Dutch Ships and Sailors provides an infrastructure for maritime historical datasets, linking correlating data through semantic web technology.

The original version (created in 2013-2014) brings together datasets related to recruitment and shipping in the East-India trade (mainly eighteenth century) and in the shipping of the northern provinces of the Netherlands (mainly nineteenth century). For the northern provinces, the database contains data on the personnel recruited, the ships, and other variables (Monsterrollen Noordelijke Nederlanden). For the Dutch East-India Company (VOC), the datasets involved contain data on the recruitment of personnel in the Dutch Republic (VOC-Opvarenden), the voyages of ships to Asia and back (Dutch-Asiatic Shipping), the mustering of ships and crew composition in Asian waters (Generale Zeemonsterrollen). More information on the original Dutch Ships and Sailors-project can be found here.

A new version, created in 2021, further integrates data sets related to the VOC. It brings together data on ships, voyages, cargo and crew members from VOC-Opvarenden, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, and Bookkeeper-General Batavia. The ontology that structures this knowledge graph is available from the OntoME platform and GitHub.

All data can be queried from the data page.