Online records: Family cards of Rotterdam

The website

The Digital Family Tree of Rotterdam is the database of the city archive of Rotterdam. We looked at this database before, e.g. in 2008, in the article Online records: Rotterdam city archive. Earlier this year the archive added a great new resource: Scans of family cards (1880-1941) from Rotterdam, with an index!

What do they have?

Today we look at family cards, though the database has a lot more. Family cards are part of the population register. Originally, the population was a census-like register that was kept up to date. Because each page could have lots of updates and changes, the register could get messy. In 1880, Rotterdam changed their register to a card system, with one household per card: the family cards. These were easier to keep up to date, as cards could easily be replaced if they were full or messy.

In 1939 the family cards were phased out in favour of a new system, and by 1941 the cards were obsolete.

The cards are now archived in the Rotterdam city archive. They are scanned and indexed, and available online.

Family cards have lots of interesting information about a household. It lists all household members. New members of the household were added at the bottom, members that left were crossed out, usually with a remark about where they went. For each person listed you will find items like date of birth (and possibly death), maiden name (if applicable), address, occupation and religion, and any additional information that the city wanted to register about its citizens.

The images below are the front and back of the family card of Leendert de Kooning, father of the celebrated Dutch-born painter Willem de Kooning (who is listed twice on the card, under numbers 7 and 8).

Is there an English interface?

Yes, if you follow this link the search interface is English. Additional information, search results and of course the scans themselves are still in Dutch, though. You can use my genealogy dictionary to help you interpret the scans.

How do I use it?

Select Population register (and deselect the other options), fill in a family name and optionally a first name, and click Search. Browse through the search results and click the one that interests you. Click View the scan.

The scan will open in a new window. There are buttons for zooming in and out, for rotating the image, for printing and for downloading.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. Even viewing and downloading scans is currently completely free!

Future plans

I assume the family card project is completed. There will be other scanning and indexing projects in Rotterdam, though.

Conclusion

This is a great resource if you have Rotterdam ancestors in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Dutch archive news Q1 2010

• Genlias added new birth records from Curaçao, marriage records from Flevoland, birth, marriage and death records from Limburg, birth and death records from Noord-Brabant, marriage and death records from Noord-Holland, marriage and death records from Utrecht, birth, marriage and death records and church books (baptisms from Brielle) from Zuid-Holland.
• The National Library of The Netherlands is going to digitize part of its magazine collection. Read the project page here (in Dutch).
• Tresoar digitized and translated (in English) a collection of letters that Dutch immigrants in the U.S.A. sent home. Note: The translations are copyrighted and may not be published without permission of the translator.
• Ten Dutch heritage institutions cooperated to create a new biography portal (a who's who of Dutch history). Unfortunately the website is only available in Dutch.
• The Amsterdam city archive is on facebook.
• The Rotterdam city archive placed more than 300 Rotterdam world war II photos on flickr.

Dutch archive news, September 2009

• Genlias added birth records from Limburg and death records from Gelderland and Limburg.
• As part of Images for the Future, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and Knowledgeland launched Open Images. Open Images is an open media platform that offers online access to a selection of audiovisual archive material to stimulate creative reuse. Access to the content will be based on the Creative Commons model.
• The Central Bureau for Genealogy in The Hague presented Roots Karibense, a research guide for people with Netherlands Antillean roots. It is the fourth book in the series Voorouders van verre (Ancestors from far away). The books are only available in Dutch.
• Over 60 documents from the Dutch National Archive, including the famous Schaghen letter, are on display in the South Street Seaport Museum in New York, where the exhibition New Amsterdam. The Island at the Center of the World opened on 12 September.
• Several documents from the Amsterdam city archive are on display in the Museum of American Finance in New York, where the exhibition Actiën Handel: Early Dutch Finance and the Founding of America opened on 8 September. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the testament of Peter Stuyvesant.
• The Rotterdam city archive started the blog Dochters van Kaat Mossel (Daughters of Kaat Mossel), a genealogy blog about the female descendants of famous Rotterdam inhabitant Kaat Mossel (1723-1798). The blog aims to show what is available on their Digitale Stamboom (Digital Family Tree) website. Unfortunately the blog is only available in Dutch.
• Anne Frank now has her own channel on YouTube, with, among others, the only existing film images of Anne. The channel is created and maintained by the Anne Frank museum.

Postcard from Rotterdam

The city hall in downtown Rotterdam, on a postcard sent on 16 July 1927. This area was largely destroyed thirteen years later, during the bombardment of Rotterdam (14 May 1940, see this photo for a view after the debris was cleared). Surprisingly, both the 1914 city hall and the church in the background survived, so the view today still looks pretty much the same (except for the traffic and the clothing of the people on the foreground, of course).

Dutch archive news roundup January 2009

• Genlias has added birth and marriage acts from Utrecht, and birth and death acts from Zuid Holland.
• The Amsterdam archive published several new indexes, including a database of descriptions of criminals released from jail (1898-1917). Scans (with photos) are also available, for a fee (see the example scan).
• The Rotterdam death index is now complete for the years 1811-1893.
• The Rotterdam city archive is currently digitizing the passenger lists of the Holland America Line. Eventually, the passenger lists will be published on their website. In the meantime, passenger lists can not be consulted for a few months.

Dutch National Archive on flickr

Nationaal Archief, the Dutch national archive, and Spaarnestad Photo, an archive of press and documentary photos, announced today that they published part of their photo collections on The Commons on Flickr. Albums include the Labour Inspectorate collection, the 1928 olympics in Amsterdam, and Dutch emigrants.

