My Family Tree always intrigued me, but children, immigration, work etc. played havoc with the family history.
Now, retired having a bit more time and with the help of the internet, and spurred on by the birth of our grandchildren, it became an interesting hobby. Along the way I connected with other family members interested in the same pursuit.

Another reason for my interest in my ancestors was me being curious about the origins of my name
Hein Elbert de Vries.

The family name "de Vries" only became used in the early 1800's. Then the Netherlands were part of the greater French empire of Napoleon. To facilitate recruitement for his armies he required everyone to choose a family name. So my ancestor Anne Abels (Anne: son of Abel) became known as Anne Abels de Vries . His brother Bate Abels became Bate Abels van der Veen. Their dad just remained Abel Roelofs (Abel son of Roelof).
Especially in Friesland people just used patronyms prior to Napoleon. In other areas family names are more common.

Obviously the name Elbert comes from my great-grandmother Margje Elbers. Exploring this question was very interesting and rewarding and yielded contacts with members of the Elbers family.
The research into the many generations of house-painters from the Elbers and the de Vries families, became even more interesting with the research by Alle Elbers into the painting of flags by members of the Elbers family. These flags were meant to be flown from ships at special occasions; several of which are now in Dutch Maritime musea.

Where the name "Hein" comes from is still a enigma. Striking is that a brother of Margje Elbers also named a son "Hein". Somewhere and sometime there must have been a "Hein" who had a special bond with the Elbers family!!

My wife's family name Kuilenburg can be traced back to the early 1600's in the town of Nieuwpoort. In the early baptismal and marriage records the family name was being used, written in several different ways: Cuijlenburgh, Kuijlenburg, Kuilenburg etc. A good guess is that eventually the family must have had some connection with the town now called Culemborg.

We keep on digging!!!

Residing in Canada, most information I gathered from the internet, with a heavy emphasis on publicly available archival records (more trips to the Netherlands would have been nice but not absolutely necessary) although one trip to the Historisch centrum Overijssel in Zwolle. a few years ago, was very helpful.

Public archives are unlocked, as in:
Genlias: for records after 1811 all of the Netherlands,
Drenlias: for records before and after 1811, province of Drente,
Alle Groningers: for records after 1811, province of Groningen, however they intend to include older records in the future,
Tresoar: for records before and after 1811, province of Friesland,
Historisch Centrum Overijssel: for records mainly after 1811, some info from before 1811, province of Overijssel
Municipality Hoogeveen: for records after 1811 in Hoogeveen (Drente.
Municipality Almelo: for photos of the actual marriage and death certificates from 1811,
Other big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Leiden do have their own on- line access to their archives as do some regional archives as Groenehart archieven with data from Gouda and surroundings.
Familysearch: the website set up by the Mormon Church which makes available a multitude of filmed copies of the original recordings of marriages, birth and deaths by the Netherlands Civil Authorities since 1811. The search is somewhat complicated but given some time you can find copies of the original recordings.
VanPapiernaarDigitaal.This is becoming quickly THE portal for mainly church records from before the establisment of a public administration in 1811. (Napoleon again!) Volunteers actually photograph the pages of the church books and publish them on this site. I have found many of my forebears on these pages!!!
Furthermore data posted by other genealogists on the internet can be very helpful in breaking logjams. Use Google!