Leo van de Pas (1942-2016)

Leo van de Pas, the noted Dutch-Australian genealogist, died yesterday in Australia.  He was 73 years old.

Leonardus Francisus  Maria van de Pas was born on October 28, 1942 in De Bilt, the Netherlands, the second son and fourth child of Willem de Pas, a Dutch writer.   After serving in the Dutch military in New Guinea,  Leo emigrated to Australia.

From Ian Fettes, who worked with Leo on site maintenance.

"Leo van de Pas (Leonardus Franciscus Maria) was born on 28 October 1942 in De Bilt, the second son and fourth child in a family of five of Dutch historical and religious author, Willem van de Pas. He worked in various clerical positions before and after serving with the Dutch Army (National Service) in New Guinea in 1962.

In 1968 he migrated to Perth, Western Australia where he became an assistant of author G.M. Glaskin, at the same time working for Ansett Airlines and developing his genealogical interests.

In 1994, because of health reasons, he retired from Ansett Airlines, a few years before this Airline folded due to mismanagement. Glaskin, aged seventy-six, died in March 2000 and, in early 2002, Leo moved to Canberra to be closer to his own family in Australia.

With international acclimation growing for his genealogical collection, Leo was concerned that this resource would be lost to the genealogical community if it was not placed into the public domain. With the help of several friends his website genealogics.org was launched in 2003 and has continued to grow in size and use.

Of particular importance to Leo was the requirement to maintain the data in an accurate and reliable fashion based on secondary published works. He always considered himself to be a 'gatherer' of information from these works and left others to be the 'hunters' from primary sources.

His extensive private library has enabled Leo to develop a very impressive knowledge of European royalty and nobility, together with other people of interest to him, through incorporation of their information into his database. With such contributions from others and through his own knowledge he has helped very many people, both online and offline, with their genealogy enquiries.

Leo never married nor had children and lived a quiet, private life. However he had an extensive range of good friends who very much valued his friendship. Nothing was too much trouble for Leo if someone needed help or assistance in any way.

Om 17 August 2016, Leo passed away in Canberra after a short convalescence, aged seventy-three. He is survived by his elder sister Riett (Anna Marie) in The Netherlands.

The genealogics website will continue to operate , managed by myself in a maintenance mode. I will be able to make corrections to data when advised but I do not have the skill or resources to continue Leo's work. Despite that, I hope the website will continue to assist many people.

 Sadly,

Ian Fettes "

For more information his his career: http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00071584&tree=LEO