The Nationaal Archief is the first Dutch participant in Flickr the Commons. The Nationaal Archief and Spaarnestad Photo hope to collect the stories behind the photographs this way and asks visitors to contribute their knowledge:

"You can help us enrich our knowledge of the photo collections by adding tags and comments. If you recognize people or locations in the photos, or have an interesting story to tell about one of the photos, then post a comment [..] At the moment, 200 photographs from the Nationaal Archief's collection (most of them from the Labour Inspectorate collection) and 200 from the Spaarnestad Photo collection are available for viewing on Flickr the Commons. We will be adding new material regularly, and hope that you will continue to return to the site to see what's new."

Photo: Emigrants waiting to board the S.S. Volendam, bound for Canada. Rotterdam, 15 May 1951. Collection Spaarnestad Photo.

Online records: Rotterdam city archive

In our online records series we are looking at the websites of the city archives of the three largest Dutch cities.

Monday we visited the website of the city archive of Amsterdam, later we will go to The Hague. Today we will look at the website of the Rotterdam city archive.

The website

We will only look at a few sections of the website of the Rotterdam city archive today, but the website has more to offer. Some of the information is available in English, but a lot of it is only available in Dutch.

One section that I want to mention but will not discuss any further in this post is Vluchtroute New York (Escape New York), about emigration to the U.S. in the early 20th century. The website is aimed at children, and is a tie-in with a book with the same name. Vluchtroute New York is entirely in Dutch.

What do they have?

The most interesting part for us is the Digitale Stamboom (Digital Family Tree), with Rotterdam church books and birth and marriage acts of the civil register. Indexing of the death acts is started but not yet completed. For marriages between 1812 and 1852, there are also scans of the marriage supplements.

There are also church books or civil register acts of a few neighbouring towns, and of former towns annexed by Rotterdam.

There are many other collections on the website, look under Archives and collections in the navigation menu on the left. The most interesting of these is the Notarial deeds section, with Rotterdam notarial deeds from 1585 to (currently) 1714, and deeds from neighbouring or annexed towns, e.g. Ridderkerk 1645-1911 (with gaps), or Overschie 1612-1811.

Is there an English interface?

Yes, there is an English navigation menu (click english at the top right), the search interface to the Digital Family Tree is in English, and many pages are translated into English. However, if you browse the website you will discover that a lot of pages are only available in Dutch, and the search interface to most collections is also in Dutch.

How do I use it?

That depends on the database you want to search. We will look at the Digitale Stamboom and the database of notarial deeds in more detail.

It is possible to search multiple databases at once (click search at the top of the page, or go directly to the search form), but the search form is only available in Dutch.

Digitale Stamboom

Click genealogy in the menu at the top of the page, or go directly to the Digital Family Tree. On this page, you can read an overview of what is currently available, and what they are working on now. Click the search button to go to the search form. The search form is easy to use. Select which records you want to search: Baptisms, marriages or funeral records of the church books, or birth, marriage, divorce, or death records of the civil register (here called Registry Office). Do not forget to select one or more record types, otherwise you will not find anything! Fill in family name, and if you want, infix, first name, period, or town/city. If you need more search options, like place of origin, click the Advanced search button. Click the search button to start searching. You can click the help button to get more search tips (in English).

In the list of search results, click on a name to see the details of the record. When scans of marriage supplements are available, you can click View the scan to view the scan. You can also order copies directly from the result page: Choose between papier and digitale scan per e-mail and press the Order copy button. Unfortunately, the check-out pages are in Dutch.

Notarial deeds

From the navigation menu on the left, select Archives and collections, then Notarial deeds (or go directly to the Notarial Deeds page). The introduction is terse but in English, but the search interface (click the search button to get there) is in Dutch. Fill in between one and five search terms (zoekwoord), and optionally fill in the other fields, like deed type (aktesoort, e.g. schuldbekentenis (bond) or testament), jaar (year) or periode (year from/to). Click the Zoeken button to start searching. In the list of search results, click on the little pictogram on the left to view a summary of the deed.

How much does it cost?

Searching the index is free. Scans of marriage supplements, when available, are also free. Prices for ordering copies seems to be €1.50 per copy or scan, plus postage and a handling fee.

Future plans

For the digital family tree, the current priority is indexing death acts from Rotterdam. I could not find a public statement about long-term plans, or plans for other parts of the website.

Conclusion

Where Amsterdam has scanned a lot and indexed a little, Rotterdam has indexed a lot and scanned a little. If your ancestors are from Rotterdam, this is an excellent site to help you build your family tree.

For most people, the digitale stamboom is the only section they will ever need. The digital family tree is easy to use, and has a lot of information. In the other databases there is room for improvement - an English interface and a better help system would be a good start.

Dutch archives news roundup - July 2007

News from the Dutch archives.

• The provinces Overijssel, Limburg and Zeeland have added new acts to Genlias.
• The Utrecht Archive opened a new online database: Stadsbestuurders Utrecht (City administrators Utrecht), with data on all mayors, aldermen and council members from 1813 to 2006. Administrators from before 1813 will follow later.
• The search interface of the Rotterdam Digital Family Tree is now available in English.
• The City Archive of The Hague published the council accounts of the The Hague city archive (1855-2005) on their website.

Dutch archives news roundup - May 2007

News from the Dutch archives.

• The National Archives opened the archives of Ordedienst and Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten, Dutch resistance movements sponsored by the Dutch government in exile during the second world war. These can be consulted on site in The Hague.
• The National Archives have a vacancy for a new Director, as their current Director will retire at the end of this year.
• Over half of the car license plate registrations for Friesland from the period 1906-1950 are now available online. The rest will follow this year.
• The Amsterdam Archive opened a new and improved image bank.
• All birth acts from Rotterdam (1811-1902) are now available in their online database. Death acts will be next.
• The provinces Groningen, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Limburg and Zeeland have added new acts to Genlias.

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.