Dr M.T. Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge (Matthias)

Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge is a historical demographer and data specialist affiliated with the economic, social and demographic history expertise group (ESHD), the Humanities Lab of the Faculty of Arts, and the Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH). In addition, together with his colleague Björn Quanjer he is affiliated with the Dutch Digital Heritage Network (NDE) and hosts the data workshop for colonial heritage.

He is involved in the construction of the Historical Database Suriname and Caribbean (HDSC) which is a collaboration between hundreds of citizen scientists who help enter historical population records, together with knowledge and heritage institutions from the Caribbean and the Netherlands. The HDSC makes the slave registers and civil certificates of Suriname and the Dutch Antilles from about 1830 to 1950 available to the public to facilitate genealogical research and to enable research into among others inequality, social mobility, health, and fertility in a colonial society.

In 2025, Matthias received a NWO XS grant to reconstruct family relations among the enslaved population of Suriname (1848-1863). This project titled Helpers in Hardship paves the way for future research into family networks and survival strategies during slavery and provides descendants of enslaved people with rich information on their family histories. Matthias has published in demographic journals such as "Demography", "European Journal of Population", "Population, Space, and Place", "The History of the Family", and "Demographic Research", and likes life-course analysis and bear´s garlic.