australia to the Netherlands is available online.

Equality, applicability and naturalizations

The database relating to the Gelijkstellingen, toepasselijkverklaringen en naturalisaties Nederlands-Indië en Indonesië (Equality, Applicability and Naturalizations Dutch East Indies and Indonesia) contains data that relates to persons who, from 1870 onwards, were declared equal to Europeans in the Dutch East Indies. Included in this are the person's family and given names and place of abode. On occasion the date of birth is also noted in the decision.

Furthermore, the website contains data relating to more than twenty thousand persons from the Dutch East Indies who after 1984 were granted Dutch citizenship. You can find their date and place of birth, occupation and place of abode, generally also the reason for their naturalization, and in some instances even a brief biography.

Search in Indo-European basic data sources

The first steps in the research into your Indo-European forebears are relatively simple. You can quickly get hold of the data that will bring you back to the Dutch East Indies. Once there, your research will, for all manner of reasons, be less simple.

Identity card for the Dutch East Indies repatriated persons issued by the Central Bureau for the Care of Victims of War (C.B.V.O.), in this case in the name of Mrs Hendrika Hillegonda Botter-Gräber, born in Amsterdam. Last address in the Dutch East Indies was 'v. Bosschestr. 23. Padang'. Repatriated by 'Kota Inten'. The identity card was issued at sea on 13 May 1946. Also noted on the card is the amount of benefits paid to her and the clothing issued. Museon via Europeana.

The legal inequality between Europeans and non-Europeans not only created major societal demarcation lines, but also had considerable genealogical consequences. You will see this immediately when you want to carry out research into the civil registry of the Dutch East Indies. This was introduced in October 1828, but only for Europeans. If during your research you come across by what in the everyday language of the time was called ‘een inlandse vrouw’ (a nativewoman), then things become more complicated.

The personal record card of the Javanese woman Lamira, who died in The Hague in 1959, states only that she was born in Surabaya ‘about March 1853’ . The names of her parents are not mentioned; she herself only used a given name. This will complicate the research into her family history. But do not give up too easily: there might be names, families, and/or place of origin to be found in the oral history, certainly from the female line.. Also, mitochondrial DNA-analysis (via the maternal line) might provide a rough indication (seethe DNA page). And sometimes there are certificates of baptism and/or marriage to be found in which Javanese parents are mentioned.

There is just one more problem relating to the civil registry of the Dutch East Indies the original registers are not kept in the Netherlands, but in Indonesia. Fortunately that does not mean that there is no ‘primary data’ (basic data) to be found about births, marriages and deaths. What we do have here in the Netherlands are documents from the civil registry from a variety of sources. There is quite an amount of information to be discovered by combining data from different sources, such as almanacs, lists of names and address books, church records (BMD registers) and advertisements.

Records of births, marriages and deaths

Notifications from the civil registry in the Dutch East Indies were published in various official almanacs, lists of names and address books that are often jointly categorized as 'Indische Almanak'. In this Almanac, which was published annually between 1815 and 1942, you will find, among other things, the names and positions of persons who held a social position in the colony. Changes in the civil registry were also included annually .

The use of records from the  civil registry in the Indo-European almanacs certainly comes with some issues:

1. The data from the civil registry in the Indo-European Almanac are less extensive than the original certificates. For example, parents’ names are not recorded. In addition, the dates recorded do not always correspond with the date on which the birth or death occurred, but are dates on which these events were registered. Furthermore it is possible that, particularly in the early almanacs, the date of baptism was recorded rather than the date of birth.
2. The records included in the Almanacs are not complete. Records can be missing because registrars either failed to send them in on time to the compilers of the almanacs / lists of names / address books, or simply did not send them at all. Sometimes the records relating to the last quarter of a year are missing, because, in the haste to have a publication ready for printing, the compilers forgot to include them.
3. The place of a birth, marriage or death was sometime incorrect. The records in the almanacs, lists of names and address books are listed by residency and department. The  register were kept in the main towns of the residencies and departments. As a result, the places in the Almanac often relate to the registration, not the occurrence. That is sometimes apparent when you request a personal record card or details from the Old Passport Archive. You are then given a place of birth that differs from what is entered in the record of the civil registry.
4. Not every (male) European was included in the list of inhabitants. The address books contain an overview of European inhabitants (men, widows and some unmarried women) of the Dutch East Indies, arranged alphabetically by family name. If, for example you find in the 1880 name list the birth of a child with the family name A in Padang, it is tempting to look if the list of inhabitants of Padang includes someone with the family name A, and, if that is the case, to consider that person to be the father of the child in question. You must be very careful about this, in view of the fact that the lists of inhabitants are incomplete. Military personnel, for exampel, were as a rule not included in these lists.

