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Martin Pruimers

Interview with Martin Pruimers

25 June 2014

Introduction

“My name is Martin Pruimers, I’m 63 and I took early retirement two years ago. First I worked in Human Resources for 18 years and after that for almost 25 years in IT as the manager of a service desk. Now I really do whatever I like. I do voluntary work and I read a lot. I am also doing a Swedish course, just to learn another language. I have lots of other hobbies and interests: nature (especially birds),  cycling, art and architecture, history and music, both classical music as well as from the 60’s and 70’s.  For the last few years I have also been busy sifting through my daughter’s ancestry, so I’m not just interested in my own ancestors, but also my wife’s. That is where Heritage Helpers came into play.”

Why Heritage Helpers?

“Since I’ve done a lot with family trees, looking for my ancestry, I make great use of the information which can be found on the internet. I do my primary research there, then sometimes I go to the Amsterdam City Archives as my ancestry comes largely from around Amsterdam. In the magazine ‘Genealogy’ I saw an appeal for Heritage Helpers and I thought that I’d like to get involved, especially as it’s with no obligation.

On the internet there is data which is available to everyone and very easy to find. I thought that I could do something to add to that, even it was in a small way. I don’t like just taking, I also want to give. It is also my own experience, but this way everyone has the same advantages that I’ve had.

One of the fun aspects of Many Hands is that as you are entering the data, you can be fantasizing about the stories behind the people, for example imagining a family of four in a house by the canal with ten employees. Sometimes, though, it is not so much fun, for example when I entered data for lots of people of the ‘Israelite’ religion (New or Portuguese) who had been born between 1880-1900. I wonder how many of those people were taken away between 1940 – 45. I’m afraid that an awful lot of them. It is sometimes also...this might sound stupid.... a bit emotional, of course the example I’ve just given makes that really clear.”

When do you work on Heritage Helpers?

“I usually work on Heritage Helpers every day, often for an hour or so in the evening. I see how each day goes, but whether I do one scan a day, or ten, no-one is going to say anything. There was a time that I did 5 scans a day for every project that I was involved with, but now I only do one, as I’m having more problems with my hands.”

What have you learnt?

"Well, I’m getting better at reading curly old-fashioned handwriting. For example that silly S that they used to write. That really is a challenge, as you can’t alter anything in these manuscripts. Furthermore you get a sense of how many people lived in terrible conditions (for example in the Jordaan area of Amsterdam). I’ve read several books about it. Then for example you come across the houses by the canal where three people lived and they had five employees. You could say that it’s a kind of Sociology, not just simply typing things out!”

What could we improve?

“At this moment I’m just indexing. I think the automatic moving of the scan is excellent. You can chose to turn it off but I find it really helpful. What can be slightly annoying is that the error messages stay on the screen for too long. I read pretty quickly so for me they’re there for too long.

I think Heritage Helpers is a great project!”