In an earlier post I discussed Genlias, the free, online, but still incomplete, index to the Dutch civil register.
You will not find any data from the three largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague) in Genlias. Rotterdam and The Hague maintain their own solutions and do not participate in Genlias (see my posts New website Rotterdam archives and Genealogy in The Hague).
Amsterdam will eventually add its civil register records to Genlias, but currently they are not available online. The Amsterdam municipal archive does offer several other databases on their genealogy website. The most important of these is the Doopregisters, baptism records, that cover the years 1564-1811. The interface is in Dutch. To search, click Doopregisters, then Zoek (Search) from the navigation menu on the right. In the search form, fill in first name, infix and surname at the boxes labelled Voor, tussen, Achter (leave blank what you don't need/know). Click Fuzzy if you also want to search for similar names. You can fill in a second name, if you want - you will only find records with both names on it. Limit the search to the period (Periode) you're interested in (startdate and enddate, both in the form day (D) month (M) year (J)). Press the button labelled Zoek (Search).
Hover over the names to see the full record. Click on a name to add it to your selection (you will be prompted to fill in your e-mail and to give your selection a name). If you have created a selection you will see the option Afsluiten (Finish) on the bottom right. Clicking it will close your selection. In the next screen, confirm you want to close your selection by clicking Ja (yes), or leave it open by clicking Nee (No). If you leave the option Geen mail sturen (Don't send e-mail) blank, your selection will be mailed to you. Check the option if you want to clear your selection without receiving an e-mail.
You may encounter the following Dutch words in your result set:
| vader | father |
| moeder | mother |
| zoon | son |
| dochter | daughter |
| getuige, getuigen | witness, witnesses |
| pastor | priest, vicar, parson |
| doop | baptism |
| geboorte | birth |
| religie | religion |
| bron | source |
There are many other databases and source transcriptions dealing with Amsterdam available on the internet. See Internet resources Noord-Holland for a complete list.
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