Nonetheless, the records of the civil registry can be very helpful. For example, you can sometimes find a complete family quite easily when time a father officially recognized all his children at the same and reported this fact to the civil registry. You then know that they all belong to the same family – but not yet who the father was. When by other means you find out the name of father of one of the children, you can assume with quite a high degree of certainty that the other recognized children were also his . However, there is a possibility they had different mothers.

The CBG|Center for family history has published the Indo-European Almanac on a double DVD under the title Regerings-Almanak van Nederlandsch-Indië 1815-1942. Unfortunately it is currently not available for consultation at the CBG, although it is at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in The Hague. Parts of the Almanac can be consulted online.

Roosje Roos

Via the website Roosje Roos you can search by name for registrations of births, marriages and deaths from the Indo-European almanacs, address books and name lists up to 1923. For the period after 1923 there are indexes of and data from the civil registry from various towns and cities. The birth certificates are still unavailable because they are less than 100 years old. If you wish to research your Indo-European family history, it is certainly worth visiting the website.

FamilySearch

In the 1980s the Mormons filmed the records of the civil registry from the colonial era in the Arsip Nasional in Jakarta. You can request copies of these films via the catalogue of FamilySearch, and then view them in one of the Mormons’ Family History Centers. When searching, make sure that you type in the modern place names. Currently, FamilySearch (in collaboration with, among others, the Indische Genealogische Vereniging) is working on the digitazation of the civil registry of the Dutch East Indies.

Family ads

You can also find data on births, marriages and deaths in the CBG’s collection of family ads . You can search by name in CBG Verzamelingen . Announcements of births, marriages and deaths in the Dutch East Indies were also sometimes published in Dutch newspapers. Via Delpher, the digital newspaper archive of the Royal Library, you can also search in various Indo-European newspapers such as the Bataviaasch Handelsblad, the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad and theJava-bode.

Chinese roots

Many Dutch East Indian families have Chinese origins. Research into these forebears is not always easy, but it is not impossible either.

Ever since the eighteenth century, there were large and prosperous Chinese communities in South East Asia. However, in many countries the ethnic Chinese population was discriminated against. Many Chinese therefore fled to the Netherlands. A large proportion of them were from the province that is now known as Fujian, where Hokkian was spoken. Their names were recordedphonetically according to the Hokkian pronunciation (which is different from present-day Beijing Chinese).

When a new system of population administration was set up during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1943-1945), the Chinese characters of names were also registered. Until that time the more or less autonomous Chinese communities kept records of their births, marriages, divorces, funerals, judicial and tax matters themselves. In 75 towns on Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Bali the aforementioned Mormons have had microfilms made of the Chinese BMD registers and lists of name changes between 1919-1945. These can be viewed in one of the Family History Centers.

The archive of the former Chinese Council of Batavia (the Kong Koan) contains different demographic, economic, judicial and other data relating to the Chinese community in Batavia from the 18th to the 20th century. It contains documents and registrations of board meetings of the Kong Koan, marriages and divorces, deaths, wills and funerals, ‘permits to reside in the Dutch East Indies’, and financial matters, among other things. Many certificates are in Chinese, but there is also quite a large number drawn up in Dutch. The archive can be consulted via the website of the Leiden University Library.

The further you go back, the more complicated it becomes. The colonial registration of the Chinese was not complete. For example, in the archives of the Dutch East India Company sometimes mention relationships or marriages between Dutch men and Chinese women, but their place of origin was not registered. The Government Almanac up to 1919 only contains records of Chinese who were declared equal to Europeans. This was relatively rare and in practice only requested by notables from the established families. If you are searching for the birthplace of a Chinese-Indian ancestor prior to 1919, you will therefore be dependent on family documents.

Research into civil servants and soldiers

When you are carrying out research into your forebears, do not just make do with the ‘primary’ genealogical data; names, dates and places. You will want to know what these people did in their lives. Because almost all Indo-Europeans were in the service of the government, there is often information to be found about their situation.

Civil servants

The Indo-Europeans formed the backbone of the colonial system. They had jobs in the service of the government as office clerks, supervisors, non-commissioned officers, warehouse managers, and all manner of other things. Only a small minority was employed outside the government sector, as employees of trading companies, small shopkeepers, in mining companies, railway companies, and the like.

