20 Years of Genealogy - How it started, how it's going

Early 2022, Paul Chiddicks wrote a blog post named "How it started, How it’s going". He made a reference to a supposed blog post by Kelly Wheaton supposedly called "What Got You Started in Genealogy?", but that post has either been removed, or is not publicly accessible - either in Europe or anywhere. According to Paul, however, it was about how “we” became interested in genealogy, and how “our” genealogical research is going.

My interest in genealogy started with my interest in royals in history, and how they were all related. It wasn't until many years later, that I found out that it was also possible to find my own, humble ancestors who worked the land on an isle named Hoeksche Waard, located south of the city of Rotterdam and west of the city of Dordrecht.
I don't know exactly when I started researching my own ancestors, but the oldest changes in my genealogy file date from January 2003, while the oldest pictures date from February 2003. The oldest post on this blog dates from January 2013. So by now it's 20 years of finding ancestors, and 10 years of blogging about it.

In the early years I got a lot of help. My distant Bos ancestors in the villages of Puttershoek and Numansdorp had already been researched by someone at the local Museum Hoeksche Waard. All I had to do was was fitting in our branche that had moved to Cillaarshoek around 1803. The most distinct features of our Bos family turned out to be the recurrence of the unusual first name Cent over the centuries, and the fact that they'd been living on the same isle since at least 1600.
Luckily my mother's 4 eldest siblings had been named after their grandparents, and I also got help over the Internet with finding them, too. My maternal grandfather's family had been living in a part of Holland that was incorporated into Brabant around 1810. In 1867 my great-grandfather in Capelle, Brabant, was convicted "for playing with and for money on the Public Street". One of his cousins was convicted for drunkenness.
Many of my ancestors in the maternal line had been living in the city of Dordrecht. One of my more interesting ancestors, Arie de Sterke (1796-1892), was also living there. In the archives of Dordrecht I've actually once had the original 17th-century book with baptism records of Zwijndrecht in my hands!

So far I’ve found the most ancestors, 852, in the 13th generation, followed by 842 ancestors in the 12th generation. In the 7th generation I’m missing the first 2 ancestors due to inbreeding among my ancestors: Genis Brand (1857-1930) married his first cousin Jannigje van Houweling (1857-1936). I've always wondered of the large nose and ears of my father, his mother and his grandmother - a daughter of Genis and Jannigje - could have been a result of this cousin marriage.
I may descend from Charlemagne, likely through Gijbert Gijbertsz van Langerak, who lived around 1400, or possibly through triple ancestor Eltke Tonis Joosten (ca1570-1624) who married (1) Huijbert Baeijens Verhaegen and (2) Jan Wouters Mandemaecker.
One of my favourite websites is Delpher.nl, where you can search Dutch historical newspapers and magazines. The website GeneaKnowHow.net features links to genealogical sources in The Netherlands and Belgium. The website of the Dutch national archives, NationaalArchief.nl, has a lot of interesting info, too, but it's sometimes difficult to find.

In recent years it has become harder to find any new ancestors, so I've also been researching ancestors of people related to me, like my cousins Ruth van Valen, Nettie Looij, and Dick Koomans. Recently, I've also started researching my partner's ancestors who lived in the eastern parts of The Netherlands. In those areas the usage of surnames seems to have started later than in Holland, where most of my own ancestors lived, and they have other types of sources, too. Therefore, I became a member of some additional genealogical societies that publish genealogical journals, and transcripts of sources in other Dutch areas than Holland.

Genealogy is an addictive hobby!