Postcard from Den Haag

Postcard from Holland is a regular feature on this blog. On Wednesdays I post a card from my collection of vintage postcards. Today: Den Haag.

A postcard of the Hofvijver (litt. Court Pond, on the foreground). The street along the water is the Vijverberg, while the trees in the middle are on the Voorhout street.

The Hofvijver is a medieval pond, next to the Binnenhof (Inner Court) complex, built for the counts of Holland. Most photos of the Hofvijver include the buildings of the Binnenhof on the background, but, as the sender noted in French, the photo on this card is taken "de l'autre côté", from the other side, with the Binnenhof behind the photographer and the Vijverberg and Voorhout streets in the background.

This postcard also featured in the post Vijverberg on my blog Images of The Hague.

Dutch archive news: June 2010

• New records in Genlias: Birth records from Limburg (Horst, Neeritter, Schinnen, Sittard, Venlo) and Utrecht (Utrecht City), and death records from Limburg (Ottersum, Swalmen, Venlo) and Noord-Holland (Avenhorn, Etersheim, Groet, Haarlemmermeer, Hensbroek, Nibbixwoud, Opdam, Opmeer, Wognum).
• The Utrecht archives will expand the Archiefbank (archive database), on 5 July. There will also be a charge for viewing and downloading scans.
• The National Library of The Netherlands digitized its collection of catchpenny prints and made it available on Memory of The Netherlands: "This collection of catchpenny prints gives a good picture of the topics the population was interested in. For researchers and people interested in the history of the Netherlands this is a real treasure-house containing images and texts from the past. This remarkable heritage is now digitally available so that everyone can become acquainted with it. The catchpenny prints can be regarded as source material for research of text and language; of the daily life of our ancestors plying trades (that have disappeared), children's games, transport, fashion, role patterns, housing and housekeeping; tilling the land, poverty and wealth; of values and standards and pedagogical views and of image with illustration techniques and styles."
• The Gelderland archive opened a new website. Unfortunately, there is no English interface.
• Three new archives on Twitter: the Schiedam city archive, the Utrecht provincial archive, and Westfriesland regional archive in Hoorn. See the complete list of tweeting archives.
• The city archive of Den Haag opened a film database with moving images from their collections, from the period 1905-1983.
• The Zeeland archive is scanning its civil registry. The first scans (BMD records of Schouwen-Duiveland) should be available some time next year.

Dutch archive news - October 2009

• Genlias added the first 120,000 marriage records from Amsterdam. This covers the period 1916-1932. There are also new birth and death acts from Limburg, and death acts from Noord-Holland.
• The Central Bureau for Genealogy (CBG) in The Hague presented the next book in the series Voorouders van verre (Ancestors from far away): Sranan famiri, a research guide for people with Suriname roots.
• The CBG started indexing their collection Familieadvertenties (newspaper ads announcing births, deaths, marriages or other family events). Currently these are only indexed on primary surname, and you may have to browse through many scans (paying for them as you go along) before you find what you are looking for. In the future you can also see which persons are on which scan (first and last name, year, place) so that you can go directly to the scan you need.
• The CBG received a grant for their project StamboomNederland (Family Tree The Netherlands). In the future people can upload their genealogical research to share it with others and make it available to future generations. The CBG has archived printed and handwritten family trees for many years, and they plan to do the same for digital trees. StamboomNederland will launch late 2010.
• Educational broadcasting corporation Teleac has bought the Dutch rights of the famous BBC television series Who do you think you are? They will create a Dutch series together with Central Bureau for Genealogy.
• The Dutch National Archive announced that 800 meters Suriname archive, kept in The Netherlands because of better archiving conditions, will return to Suriname. Next year the Suriname national archive will open a new, modern archive building. Together with improved regulations and staff training this will guarantee proper conservation of these documents.
• The Friesland archive Tresoar and the Groningen university are indexing the registers of the Sound Toll from the Danish national archive. The Sound Toll Registers contain information on about 1.8 million passages. From ca. 1580 onward, the biggest part of the passing ships came from The Netherlands. During the 18th century more ships came from Friesland than from any other Dutch province. The project's website is The Sound Toll Registers Online.
• The city archive of The Hague have published part of the population register online. Not as part of their clumsy virtual study room, but (like many cities in Zuid-Holland) in Digitale Stamboom (Digital Family Tree). You can find the records from The Hague here. Scans are available free of charge.

