The Beijen/Beyen Family Site
by Laurens Beijen
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Beijen or Beyen?

Two dots

Some people write their name as Beijen, others as Beyen. In the Netherlands, the official name is determined by the birth certificate. Previously these certificates were handwritten, and the difference between Beijen and Beyen was not more than two dots.


The pictures above are from two birth certificates that were drawn up in 1853 and 1861 in Utrecht. The first town clerk did not write dots in the name of the father of het child, the second one did. Strictly speaking the first child had the surname Beyen and the second child the surname Beijen. We may suppose that this was a matter of indifference to the people concerned.
In later years typewriters and computers were used. Therefore, the difference is now much more visible.

The spelling of the surname gives no indication to which of the families Beijen or Beyen one belongs. The next overview can illustrate this.

Personal Record Cards and Personal Record Lists

The official names of the inhabitants of the Netherlands are set down in the official population registration. The data of people who are living now are not public, but the data about deceased persons may be asked for.
Since 1939 the Dutch municipalities have used Personal Record Cards to register information on every inhabitant. In 1994 these cards were replaced by digitalized Personal Record Lists. I have obtained copies of the record cards or record lists of all members of the Beijen or Beyen families who have died in the Netherlands between 1939 and 2024. These people can be split over the four families as follows:

  Deceased persons 1939 - 2024Beijen      Beyen      total      
  IJsselstein family, total
      Gijsbert branch
      Jan Thomas branch
      Johan Franco branch		 230      
69
150
11		 22      
12
6
4		 252      
81
156
15
  Nieuwkapelle family13      2      15      
  Breyell family12      0      12      
  Hengelo family38      1      39      
  total293      25      318      

This shows that according to the official population registration in all these families and branches the name Beijen is far more numerous than the name Beyen.
The distribution of the names within the families and branches is rather random. There are various examples of siblings of whom one was registered as Beijen and the other one as Beyen. In the past some of the clerks who had to take care of the administration must have considered y and ij as the same letter.

The names Beijen and Beyen on this website

On this site I try to follow as much as possible the preference of the people concerned. A careful study of the photo gallery, for instance, shows that in several cases within a group of siblings the names Beijen and Beyen are both used.
On other pages on this website, sometimes, for the sake of brevity, only Beijen is mentioned. This also refers to the spelling Beyen.

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