Flevoland, The Netherlands Genealogy

Guide to Flevoland Province ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

History
After a flood in 1916, it was decided that the Zuiderzee, an inland sea within the Netherlands, would be enclosed and reclaimed. The Zuiderzee was subsequently called IJsselmeer, the lake at the end of the river IJssel. There was an important change in post-war projects from the earlier Noordoostpolder reclamation: a narrow body of water was preserved along the old coast to stabilise the water table and to prevent coastal towns from losing their access to the sea. Flevopolder then became an artificial island joined to the mainland by bridges. The municipalities on the three parts voted to become a separate province, which happened in 1986. 

Province Information

 * Urk and Emmeloord were historically islands, with distinct cultures and dialects.
 * On 1 January 1986 the Netherlands officially added, after more than one hundred years, a new province: Flevoland. The crowning of the immense project to drain large parts of the IJsselmeer. After the Noordoostpolder and Eastern Flevoland, Southern Flevoland also dried up in 1968. The three polders all belong to the new province. The Romans gave the name Flevo to the inland sea that, after the Afsluitdijk was build, is now the IJsselmeer.
 * It borders on Friesland and Overijssel in the east, Gelderland and Utrecht in the south, Noord-Holland and the IJsselmeer in the west and the IJsselmeer in the north.
 * You can find the Geographical and Historical information on Flevoland here: Flevoland
 * A little bit more about its origin is here: Zuider Zee
 * The capital city of Flevoland is Lelystad, see: Lelystad
 * Flevoland doesn’t have a long history, so it doesn’t have a long history of emigration either. When the dike turned the sea into a lake, many fishermen around the new IJsselmeer lost their jobs. Many of them left the region to find a new life. Quite a few went to Twente and the neighboring German area where there was plenty of work to be found in the textiles factories.



Websites

 * New Land Heritage Center, genealogical records for Urk and Schokland.
 * WieWasWie, civil registration and church records
 * at FamilySearch — index