New website Rotterdam archives

Today, the Rotterdam archives opened their new website. Most of the website is now available in English. Well worth a visit, if you have Rotterdam ancestors.

Unfortunately, one of the few sections that is still only available in Dutch is the most important section: The digital family tree, an index to baptisms, marriages and burials from the church books, and births, marriages and deaths from the civil register.

For those of you that do want to search this index a quick explanation of the search interface. If the page opens in Dutch, click english, in the top right corner. Click genealogy on the top of the page. Read the instructions on this page, then click the search button.

The next page is partly in Dutch. On the top of the page you check the indexes you want to search: Dopen (Baptisms), Trouwen (Marriages), and Begraven (Burials) in the Doop-, Trouw- en Begraafboeken (DTB) tot en met 1811 (church books before 1811), or Geboorten (Births), Huwelijk (Marriages), Scheiding (Divorce), and Overlijden (Deaths) from Burgerlijke Stand vanaf 1812 (Civil register from 1812). If you leave all the boxes unchecked, you will not find anything, so do make a choice!

Enter the Periode (year range), choose a town from the Plaatsen (Places) dropdown (Alle plaatsen is All places), fill in Familienaam / patroniem (surname), and maybe Tussenvoegsel (infix) and Voornaam (first name).

Click the Zoeken (search) button, and enjoy the results.

Addendum (August 2007): Since last month, the search interface of the digital family tree is also available in English.