A story was told in the VAN DANTZIG family that in the 18th century a ship arrived in the port of Katwijk with our ancestor - with or without his family - on board, and that he first moved to the village of Noordwijk and later on to the city of Leiden. A second story was told as well in which two friends came from Dantzig to the Netherlands. They called themselves VAN DANTZIG, and gave identical first names to their children as sign of their friendship.

These family stories are being told from generation to generation, until someone decides to write them down. The person who first wrote them down was my great uncle Marijn van Dantzig (1904 to 1996). He has been his whole life interested in researching genealogy of the family van Dantzig. Wen I turned 13, on the occasion of my bar mitzvah, he handed me his notes for a family book; notes which he started to collect in the 1930's before the war.

However, he was not the first or only person in the family being interested in genealogy. As he mentioned in his own notes, he received a rough manuscript about the family from David Henri van Dantzig (1883 - 1938) shortly before his death in 1938. David Henri had told him on that occasion that he had collected many documents about the family, some of them being written in Hebrew, or at least in Hebrew characters - thus probably in Yiddish -, and some of which came from Dantzig. The documents were all lost during the failure of David Henri's business, immediately followed by his early death, which all happened shortly after the aforementioned meeting.

Two brothers DANTSIGER - some facts

 Is it possible to verify these family stories?

It is possible to research facts and events from the 18th century in the archives. The facts can then be compared with the family stories.

It turnes out that the early family history, which emerges from research in the archives, is different than the family stories. The family history begins with two brothers and one sister, who marry in the period 1758 - 1771 in Amsterdam.According to the marriage certificates, all three were born in Amsterdam, but any information about their parents is (still) not found in the Amsterdam archives.

Around 1795 the two brothers moved from Amsterdam to the province of South Holland. One departed with his married son to Leiden, while the other left with his married son for Alphen aan de Rijn, where he died in 1806. Also two married daughters moved with their husbands to Leiden, and around 1809 the family from Alphen joined the rest of the family in Leiden. Eventually, the surname VAN DANTZIG was adopted twice in 1811 in the city of Leiden by the two heads of household - that is: the one surviving brother and the son of the second brother.

So, the family stories which were passed from generation to generation seem to have their origin in some facts. However, the stories have been modified so much over the years, that they cannot be characterized as being "true". Two men - an uncle and a cousin - who have adopted the name of Dantzig, are not the same as two friends from Dantzig. Besides, the occurence of identical first names is common in Jewish families, and it is more an indication of a family relationship than a friendship. The arrival of a boat in Katwijk is not verifiable, but the presence of the family in Leiden turns out to be consistent with the archival facts. Although, Leiden is not the first dwelling of the family in the Netherlands. A arrival from the city of Dantzig can be expected, when people call themselves VAN DANTZIG, but whether that was a direct trip from Dantzig to Amsterdam we will probably never know.