If, at the very least, the material on this website finds its way into the annals of history collecting dustbytes on cybershelves , where someone fifty years from now might stumble upon Herman, de Jongs, the van der Laans, Elizabeth or the Brouwers, I will be happy.

I think we owe it to ourselves and our ancestors to take note of them and set down their particulars, just as church and town clerks have been doing for the last five hundred years (but no more). Notations of births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials have been a valuable resource for reconstructing the framework of their earthly lives in times so different from our own. Even fifty years ago the genealogy sleuths, like Henk Bousema and Pieta Brinkert would have to visit place upon place to root these out.

But now, even if some library would accept my printed archives, who would think to go there or seek to find? And, with the digital age well underway, why would I keep these resources in a box, like my dad did. Even he had a hard drive.

So now already, while I carry my small cell phone with me, all the stuff that I’ve been labouring over for months is always at hand and magically indexed for casual reading and reference whenever I want and wherever I go. And if the generations after me are to be endlessly scrolling through their phones, why not get in their face and command their attention with mobile content?

I’ve been making websites since 2002 — always with beautiful desktop layouts in mind. But this time round I have conceded defeat and designed for mobiles first. There’s still a three bar menu for the curious and the fleet-fingered, but most people feel overwhelmed by long menus, so a single drop down list at the top of each page is my way to go.

Hitchhiker’s Guide

Even so, there may be too much information for faint-of-heart, attention-lacking multi-taskers, and many will not know where to start. So I have committed to maintaining a Hitchhiker’s Guide to Middledom. I will drive through the landscape and take note of interesting things and then pickup hitchhikers every week, do a drive-by and drop people off if and when they see anything interesting.

The only way I can do this is by email. So you’ll have to subscribe if you want to come along for the ride. I’ve laid out this option on the Subscribe page. Subscription is open to everyone; family, friend, community and historically minded alike.

Don’t look for a cozy gathering of family members here — you can get that in your Facebook and WhatsApp groups and friend networks. In fact, everything on this website can be effectively shared on social media, among people far outside of the subscribers group, so do share whatever catches your fancy and whatever might catch new subscribers. But I do have a limit of 500 for my freebie Mail Poet platform.

Content

I’m publishing whatever I have here. That’s a lot, and a lot of it is still waiting, especially the translations. So far, everything I have comes from my family, but between Wendy and Henry that covers a lot of territory. I am open to other sources too, but I’d prefer to stick with my Dutch roots — culture sensitive stories and pre-seventies history.

A good deal of what I have is in Dutch. I would like to make this available too (and first) so that readers in the Netherlands also have easy access. But the idea is that everything Dutch will also be translated. Between my Dutch and DeepL, and perhaps some generous cooperation, I think that can be achieved.

As much as I hope Middledom to be entertaining and informative, I am conscious of its historical worth, so I welcome corrections, additions and comments. You can visit the Comments page for a further invitation and guidelines for contributing.

I look forward to riding with you down the Middledom Road. I can’t promise you the universe, but the local places you’ll see all offer a hint of what lies beyond.

Henry J. de Jong