How the book came to be, and how it came to us

Two Bible translations made a generation apart, the Dordrecht printers who held the licence, the town secretary who signed your copy, and the family who carried it to Illinois.

Drawn from the family Bible page, eylander-family-bible.pages.dev, and its sources: the licence leaf itself (photographs IMG_3043 and IMG_3044, transcribed 18 September 2026); the Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, deel 1 (1911), on Pieter Eelbo; the Acte van Authorisatie of the 1637 Statenvertaling (DBNL edition); a Nolthenius genealogy from the Dordrecht city records; and the Dutch Wikipedia entry on Hendrik and Jacob Keur. The 1655 placard is described only as the leaf describes it.