Postcard from Den Haag

The Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) in Den Haag (a.k.a. The Hague or 's-Gravenhage) was built in the middle ages as a palace for the counts of Holland, and is now used for the opening of the parliamentary year and official receptions by the Queen, the government, and parliament. It is an icon of Dutch democracy, and a must-see for visitors of Den Haag.

This venerable hall has not always been so: During the 18th and 19th century it was used for a lot of less-than-venerable purposes, including (from 1726 to 1855) the draw for the national lottery (which, incidentally, still exists). The caption of this postcard is Loterijzaal, Lottery Hall. Apparently it was still known as such when this card was printed.

The card never ran and has no date marks, but I guess it was printed at the beginning of the 20th century.

Dutch archive news roundup December 2008

The month is not finished yet, but I don't expect anything to happen between Christmas and New Year. If there is news, I will add it to the January news roundup.

• Genlias added birth, marriage and death acts from the province Zuid-Holland.
• The National Archive opened a new website, Afscheid van Indië (Farewell to the Indies), with resources from the time of decolonization of the Dutch Indies. The National Archive also added a Flickr photo set on the same topic.
• The provincial archive of Noord-Brabant, Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum, started publishing photos from their collection on Flickr.
• The city archive of The Hague started digitizing the Haagse Courant, the largest newspaper of The Hague. Digitized newspapers will be available in libraries and the archive in The Hague only, unfortunately there are no plans (yet?) to publish them on the internet or make them available outside The Hague.

Online records: Virtuele studiezaal Den Haag

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

We have visited the the city archives of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and today we will go to The Hague.

The website

The Virtuele studiezaal (virtual study room), also known as Burgerlijke stand online (civil register online), is the online database of the city archive of The Hague.

What do they have?

The BMD records of the civil register of The Hague.

Is there an English interface?

No.

How do I use it?

The city archive has scanned, but not indexed, the civil register of The Hague, so it is not possible to search the register, at least not in the way you can search other online databases. Users of the database can index the records they find, and by now many records are indexed, but there are also many unindexed records.

Search the index

To search the indexed records, click the button labelled Zoeken in beschreven documenten (search in described documents), on the right.

Fill in Achternaam (surname), and, if necessary, voornamen (given names), tussenvoegsel (infix), or datum document (date of document, in the order day-month-year). Click the Zoeken button to start your search. Click on a name to view the scan.

Search in the contemporary index

Searching records that are not indexed yet is more complicated. If you have searched for Dutch BMD acts in a Dutch archive or in a FHC before, The search procedure will be familiar to you, otherwise the search can be quite confusing.

First you have to find the act in a contemporary index. Click on the Zoeken via toegang button on the left. Fill in Naam (zonder voorvoegsel) (name, without infix), and periode in jaren (year from/to). You can limit your search to tafel geboorten (birth index), tafel huwelijk en echtscheiding (marriage and divorce index), or tafel overlijden (death index). Select alle bronnen to search all the indexes at once. Warning: The Hague marriage acts from 1853 are only indexed on the grooms' names!

In the example below (click images to enlarge) I searched for the wedding of Theodorus Pardoen and Sara Catharina Springveld that took place in the 1850s. Please join me in my search

Fill in the form and click the Zoeken button to search.

We find five results. Acts are usually indexed per ten years, but The Hague marriage acts have a single index for the years 1811-1852. The first result is the index to marriage acts for names starting with P-Q. The second result looks similar, but is actually the index to divorces 1811-1852. The third and fourth result are for Loosduinen, a former independent town that is now part of The Hague. The fifth result is the marriage index 1853-1862 for names in the range mage-raimo. We need either the first result, or the fifth. Let's try the first result: Click on p - q.

We now have a page of numbered buttons, Afb.1 to Afb.33. The buttons lead to images of the index: From names starting with Paa on the first image, to names starting with Qui on the last. Browse through the images until you find Pardoen (see below how to view and browse through the images). The third image is the one we need: It lists Pardoen, Theodorus; Springvelt, Sara Catharina; 22.9.1852; nr. 482. 22.9.1852 is the date of the act. For marriages, the date of the act will normally be the date of the wedding (there are exceptions), for births and deaths the act is often created a few days later. 482 is the act number. We need the date and act number to find the act itself.

On the top of the page there is a search form to find the act we are after. Fill in the date of the act (in this case, 22 september 1852) and click the button Document zoeken.

We get a screen full of numbered buttons again. Each button leads to scans of 1852 marriage acts, from 15 September on the first to 10 November on the last button. Browse through the scans until you find the marriage act (in this case, image 8).

