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1 The Dutch Archival System

 1. The Provincial System
Introduction
The Dutch archival system is organized around the division of the
Netherlands in 12 provinces. Each province in itself is divided
into several municipalities (431 in total in 2010). In this chapter
we will have a more detailed look at these provinces and munici-
palities because it will help you understand where to start looking
for records about your ancestors.
Why? Because records are drawn up in the municipality where
the event took place. They are first stored at the town hall. After
their non-disclosure term expires, the records are transferred to the
municipal archive to preserve them for future generations. Copies
of at least the vital records are sent also to the provincial archive
of the province the municipality belongs to. The Central Bureau
for Genealogy in The Hague keeps copies of indexes to the vital
records for most Dutch municipalities as well. Any records con-
cerning state affairs or extremely valuable to Dutch history (like
the Dutch East India Company archives for example) are kept by
the National Archives in the Hague.
Sometimes, a small municipality does not have it’s own archive,
but teams up with other small municipalities in the area to finance
a regional archive together. These regional archives also send
copies of vital records to the provincial archive. In rare cases, tiny
municipalities prefer to store their whole collection at the provin-
cial archive to save them the trouble and costs of preserving them
themselves.
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From the above it becomes clear that the vital records you need
on your ancestor can either be found at the CBG, a provincial
archive, a regional archive or a municipal archive. Vital records,
or at least indexes to those records can mostly be found in any of
these archives. However, cadastral, notarial and juridical archives
are only kept in one place. Whether this is the municipal , region-
al, provincial or the National archive, depends on the municipality
(whether they have the funds to maintain a proper archive them-
selves or not) and the nature of the records (all records concerning
state issues are kept at the National Archive in the Hague).
It helps a lot to be able to quickly determine which archive to ap-
proach. Therefore we will no elaborate a bit more on the 12 Dutch
provinces and their municipalities.
The Dutch Provinces
The Netherlands are a tiny country. It is about 42.000 km2, which
is about two times the size of the state of New Jersey. With 16,5
million inhabitants it is also one of the most densely populated
countries in the world. One could think that in a country this
small, regional differences would be minimal and provincial
boundaries a mere administrational fact. Nothing could be further
form the truth in the Netherlands. The Dutch provinces are not
just a random administrative division of the country. Most prov-
inces have a long history of being independent dioceses, king-
 Groningen
doms, duchies or counties which one can
Groningen
still tell by the many regional differences Leeuwarden

in dialects and customs.

North Sea Friesland
Assen
Today there are 12 provinces as you can
Drenthe
see to the right. Each province has a capi-
tal. The provincial archives are all located
Noord-
in the provincial capitals. Holland
Zwolle
Lelystad
Noord-Holland
Haarlem Flevoland Overijssel
Noord-Holland used to form the county
of Holland along with the now prov-
ince of Zuid-Holland. It was and still is
the beating heart of the country. This is Utrecht
Gelderland
where the Dutch East India Company The Hague
Utrecht

was seated and this is where the Dutch Zuid-Holland Arnhem

Golden Age began. It’s capital is Haar-
lem. It is also host to the capital of the
country: Amsterdam. The Noord-Hol- ‘s-Hertogenbosch
lands archief is located in Haarlem. Their Noord- Brabant
web site is www.noordhollandsarchief. Germany
org Middelburg

Zeeland
Zuid-Holland Limburg
It’s capital is The Hague, which is also
the administrative capital of the Nether-
lands. The National archive in The Hague
hold all the archives for the province
as well as all the state archival records. Belgium
Maastricht

Their web site is: www.nationaalarchief.

