How to trace your Dutch roots online

If you want to research your Dutch ancestors via the internet, your starting point should be the Genlias website.

Genlias is a joint product of the regional history centres and state archives in the Netherlands. Genlias contains records from the civil register (birth, marriage and death records maintained by local governments), and sometimes the church books. It is a work in progress, and currently far from complete, but already contains over 11 million records.

Genlias has an English interface (click "English" in the top right), but all information it contains is in Dutch. To search, click "Searching in Genlias", then "Searching in Genlias database" (or go directly to the search page). It may be a good idea to read the Search instructions and Explanation of the results first.

Read my Genlias article for more information on how to use Genlias.

Not all places have data in Genlias. The three largest cities of The Netherlands, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, are hardly represented. Rotterdam does not participate in Genlias at all, Amsterdam is busy adding records but is not quite there yet, and The Hague has only a few records in Genlias. All three cities have their own online database.

Some Amsterdam records can be found on the website of the Amsterdam city archive. The most important are the baptisms (1564-1811). Their website is available in Dutch and English.

Rotterdam has the excellent Rotterdam Municipal Archives' Digital Family Tree. A large part of the website is also available in English. The website contains most of the church books (covering the period 1573-1811) and a large part of the civil register (1811-1950).

The Hague has created a virtual study center, that should eventually have the same information available as their study center in the The Hague city archive. It has scans of their civil registry records. The website is hard to navigate, there is no searchable index, and it does not have an English interface. Recently they opened a new, and better, website that contains part of their population register: Digital Family Tree The Hague. This website does have an English interface.

Genlias records are usually added by the provincial archives. Zuid-Holland, however, does not have a provincial archive (provincial records are maintained by the National Archives in The Hague). It is up to the local and regional archives to decide wether to take part in Genlias or not.

Places that are not represented in Genlias include major cities like Rotterdam, The Hague, Leiden, and Delft. Places that do not take part in Genlias and do not have their own online database will eventually be added to Genlias by the National Archives. For the latest information on Zuid-Holland records in Genlias, check out Archives in Zuid-Holland and Genlias and Actual content (both on the Genlias website).

Genealogy in Zuid-Holland contains a list of all municipalities in Zuid-Holland, and in which online database (if any) their records are kept.

There is, of course, much more to discover than just the websites listed above. Once you know where your ancestors came from you can use the website Digital resources Netherlands and Belgium to discover what else is available online. And my website Trace your Dutch roots has lots of tips and advice on Dutch genealogy, for both beginners and advanced researchers.

If you are serious about finding your Dutch ancestors, or just want to know more about Dutch heritage, you should subscribe to my quarterly newsletter. You can find the subscription form and all previous issues here.