Gerry Segger Heritage Collection Resources: Electronic Resources - Dutch Immigration

In this comprehensive study of Belgian settlement in western Canada, Cornelius Jaenen shows that Belgian immigration was unique in its character and brought with it significant benefits out of proportion to its comparatively small numbers.

Cornelius J. Jaenen is Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at the University of Ottawa. He has written extensively on Canadian ethnic and religious history and on the history of New France.

From 1982 - 1992 Harry Van Belle taught psychology at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada and from 1992 - 2000 he taught psychology at The Kings University College.

The material for this immigrant story is based on approximately 90 interviews, which I
conducted in 1988 among the Reformed Dutch in Canada and among some of their close
relatives in The Netherlands. Out of the material of these individual life histories I
constructed six group stories. Three of these stories provide the history of three
generations of the Reformed Dutch in The Netherlands and three of these stories offer an
account of the history of three generations of the Reformed Dutch in Canada.