Other Sources

The Bibliography lists the sources chronologically, by default. The oldest documents on the first couple of pages have most of the sources used on this web. Other helpful archives inventoried by the Gemeentearchief:

in addition, there are relevant documents in the archives of nearby cities:

  • Pijnacker
  • den Haag, both municipal and national
  • Rotterdam

The most helpful source is a long article in Dutch, (Van) Leeuwenhoek by E.W. van den Burg and G.J. Leeuwenhoek. It is the result of an exhaustive search of the city archives of Delft, Rotterdam, and Den Haag. They reference hundreds of documents mentioning Leeuwenhoek, his immediate ancestors, and the members of his extended family through to the end of the 1700's and up to today. It is available online.

Some of the dates in the van den Burg article, based on recently examined city records and used here, disagree with Dobell's dates.

The next most helpful source is another article in Dutch, Leeuwenhoek's afkomst en jeugd (Leeuwenhoek's origins and youth) by W. H. van Seters. It goes deep into the van den Berch and Hogenhouck families on Leeuwenhoek's mother's side.