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

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).