Who was who: The future of Dutch genealogy

A beta version of a new website with Dutch records and scans quietly opened its doors a few days ago: Wie was wie (Who was who).

The website

Wie was wie is going to be the main website for Dutch genealogy, replacing current websites like Genlias and Digitale Stamboom (Digital Family Tree).

What do they have?

The website opened with 18.6 million indexed documents, and 1.7 million scanned documents, from many different sources: BMD records from the civil registry, population registers, church books, notarial deeds, records of the Dutch East Indies company, and more.

You can also build your own family tree on the site, link records and scans to your ancestors, and share your research.

Is there an English interface?

No, though I expect there will be at a later date.

How much does it cost?

Searching indexed documents is free, no registration required. Creating family trees is free up to 100 people, registration required. For downloading scans or creating larger family trees you will need a subscription.

There are two levels of subscription: Basic (€30 per year) and premium (€42 per year). With a basic subscription you can download scans of BMD records, church books and the population register, and have up to 2500 people in your tree. Premium subscribers can download scans of all available record types, and there is no limit to the number of people in their tree.

Future plans

Wie was wie is just starting out. In the future, most Dutch archives will publish their online indexes and their new scans in Wie was wie instead of their own databases.

Conclusion

If you can navigate a Dutch site, Wie was wie is a useful site, but it cannot (yet) replace Genlias - many records are still missing. Use it in addition to existing sites - for now. If you don't want to navigate a site that is not in English, you can continue to use existing sites.

I will review (parts of) Wie was wie in depth in future posts, after I had the chance to use it myself a bit more.