nl

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Zeeland
This group of islands has played an economically and strategically
important role in the Dutch history. It is also the province that is
most vulnerable to floods, the last being in 1953. After this devas-
tating flood the world famous Delta works were started to protect
the land from flooding by an ingenious and enormous system of
dikes and sluices. It’s capital is Middelburg and the Zeeuws ar-
chief is located here. Their web site is www.zeeuwengezocht.nl.
Friesland
Once the kingdom of Friesland stretched from Denmark all along
the German and Dutch northern coasts down to what is now Bel-
gium. Bit by bit it lost pieces to the counts of Holland and the city
of Groningen. It was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the
region but now it is the economically weakest province along with
Groningen. The Frisian archive Tresoar is located in the capital
Leeuwarden. You can find them online at: www.tresoar.nl.
Groningen
For long Groningen was just a city with a lot of swamp and moor
around it. Although the city was and is of relative economic and
intellectual importance (it boost a large University), the country-
side is still one of the poorest parts of the Netherlands. It’s capital
is the city of Groningen where you can find the Groninger Ar-
chieven. Their web site is www.groningerarchieven.nl
Drenthe
Drenthe was long an isolated are consisting of large peat grounds
and marshes. When the great value of peat digging was discov-
ered in the 1800s many poor from Holland were sent here to work
in the peat industry. The region is famous for it’s 19th century
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poor colonies that are all abandoned now. Today the province is of
little economical and intellectual importance. It does have a good
tourism industry though. The Drents Archief can be found in the
provincial capital of Assen. They can be found online at: www.
drenlias.nl
Overijssel
Overijssel was long part of the diocese of Utrecht. Economically
it was important in the Middle Ages when it was part of the so-
called Hanze cities. These were important trading cities that coop-
erated to improve profits. Today it is still an economically healthy
region. Zwolle is the provincial capital of Overijssel and home to
the Historisch Centrum Overijssel. Their web site is:
www.historischcentrumoverijssel.nl
Flevoland
This is the youngest of all provinces because it largely consists of
new land reclaimed from the sea in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
It encompasses old islands like Schokland and Urk. These is-
land were and still are famous for their fishing traditions. Today,
Felvoland is popular as residential area close to the bigger cities
of the Randstad such as Utrecht and Amsterdam. The archives
of Flevoland are located in the Nieuw Land Erfgoedcentrum in
Lelystad. You can visit them online at:
www.nieuwlanderfgoed.nl
Gelderland
For long Gelderland belonged to the Dukes of Gelre until it
became an independent province of the Dutch Republic in the
1600s. Today it is especially loved among the Dutch for it’s beau-
tiful national park De Hoge Veluwe. The capital of Gelderland is
Arnhem. Here you find the Gelders Archief.
Utrecht
The city of Utrecht is the capital of this former diocese and the
archive is located here also. It’s called the Utrechts archief and
their web address is: www.hetutrechtsarchief.nl
Noord-Brabant
The BHIC or Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum, is located
in the provincial capital of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, also known as Den
Bosch. They can be found online at: www.bhic.nl
Limburg
The RHCL or Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg is located
in Maastricht, the capital of if the Limburg province. Their web
site can be visited at www.rhcl.nl
In a later lesson we will give you a detailed tour of all these pro-
vincial archive web sites. For now, you just need to remember that
these archives hold a copy of the vital records of your ancestors
and that’s why they are important.
Dutch municipalities and towns
Knowing that the provincial archive is a good place to start look-
ing for records is one thing. Figuring out at which archive the
record copies you need are located is another. To figure this out
you need to know in which province the hometown of your ances-
tor lies.
Let’s say you are looking for a birth records for your grandfather
born in Soest. How do you look up quickly to which province that
place belongs? You could use Google Maps, but it is quicker to
start with the Dutch Wikipedia. Let’s do a little experiment so you
can see for yourself that this works great.
Let’s say we want to find out in what province Soest is located.
First, let’s try with Google maps. In the search field type in
“Soest”. Zoom out until you find the grey dotted province bound-
ary. Follow the line until you hit the province name.
Now let’s do the same with Wikipedia. Go to the Dutch Wikipe-
dia page and in the search field type in “Soest”. When you get a
disambiguation page choose “Soest, Nederland”. Once you reach
the page on Soest it will tell you what province it belongs to in
the first sentence. This method works well for many of the Dutch
municipalities, even the more obscure ones that are hard to find on
a map. If the place has belonged to another province in times gone
by it will also tell you (something you will not find on a map)
Although many of these pages are also available in English you
should always start searching in Dutch because not all have been
translated.
Exercise 1
To get to grips with these methods and finding out which one
you prefer let’s do a little exercise. Look up Workum, Tie-
tjerksteradeel, Cuijk, Ugchelen and Maarssen and work out to
which provinces they belong.
If you want to get a global overview of all Dutch municipalities
and towns, you can find a complete list of Dutch municipalities at
Wikipedia. Each municipality usually encompasses several towns.
On the list you can click on a municipality to see a list of towns. I
recommend you visit this page a play around a little with it to get
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 2. Vital Records
Introduction
We now know that Dutch records are organized by province.
However, we need to know also what records are kept there that
are important to your family history research. In this course we
will stick to the basic records concerning birth, marriage and
death. With these records you will be able to build a solid skel-
eton for your tree.
The oldest vital records in the Netherlands date from around 1570.
This is when keeping records of birth, marriage, and death became
mandatory for all parishes. It was a rule impose by the Church and
its primary purpose was to keep track of family bounds in order
to prevent marriages between people that were to closely related,
but also to keep track of a parishes income from fee on baptisms,
burials an marriages.
These baptism, marriage and death records are usually little
informative and just state enough data to establish a relationship
between parents and children.
When Napoleon occupied the Netherlands he was the first to
impose a civil registration, independent from the church registers.
These registers served mainly a military purpose. It gave insight
into the population, the available amount of young man to call for
battle and the available people to get taxes from. His civil registra-
tion system became mandatory in 1811-1812.
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These new records are far more informative. They include names,
addresses and occupations. Especially the marriage records
provide a wealth on information. Luckily, when you start your
research these are one of the first records you will encounter so
they will give your tree a nice jump start.
Since the records from these two periods are so different in the in-
formation they provide we will refer to them with different names
throughout the course. If we talk about parish records we refer to
records kept by the Church prior to 1812. When we speak of civil
records, we refer to the records kept by the state after 1812 up till
present day.
Both parish and civil records are kept in the archive of the mu-
nicipality or province where the event took place. For example is
your grandfather was born in Amsterdam, married in Utrecht and
died in Groningen, you will find his birth record in Amsterdam his
marriage record in Utrecht and his death record in Amsterdam.
As you can see knowing the place where an event took place is
vital for your research, however, what do you do when you do not
know the place? Emigrant records are often tantalizingly non-in-
formative about people’s place of origin. They just say “Holland”
for example, or “Dutch subject”. We’ll give you some tips and
exercises to solve this issue in the next, final chapter
3. Searching For Places

