Introduction
Frequently I am contacted by foreigners, who are planning a visit to the Netherlands for genealogical purposes. Of course it is nice to see the home town of your ancestors, hear the language, and see the original documents. But it is certainly possible to do a lot of research in your own country.

Family History Centers
The majority of the Dutch records are filmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have family history centers all over the world, where everyone is welcome. You can find the addresses of the centers and the available resources on their Web site.

Mailing lists, newsgroups and message boards
The most important mailing list for the Netherlands is Gen-Benelux-L@Rootsweb.com. The list is gatewayed with the soc.genealogy.benelux newsgroup. Messages for the list will automatically also be posted in the newsgroup, and messages in the news group will also appear in the e-mail box of the members of the list.

The message boards of GenConnect are organized by province. The Netherlands Visitor Center gives a survey. You can also try the Netherlands Genealogy Forum of GenForum.

Volunteers
The language can be a major problem. On the site of Genexchange you can find several people, who offer to translate from Dutch to English for free. Look up volunteers for the Netherlands are listed on a few sites, try for example the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness.

Do not forget the online resources listed in section 4 of this article!