Thanks to the government registers it is often possible to follow the careers of Europeans in government service from the beginning to the end, to discover how much they were paid, and whether there was anything remarkable about their behaviour. You can consult these so-called ‘stamboeken’ for civil servants and government navy online on the website of the National Archives.

Soldiers

The muster books of the soldiers of the Dutch East Indian army are also kept at the National Archives. As the civil service, the army was an important employer for Europeans. They held the position of both officers and the majority of the non-commissioned officers. Between 1815 and 1991 no fewer than 150 thousand soldiers travelled from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies; until 1895 they constituted more than half of all the European men in the colony. They lived – generally unmarried – with an Asian woman in the residential quarters of the military encampments (tangsis), which were situated mostly in or near to the large towns. Most Indo-Europeans are descended from children that were born out of these relationships. The muster books are also accessible via the website of the National Archives.

Muster books contain details of a soldier’s entering the service, transfers, promotions, battles fought, injuries, decorations and one of the three ways in which his service ended: honourable discharge, pension or death. Places where the soldier was garrisoned are not recorded. In addition you may find a number of personal details, such as the soldier’s date and place of birth and the names of his parents. Names of wives and/or children are mentioned only very occasionally.

There are still other sources from which you can learn more about the official and military life of your forebears. The aforementioned Government Almanacs and address books often mention appointment dates. Furthermore, the CBG has a collection of pensioenkaarten (pension cards) of civil servants and military personnel who were in active government service on 1 July 1898. In addition to the personal details of both the person in question and any family he might have, the pension cards provide information about his career: appointments, salary, year of retirement, pension. This research cannot be carried out independently, but for a fee the CBG can do it for you.

Forebears in the time of the VOC

As stated above, most of the Europeans that lived in the Dutch East-Indies in 1941 were directly descended from men who had settled in the colony after 1870. In addition, we can identify a group of families that had lived in the archipelago since 1816 (the restoration of Dutch authority). An even smaller group of families had already planted their roots there before 1795, such as the families Senn van Basel, Barkeij, Burgemeestere, Dezentje, Fransz, Voll. If you have these ‘old East Indian families’ in your family tree, there is plenty of research for you to do. Your research will land you in the archives of the Dutch East-India Company (VOC), with the details of seafarers, artisans for the VOC establishments, soldiers, junior merchants, ministers, barber/surgeons, comforters of the sick, and many others.

On the website of the National Archives you will find several large databases that are of major genealogical importance. In the database VOC-opvarenden of the passengers and crew on board VOC ships you can find data from the VOC salary administration (the ships’ pay ledgers). In the database, which can be searched by name, you will find almost exclusively VOC personnel from the eighteenth century. By far the largest part of the older ships’ pay ledgers has been lost forever.

Another series in the VOC archive that is of interest to genealogists is that of the ‘Generale land- en zeemonsterrollen’ or General register of names of men signed on for land and sea service (1691-1791). This is an annual written statement of the entire land and sea personnel in the Dutch East Indies. The name of every man in service is recorded. All the establishments in Asia, but also the Cape, sent their register on to Batavia. These were then rewritten into a single general roll of service, which was retained as a so-called 'sleeper' in the VOC archive in Batavia. Six copies were made of this sleeper; these were intended for the six Chambers in the Republic. Only the rolls for the Chambers of Zeeland and Amsterdam were saved.

In addition, there are the rolls of the on-board qualified civil and military personnel. Every year all the VOC establishments in Asia sent details of the company servants (from the rank of ‘young assistant’ to sergeant) to Batavia. There they were rewritten to form two separate statements and sent to the Chambers in the Republic. Again, only the rolls of the Chambers of Zeeland and Amsterdam were saved.

Lodged in the VOC archive in The Hague there is another important series for genealogists, namely eleven thousand bindings with testaments from the period 1698-1807. These ‘East Indian testaments’ can be searched by name via an online database.

The largest collection of VOC archives is not kept in The Hague but in the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia in Jakarta. Of prime importance is the archive of Batavia Castle, the Company’s headquarters (within the fortress walls of which was, among other things, the residency of the governor-general). Part of this very important archive is now available online. Also of importance are the archives of the civil colleges of the council of Batavia. These bodies were not independent, but fell under the authority of the VOC. The archives tell us a great deal not only about the institutions, but also about the inhabitants of the city. The dossiers of the schepenbank (aldermen) and the weeskamer (board of orphanages) (1622-1885) in particular can offer a treasure trove of genealogical information. These archives have not yet been digitized, whilst other important collections, such as a large series of diplomatic letters diplomatic letters to Batavia, are already online available.