Viewing and browsing scans

When you have clicked one of the numbered buttons to get to the scans, you probably have to browse a few pages to find the scan you were looking for. You can use the browser's back button and click another numbered button, but there are also previous and next buttons. The previous button is labelled Vorige, the next button Volgende. You find these just above the scan. On the top left of the page you find a miniature of the numbered buttons (but without the numbers), you can also use these to navigate.

On the top of the scan you find a few small buttons. The two zoom buttons are obvious. The button to the right of the zoom buttons is probably the most important button: It opens the scan in a new window, where you can see more of the scan (by default, you only see a small fragment of the scan.

Use the double arrow buttons to the right of the scan to scroll up and down, and the double arrow buttons below the scan to scroll left and right.

How much does it cost?

It's free.

Future plans

There are plans to scan the population register in the near future. I could not find a public statement about long term plans.

Conclusion

Where Rotterdam has no scans available online, and Amsterdam charges for scans, The Hague has offered scans of the complete civil register online for free. The site, however, is hard to use. The user interface is clumsy, navigation is hard, browsing and viewing scans is not intuitive, there is no proper index, there is no English user interface. The scans are there, but not everyone will manage to find them. The site has two names (Burgerlijke Stand Online and Virtuele Studiezaal) and a URL that is impossible to remember. My impression is that the scans were just dumped onto the internet without much thought about how people might use them. The scans are available, but the city archive really should rewrite their user interface to make the scans accessible.

Dutch archive news roundup: January 2008

News from the Dutch archives.

• The provinces Zeeland and Zuid-Holland have added records to Genlias. This includes for the first time records of The Hague.
• The National Archive announced several documents from its collection will be on display in New York next year, in an exhibition celebrating the 400th birthday of Henry Hudson's voyage on what is now the Hudson river. One of the documents on display will be the famous 1626 letter describing the purchase of Manhattan for 60 guilders (24 dollars). This letter is also on permanent display on the website of the National Archive
• The Groningen archive announced a new website with records from the province Groningen: Alle Groningers. We will soon have a look at this website in the series Online records.

Marriages from The Hague in Genlias

Please note: This article refers to the Genlias project. This project was discontinued at the end of 2012. Its successor is WieWasWie.nl. You can read more here.

Marriages from The Hague between 1811 and 1842 are now available in Genlias. The Hague - the third-largest city in The Netherlands - is now the largest city with records in Genlias.

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.

Genealogy in The Hague

Birth, marriage and death (BMD) records from The Hague are not included in Genlias, the national database of BMD records. The Municipal Archive of The Hague does provide scans of BMD records on their website. Unfortunately, there is no index to these records, and the website is entirely in Dutch. So, even though BMD records from The Hague are available online, it is very hard to access them.

Records are accessible via contemporary indexes, called tafels or klappers. These are also scanned and available online. Some of these indexes are typed, most are handwritten. Start your search in the indexes by clicking the button "Zoeken via toegang".

Fill in the fields for Naam (name) and Periode in jaren (first and last years of the search period). You can limit your search by choosing a location from Gemeente of instelling (choose Alle gemeenten en instellingen to search all locations, or 's-Gravenhage for The Hague only) and type of record from Bron (choose Alle bronnen to search everything, or Tafel geboorten, Tafel huwelijk en echtscheiding or Tafel overlijden to limit your search to births, marriages/divorces or deaths, respectively). Press the Zoeken (Search) button.

Make your choice from the results list. The list is in Dutch, so you may want to use my Dutch genealogy dictionary to help you understand what you're choosing.

You should now see a list of greenish buttons labelled Afb.1, Afb.2 etc. (Image 1, Image 2, etc.) Click these to see the scans of the indexes. You need to browse these scans to find the information you need. When you find the people you're looking for write down the date that's listed. Note: If the date is not written in full it will be in the form day-month-year, never month-day-year. The date is the date the act was written, not the date of the birth or death. Fill in the date under dag maand jaar (day month year) at the top and click Document zoeken.

The greenish buttons that appear now will take you to the scans of the documents you were looking for. These are ordered by date, and you will need to browse to find the right one.

When you finally succeed locating the record you were looking for, the next challenge starts: Understanding a handwritten Dutch document. My article Reading Dutch birth acts may be helpful when you are trying to make sense of Dutch acts.

Finding information on the website of the The Hague archives is a difficult task. I would like to hear from you if this post helped you to find the records you needed, and if not, where you got stuck. You can add a comment below this post or write in my guestbook (your comments will be visible to everyone) or via the feedback page (your comments will be visible for me only).