Looking up

Today was a day spent archive hopping, which is essentially one of my favourite kinds of days. I wanted to find a few family history answers, and wasn't sure where to start, so went to the closest option - the Amsterdam City Archives. 

They were not, what you might call, impressed by me coming in to ask questions about people who did not live in Amsterdam. But they were also not interested in why I had come to them knowing they might not actually have the answers. Incidentally, I did also spend quite a part of my day getting that very Dutch eye roll that goes along with (I assume) the thought 'good grief, just get to the point, I do not need any of this backstory, just ask your question'. 

Next up, was another archive along the road that has a database of members of the Dutch Resistance. The family story says that today's person of interest was a member, and I'd love to corroborate that. Of course, the names of resistance officers weren't usually recorded, or records were lost, or people used aliases, so I wasn't that surprised to discover she did not appear in the database.

So I went out to Haarlem to visit the Nord-Holland Archief, with the hope of finding a few other answers. And I hit the jackpot. The archives are in a 14th century church, which I can imagine is probably deeply impractical for climate control in seasonal extremes, but they do make a beautiful space. The very helpful archivist gave me far more of his time than necessary (although, admittedly, I do exactly the same when I'm helping people find things in our archives), and translated a police document for me that I'd found previously, but not been able to work out. And there was the person I've been trying to find any life details about, with a date of birth, a residence, a profession and various other bits and pieces. He also pointed me to some other organisations and websites to follow up on. Finally, he found the book published on 'historic families' of the specific town, which includes a full genealogical rundown of my father's family (including, disconcertingly, me). I've finally learned where our surname (probably) comes from, both geographically and linguistically. It's been quite the afternoon.

To finish it off, I went for a short wander as dusk was falling. How often to you look directly up from underneath a church chandelier?