Planning Your Heritage Travels

Words by Christine Van Dyk

Centuries-old leaded glass windows look over the city as a bell tower peers down on the canals below. This abandoned church in Heeg, a city in Friesland on the northern coast of the Netherlands, was one of the reasons my 20-somethings went to Europe.

“All our lives we’d heard about this place,” Meg Van Dyk said. “As we approached the church we craned our necks. High above us was the steeple, a clockface, and the bell tower where our great-grandfather hid 13 Jews during the Nazi occupation.”

Once a police officer, Martin Van Dijk took a job as a caretaker of this church to avoid capture by the Nazis. In this role, he had access to the building which became a hiding place for Jews making their way across the canals, past the Friesland Islands, and into the North Sea toward freedom.

“We stood in front of the church and called Pake (the Frisian name for grandpa),” Meg said.

“He got a bit choked up. He’d spent his life talking about this place, and his grandchildren were witnessing his history.”

As Americans, we live in the world’s melting pot, yet so few of us know our own history. Where did we come from? Who were our relatives? Where did our stories begin?

“At the grave of our great-great-great grandmother,” Meg said, “I realized this piece of land was where our people had lived as far back as I can comprehend. I’d always known I was Dutch, but until that moment, the only thing I shared with them was a last name.”

And the name isn’t even spelled the same. Like many Europeans who fled to North America, the family’s name was changed the moment they entered the immigration processing station.

“After being away for so long, I began to notice my own children had lost touch with the land of my birth,” James Van Dyk (Pake) said. “They didn’t understand my native language, know their relatives, or appreciate the richness of Dutch culture. Seeing my grandchildren become reacquainted with my heritage has been a great excitement for me.”

Today the number of Millennials and Gen Zers interested in heritage travel is on the rise.

Airbnb offers dedicated web pages to help plan these trips. Shows such as Who Do You Think You Are? help celebrities trace their own family trees. And 23andMe makes finding your background as easy as spitting into a test tube.

“To know where we’re going,” Jack Van Dyk says, “we have to know where we come from.”

What often starts with a simple conversation or a DNA swab quickly turns to boots on the ground. Like when Meg and Jack found themselves at the Casemates of Kornwerderzand, grass-covered mounds that are actually underground bunkers. In May of 1940, 225 Dutch soldiers held off 17,000 invading Germans, the only place in Europe where the ‘Blitzkrieg’ advance was stopped.

“They held artillery, sleeping quarters, a mess hall, and everything those men needed to be the last line of defense for mainland Holland,” Jack said. “Among that group were Martin Van Dijk and his brother, Abram.” The Dutch resistors who would later smuggle Jews out of the Netherlands had found another way to defy the enemy, and Meg and Jack had unlocked another clue to their story.

But beyond these historical facts and some impressive social media posts, what did these young travelers gain from visiting a place they could have read about in a family album?

According to Jack, this detour on their Netherlands itinerary yielded many perks: a greater understanding of their grandfather, an appreciation for their family’s legacy of faith and service, and getting to share a lifelong experience together.

“One day we came over this small bridge,” Jack recalls. “It smelled of baked bread and wildflowers, and you could hear the sounds of lapping water. It was as if we’d stepped back in time. I could almost imagine my relatives, not as old people, but as real-life individuals who were often happy, sometimes heartbroken, and even flawed—but also an awful lot like me.”

Making a Plan

If you’re looking into a heritage journey, consider these tips for planning and navigating your travels:

Get Started — Begin by building your family tree using information from DNA kits, family

interviews, and online genealogy sites. Next, look a bit further for things such as maiden names, birthdates, deaths, and the villages where your ancestors lived. Finally, search for military enlistments, marriage certificates, census records, obituaries, and naturalization papers.

Details Matter — Be sure to use the original spellings of family names.

And when searching church records, know your family’s religious affiliation, since countries such as Ireland kept separate records by denomination.

Reach Out or Take Along an Expert — One of the most rewarding genealogy searches is one that involves older loved ones. Spend time asking questions, or invite them to join your journey. Not only will they offer needed insights, it will also be time together you’ll always cherish.

Hit the Road — Since many searches involve out-of-the-way villages and multiple sites, consider renting a car.

Pack Up — Bring a smartphone for pictures, change for copying records, and local currency for museum admissions.

Take Detours — Don’t spend all your time in the past; keep part of your day free for exploring. Another option is to limit your search to just a few days within a larger itinerary.

Know Your Audience — If you have younger family members, chances are they don’t want to spend their vacation in cemeteries, archives, or historical societies. Instead, focus on the broader meaning of heritage: What food might your ancestors have eaten? Where does your last name come from? What types of jobs did your relatives likely have?

Temper Expectations — While you may not find a living relative or discover the document that unlocks a great mystery, sometimes just experiencing the essence of a place is enough.