Amsterdam has been the largest city in the Netherlands since the late Middle Ages. The records are vast: the Amsterdam City Archives keeps more than 50 kilometers (over 30 miles) of records. A small but growing part of these records are available online. Here are the best free websites for genealogy research in Amsterdam. Amsterdam City Archives The Amsterdam City Archives keeps the records of the municipality of Amsterdam and the municipalities it annexed (Buiksloot, Nieuwendam, … [Read more...]
Quick tip – New website Amsterdam City Archives
8 January 2020 by 2 Comments
The Amsterdam City Archives is changing the part of their website to search the finding aids, indexes, and image bank. One great new feature is that the indexes search function now searches all indexes at once. You can use * as a wildcard to search for spelling variations like Jans* for Jans, Jansen, Janszen, and Janssen. The new image viewer no longer requires Flash, which used to cause problems on many systems. Another improvement is that the website is now mobile-friendly. The … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Two New Netherland Articles Published
9 August 2017 by 5 Comments
Two of my clients published articles in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (April 2017 issue) for which they used research I did for them: Harry Macy, "Origin of the Amerman and Terhune Families, and their Founding Mother Geertje Dirks." This article includes research I did to identify the origins of Albert Terhune, patriarch of the New Netherland Terhune family. Adrian Burke, "A Note on Origins of Alexander Glen, Alias Sander Leendertz Glen, of Schenectady County, New … [Read more...]
Dutch Archives that provide Free Scanning on Demand
23 June 2017 by 5 Comments
In the Netherlands, archives provide their already digitized records available online for free. But several archives go a step further, and also allow you to request documents to be scanned free of charge. These archives have allocated budget for digitizing their collection. Part of this budget is used for larger projects, and another part is used for scanning-on-demand where the users determine the order in which the records get digitized. The resulting scans are attached to the finding aids … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Amsterdam Scans now Free
11 January 2017 by 3 Comments
The Amsterdam City Archives will no longer charge for their online scans. That means that you do not need pay-per-view credits anymore to consult the scans that are attached to their indexes or finding aids. Available indexes include: Church records of baptisms, marriages, and burials before 1811 Conveyance records of property transactions before 1811 Criminal confessions 1535-1732 Patient records from 1818-1899 Population registers since 1851 Police records from … [Read more...]
Quick tip – Amsterdam maps
8 June 2016 by 1 Comment
The Amsterdam City Archives published a wonderful collection of maps on their website. You can view the scans at high resolution and then select "Bekijk op de kaart" to see them projected on a modern map. By moving the transparency slider back and forth, you can easily compare the current and the old situation. Go to the maps collection of the Amsterdam City Archives. … [Read more...]
