Genealogy
I want to provide as many information as possible for genealogists, who are looking for people living in the South Holland village ‘s-Gravendeel between 1593-1811. Since the books of baptism and marriage were destroyed, I tried to reconstruct the families. You will also find information about my own familytree: the Soeteman or Zoeteman family. My great-great-great-and so on-grandfather lived round 1600 in Rijsoord, near Ridderkerk, near Rotterdam.
Thesis
I defended my thesis on February 10, 2011. My dissertation focuses on the questions of how many students were studying in Leiden in the period between the foundation of the university in 1575 and 1812, and what their background was. What were the consequences of the arrival of students for the urban society? The main source to answer these questions is the album studiosorum. I scanned and OCR-ed the printed version of the Leiden album studiosorum. Other sources for my thesis were the proceedings of the academic tribunal, administrative regulations of the university, moralistic writings and many personal documents. My dissertation is written in Dutch, with an English summary of 5 pages.