? Pannebakker = Dutch "Tile Baker"
For many years I was a friend of an older lady, a widow, whose late husband was named Pannebakker. They were both originally from Holland (around Amsterdam or Haarlem, I believe) but spent the WW II years in London during the blitz. My friend was b. 1909 and d. 1986; her husband was older than her, prob. born < 1900 and d. ca 1954/5 in London.
My friend told me "Pannebakker" was Dutch for "tile baker" a person who baked roofing tiles in an oven prior to placing them on the roof. Approximate pronunciation is "PAN-ah-back-er" in Dutch. This occupational trade name would have been taken some time between 1250 and 1400 when people throughout Europe were compelled to adopt some kind of last name for (what else ?) keeping better tax records.
Over the years the anglicized form of the name often became Pennybaker, Pennypacker (rhymes with the original "bakker") or something similar.
FOr those of you are like to delve into these things, try looking at:
If you have a place of birth, you could post a question in - news.soc.genealogy.benelux -
NOTE: Holland is NOT the same as the Netherlands. Holland was a Province (County). Today we have Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland as a province. The surname Holland also exists in the Netherlands (and other countries).
Nederlandse Genealogische Vereniging - Postbus 976, NL-1000 AZ, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dutch telephone directory - http://www.detelefoongids.comhttp://www.detelefoongids.com - Search the last name (= naam) and the town (= woonplaats). Random searches for the whole country are NOT possible.
Write a letter to the Municipal Archive, asking them for a copy of the relevant pages in the "bevokingsregister" (population register), then you will hopefully get a copy from that register, showing exactly when these people went to the US. You will also get the name of your grandfather, if you don't know that name. (cost is US $10.00)
Population registers will give you dates and places of birth and death. Birth dates should be checked very closely in the Civil Registry - there are many errors !
Family History Centre "Mormon Church", see - http://www.familysearch.comhttp://www.familysearch.com -, then you can order microfilmed tapes of the Dutch Civil Registry (1811 - about 1900). Write to the appropriate archive (usually the State Archive of the province where your ancestors lived, but larger cities have their own Municipal Archive) and ask them (most people in the Netherlands understand English) for the copies. If you don't know the exact dates and so on, they will charge you a lookup fee on top of the fees for copying. In that case you might be better off hiring a professional researcher, if you cannot find a volunteer in the Netherlands to do this for you.
Dutch Connections - http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/evim/index.htmlhttp://utopia.knoware.nl/users/evim/index.html -
Access to nearly 200 genealogical sites in Holland, the Benelux, etc.
Dutch Families - http://www.familysearch.org/sg/WLDutch.htmlhttp://www.familysearch.org/sg/WLDutch.html - from FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY, 35 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah USA 84150-3400. This list contains Dutch words with their English translations. The words included here are those that you are likely to find in genealogical sources.
Dutch is a Germanic language derived from Old Saxon. Many of the words resemble German and English words. Latin also sometimes appears in older Dutch records. For a time, Dutch records were written in French. Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium, the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean, and Surinam.
Dutch is found in some early records of the United States (mostly in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Iowa) and in South Africa, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Taiwan.
Frisian, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland, Flemish, spoken in Belgium, and Africaans, spoken in South Africa, are all different languages that are derived from or similar to Dutch.
The prefix 't is the Dutch word “het” (= the). The prefix 's is a part of many placenames, meaning “des” (= of the). All prefixes are disregarded in alphabetized lists, except in Flemish records. Documents may use a word (example: “jonger” “younger”), but you will find it in this word list as “jong”. Suffixes such as -je, -tje, -tien, or -ke are often added to words to indicate "little." These suffixes can also indicate the feminine version of a name. Example: “zoontje” means "little" or "young (tje) son (zoon)." The ending -sdr means "daughter of." Plural forms of Dutch words usually add -en or -s to the singular word. Thus boer (farmer) becomes boeren (farmers), and tafel (table or index) becomes tafels (tables or indexes). In Dutch, many words are formed by joining two or more words together. For example, “geboortedag” is a combination of two words, “geboorte” (birth) and “dag” (day). In the Dutch language, the letter combination “ij” is considered a single letter. It has the same value as y, and it is usually alphabetized as if it were a y. Prefixes like “van der”, “de”, or “ter” are not included in alphabetization (Example: ten Brock, van der Graf, 's-Gravenhage).
Try - http://www.familysearch.comhttp://www.familysearch.com - for ancestral information. Type in the NAME you are seeking, and Netherlands as the country.
Some key words when researching Dutch records are:
baptize, baptism, baptized..... dopen, doop, gedoopt
born, birth.................... geboren, geboorte
buried, burial................. begraven, begraaf
(Roman, Eastern) Catholic...... rooms katholiek, oud katholiek
cemetery....................... begraafplaats
census......................... volkstelling, bevolking
certificate of (death, marriage) bewijs van (overlijden, trouwen)
child, children................ kind, kinderen
christening (see “baptism” above)
civil registry................. burgerlijke stand
death (2), died................ overleden, overlijden, gestorven
granddaughter.................. kleindochter
grandfather.................... grootvader
grandmother.................... grootmoeder
grandson ...................... kleinzoon
great-granddaughter............ achterkleindochter
great-grandfather.............. overgrootvader
(second) great-grandfather..... bet-overgrootvader
(third) great-grandfather...... bet-bet-overgrootvader
great-grandson ................ achterkleinzoon
father......................... vader
husband........................ echtgenoot, man
index (table).................. tafel, klapper, fiche
Jewish......................... joods
marriage(s)...... huwelijk(en), trouwen, echt, gehuwden, getrouwd
military....................... militaire, landweer, krijgsmacht
month.......................... maand
mother......................... moeder
name (first/given)............. voornaam, eerste naam
name (family/surname).. achternaam, familienaam, bijnaam, toenaam
named (or- alias, also known as, assumed name, accepted surname)
............................... aangenomen naam
parents........................ ouders
parish......................... parochie, gemeente
Protestant..................... protestant
supplement..................... bijlage
town (2), village.............. stad, gemeente, dorp
wife........................... huisvrouw, vrouw, echtgenote
year........................... jaar
If your ancestors came from Utrecht, contact "Het Utrechts archief" @ e-mail: - [email protected] - They also have a website @ -
http://www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl/http://www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl/ -
The Archives of Delft - http://www.archief.delft.nl/http://www.archief.delft.nl/ - you can search the church books and the civil registry.
The town of Onderdendam ("beneath the dam") is in the Municipality of Bedum, Province of Groningen. Warffum, once an independent municipality, is now in the Municipality of Bedum, Province of Groningen.
For a collection of Dutch first names and their diminutives, try "DUTCH GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH" by Charles M. Franklin. It gives 6 pages of Dutch first names and their translation to English.