Since the Middle Ages, « van der Dussen » families, both well-known and lesser-known, have lived in South Holland, the town of Delft, the whole of the Netherlands, Belgium and even the whole world. In the 16th century, in Brussels, Libert, a direct ancestor of the Belgian van der Dussens, began to transcribe the memory of his family. Many other van der Dussens have contributed to the family saga. From 1987 onwards, Jean-Marie van der Dussen de Kestergat, known as Jean Kestergat, or JK, went through all the family archives kept at the Château d’Ottignies and launched new research. He has written « Les van der Dussen », a work that brings together and restructures all the knowledge on the history of the van der Dussens.
A first obsolete site
In 2013, a website entitled « vanderdussenstory.com » was published on the web, with fairly limited resources. Technically obsolete, it disappeared into Internet limbo. Many of the van der Dussen family wanted a more modern, more responsive, more accessible tool… Thanks to the family’s mutual (financial and documentary) support, a new website project was drawn up, this time with the assistance of Web professionals. It is essentially based on Jean Kestergat’s work, but also takes into account the extensive research carried out by the family and new elements that have come to light since JK’s untimely death in 1992.
New elements
For example, the discovery of a book published in 1918 in Utrecht telling the story of Mietje van der Dussen (E XIV 5), daughter of Jan-Lucas and great-granddaughter of the famous Bruno VDD. You can download an extract from this book. Or Arent (UIV3-1), born in 1417 or 18, upholsterer in Brussels and tapestry dealer in Italy.
The 3 books making up « Les van der Dussen » have been reformatted and corrected by Etienne VDD.
We have also taken into account recent work by genealogists, proving that the filiation of the VDD of the later branches (B and following) is unproven, or even usurped. Nonetheless, all these VDDs are more or less cousins and, even without 100% proven parentage, are very attached to the van der Dussen name!
English version
The site has been entirely re-translated into English, in order to reach non-Belgian VDDs. They are to be found in the Netherlands, South Africa, the United States, Canada and just about everywhere else in the world. They all have distant Dutch ancestors in common, even those who have lost track of their ancestors. Please don’t hesitate to come forward and take part in our research. Extracts from JK’s books have remained in French, but some articles originally in Dutch have been left in the Dutch or Flemish of the time: see Mietje, see the Boucksken. In later versions, we will translate the French sequences into English.
An open and evolving site
The aim of this site is to create links between members of the direct family (the descendants of Marcel, 1889-1962, the last surviving van der Dussen de Kestergat, without whom the family would have died out), between members of related families in Belgium and elsewhere, and also between all the VAN DER DUSSENs throughout the world, whether they are related to the van der Dussens in our genealogy or not: we all share a beautiful old name.
I invite you to discover our brand new van-der-dussen.com website. As JK wished, « It is a bottle thrown into the sea ». It will continue to grow and evolve as we receive feedback and suggestions from anyone with information, anecdotes or comments. A « contact » section is available for this purpose.
Patrick VAN DER DUSSEN
2024, February