Genlias
Searching for Dutch vital records without knowing the place can have a lot of indexing to do. You can check what data have been
be a nightmare. Luckily, there is a web site where almost all pro- indexed exactly through this Genlias actual content page.
vincial archives share indexes on civil records. This site is called
Genlias and can be found at www.genlias.nl. The best thing about You will not find any birth records after 1905, marriage records
it is that you can search for people without entering a place or a after 1935 and death records after 1940 since these are not public
date. yet. You will learn to research these younger eras in a future les-
son.
The project started in 1998 when several provincial archives
decided to create an online database of genealogical records. The The Genlias database is very easy to use. Just watch this short
project is run entirely by volunteers. So far 12 million records instruction video to get started.
have been added to the database containing information about
over a 50 million people.
Exercise 2
As said, Genlias is an index. This means that what you see on
For any ancestor of your choice, born before 1905 search
your screen are the basic data copied by a volunteer from the
for their birth, marriage and death record. Copy the data and
original record. Especially the records from the period 1811–1922
save it. You will need these data in future lessons. If you can-
contain far more data than what is in the index. So we recommend
not find anything, don’t worry, not everything is in Genlias
that you always request a copy of the original record. In a later
yet and you will more search tactics in future lessons of this
chapter we will show you how to get these record copies for free
course.
or at a small fee.
If you have any questions about this first lesson or you experience
Be aware also that Genlias is an ongoing project and not all re-
difficulties with the exercises just contact Kirsten and she will
cords have been indexed yet. Archives have focused on marriage
help you out: kirsten @dutchancestrycoach.com.
certificates first, since they contain the most relevant genealogical
data. Most of these have been indexed by now but birth and death
Next time we will dive into Dutch Surnames!
certificates are still very incomplete. Especially the big cities still

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Colophon

Colophon
Contact Information
For any questions or remarks please contact:

Kirsten Huijsen
Dutch Ancestry Coach
De Toekan 35
7609VG Almelo
The Netherlands

info@DutchAncestryCoach.com
www.DutchAncestryCoach.com
magazine.DutchAncestryCoach.com

Copyright

This Dutch Genealogy Course was designed, written and published by Dutch Ancestry Coach.
Copyright © Kirsten Huijsen 2011

This course is for personal use only. In that fashion it may be copied freely. However, you are not allowed to reproduce this course in
any way for commercial purposes, or exploit it in any other commercial way without previous written approval from Dutch Ancestry
Coach. You are also not allowed to make it’s content public for free in any fashion.

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