Unlike in English, Dutch uses two definite articles. The gender of the noun to follow determines the choice of the article. DE is used for nouns of masculine and feminine gender. HET -or the substituting shortened 't- is the definite article we use when dealing with a noun of neuter gender. Examples:

De man, de mannen, de vrouw, de vrouwen (= the man, the men, the woman, the women)

Het schip, ('t schip), de schepen (= the ship, the ships)

In plural De is always used, irrispective of gender.

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Note 1: diminutives will always be preceded by the definite article HET. Example:

Het vrouwtje (= the little woman)

Note 2: In earlier days contractions of the article 'De' and the radical words, starting with an 'h' have taken place in Flanders. This resulted in surnames like: 'Dhondt' (=de Hondt), 'Dhaen' (- de Haan) and 'Dhaese' (= de Haese).

Like in English, Dutch only uses one indefinite article: EEN, or the substituting shortened 'n. Examples:

Een koekje,('n koekje) (= a cookie)

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Dative ending.Ten and Ter both are contractions of the preposition 'Te' (= at) and the articles 'den' or 'der'. 'Den' and 'der' being the dative male and female declensions of 'de'.

Ingendael, Angenendt

Den Hartog, Den Dunne, Den Duytsen

Accusative ending. This type of surnames originate from the 16th- and 17th century: not earlier. We don't find this type of names in Brabant nor in Flanders, but almost exclusively in the province of Zuid-Holland, especially in the Rotterdam area.

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Aan de(n) = at, on. Preposition adjunct. Fieldnames, meaning respectively: 'living at the road' and '...living next to the church'. [This type of fieldnames is appearing quite frequently in the Dutch province of Limburg, and, to a lesser extend in the province of Zuid Holland]

Aangeveld, Aangenend, Angenent

Ingen = In de (English: in the) We find these names in the same area as the Aan ge(n) names.The examples shown here respectively mean:'...living in the valley', '...living in the woods/forest' and '...living in garden/ farmyard'

In the rest of the Netherlands we find inge spelled as in de, in den or in die

Van = from. Geographical name, meaning: '...coming/originating from Zutpen, Cleef etc'

In the Southern Netherlands -comprising nowadays Belgium and the Dutch provinces Limburg and especially Brabant- it was more a custom to join prepositions and/ or articles and the substantive. Where we usually find Van der Heide and De Keizer in the Northern Netherlands, we will find them spelled like VanderHeyde or Verheyde and Dekeyser in the Southern Netherlands frequently. Of course there are exceptions to this rule; but you might try to look for Dekeyser's roots in Belgium or the Dutch province Noord-Brabant first!

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Dirck

Aalt

Dirckje

Aaltie ('ie' probably pronounced like 'je'. Writing an 'i' instead of 'j' was more a kind of a tradition, especially with female given names)

-ken, -kijn

-kin (B)

Frans

Reyner

Fransken

Reynkin

-sken

-gen, -gijn (B)

-ijn

-ijnne (B)

Geert

Gillebin

Geerdijn(e)

Gillebijnne

Dutch spelling of ‘the vernacular language’,as used by the educated citizens, originates from the 12th- century.
From about 1100 the church had lost her monopoly of writing and copying. From that time on writing gradually came in the hands of the more educated citizens of the upcoming towns. For the Dutch language this process started in the southern Netherlands, spreading slowly to the north. Round about 1350 it had already become common to write vernacular language.
The characters of the Latin alphabet served as phonetic examples. The medieval Latin alphabet, however, knew but 23 characters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Y and Z. It has to be said, however, that the K, Y and Z weren't used much in Latin. For this reason we don’t see the K, Y and Z characters in early Middle Dutch writing. The same goes for the J and W characters which couldn't be found in the original Latin alphabet. So, the characters J, K, W, Y and Z in early Middle Dutch writing had to be represented by other characters. Differentiation of the U and V –which couldn't’t be found in the Latin alphabet- also took place in a later period of Middle Dutch spelling. All this resulted in a large freedom of spelling. The same word could be written in several spellings. But there was more, to add to confusion.
Middle Dutch –the name for the Dutch language between 1200 and 1550 - was not a standardized language. Middle Dutch actually is a umbrella term for a variety of Franconian and Saxon dialects, spoken almost at the entire territory of the Netherlands. (By ‘the Netherlands’ I mean: the Netherlands of those days, roughly comprising nowadays Belgium and the Netherlands. Note that Middle Dutch wasn’t spoken in the Walloon area of nowadays Belgium). The most important head-groups of Middle Dutch were: Vlaams, Brabants, Limburgs, Hollands and Oostelijk Middelnederlands. Vlaams (Flemish) was spoken in the Belgian provinces of East- and West-Flanders. Limburgs (Limburgian) was spoken in the nowadays Dutch and Belgian provinces of the same name. Brabants (Brabantine) was spoken in the nowadays Dutch and Belgian provinces of the same name and the province of Antwerp. Hollands was the language spoken in the nowadays Dutch provinces South- and North Holland and part of the Utrecht province. Oostelijk Middelnederlands was a more Saxon language, dialect spoken in the eastern Netherlands, in the provinces of Gelderland, Overijssel, Drenthe and part of Groningen. There were –and still are- great differences between these languages, dialects. These differences make it even more difficult to get a good understanding of the variety of old words and their various spellings. And, don’t forget: we are talking about a period, covering 4 centuries! Chronological and geographical diversity don’t make things easier as well.
Confusing? When it comes to the complete story about the use of characters, the Middle Dutch orthography and the variety of Middle Dutch dialects, I just showed the top of the iceberg.

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The characters 'i','ij', 'j' and 'y' were completely interchangeable:

Actually the 'y' isn't a Dutch vowel. It is a so called 'i-grec' who entered the Dutch language in loan-words only. When we see an 'y' in old records it actually should be regarded as an 'ij'. This typical Dutch character evolved from the 'ii' .This was a prolonged'i'(sounding like the 'e' of the English alphabet). Later this 'ii' was written as 'ij', but mostly without the two dots. The sound also evolved to the sound of the Dutch diphthong 'ei'(which sounds -a little bit- like the English personal pronoun 'I'). This process of diphtongization started already in the 14th-century in Brabant. Not until 1700 it appeared in the northern Netherlands.

The diphthongs'au' and 'ou' were interchangeable and often other vowels were added -seemingly- at random:

The diphthongs 'oe' and 'ou' and the vowel 'u' were used alternately. We don't find it too often and it probably will have been caused by the influence of France and Germany. The French and German equivalents of the Dutch 'oe'-sound are, respectively: 'ou' and 'u'. (Like the English 'ou' in 'you'). It is not unusual to see the 'ou' and 'u' appear respectively in the southern- and southeastern Netherlands. Next to that in some cases 'ue' could be used instead of 'ou' or 'oe' :

The diphthongs 'ie' and 'ieu' could be used alternately:

Sometimes the separatecharacters of the diphthongs 'eu' and 'ue' simply changed places:

Almost identical to the 'q' in the English word 'quit'

Sources:
‘Korte geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal’, SDU uitgevers, Den Haag, 2000 ISBN 90 5797 0716
Dr. E. Rijpma,‘Beknopte Nederlandse Spraakkunst’, J.B.Wolters, Groningen-Batavia, 1946
Jr. Van der Meulen, ‘Taalkennis en taalbeschouwing’, Wolters-Noordhoff NV, Groningen, 1969 Meerten Database of familynames