The Genealogy website contains records and registers of parishes until 1796 and of civil status administrations as from 1796. These sources can help you draft your own familiy tree. For optimal research progress, we invite you to consult our “How to get started” section where you can find explanations about the types of sources available. Please also read the “User Guide” to be able to get the best results from our search engine.

You can report errors using the contact form. Please describe errors as clearly as possible. For example, if you have found an error in the metadata (such as a date error: 1885 instead of 1858), please mention the URL of the object.

If you find an error on the website itself (for example a button does not work), please mention which browser you use and the location of the error.

The church and civil status registers on our search engine are updated every three months. These updates consist of additions (municipalities, years or missing record types) and corrections of errors that users have reported via our contact form (see “How to report errors”). You can check the digitisation progress of registers as they are transferred by the courts of first instance by using the filter “Date of update”.

In order to search a record go to the “Genealogy” website than select the type of record you would like to search and the municipality/parish in which this record was created. For further information, please consult the User Guide.

To download a record simply click on then on . For practical reasons you cannot download more than 100 pages per day.

Please note that a user fee must be paid to the State Archives in case you want to use a document (including records) in a publication. The terms of reproduction and user fees can be found in our tariffs.

Please use the contact form if you wish to order a copy of a record that is not available online because it has not yet been digitised.

Registration is free but mandatory in order to access the online archives. Enter your e-mail address and chose a password containing at least eight characters of which at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter, one number and one special character. Activate your account by clicking on the link in the confirmation mail you received. After registration you can consult and download digital records in which you are interested. For more information, see “How to download a record?”.

To connect to your user account, enter your e-mail address and your password on the start page of our search engine, then click on “Login”.

You can disconnect by clicking on “Close session” below your name.

After your registration you receive a confirmation mail. If you have not received this conformation mail, please check your Spam folder and verify that you have entered your e-mail address correctly.

In case you still have not received the confirmation mail after these verifications, please use the contact form so that an administrator can activate your account manually.

If you wish to delete your user account, please use the contact form.

If the message “E-mail address already in use” is displayed during the registration process, you probably already have an acount or tried to create one. In this case, enter your e-mail address in the section “Login” of the start page. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking on “Forgot password?” in the connection section. Next, enter your e-mail adress and click on “Send”. You will receive an e-mail with a link to reset your password; after having chosen a new password you can connect to your account again.

Attention: If you already have a user account for the old search engine, this account remains valid for the new search engine too!

To change your password, go to the profile page and set a new password. It must contain at least eight characters of which at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter, one number and one special character.

If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking on “Forgot password?” in the connection section. Next, enter your e-mail adress and click on “Send”. You will receive an e-mail with a link to reset your password; after having chosen a new password you can connect to your account again.

To change your mail address, go to your profile page, enter the new mail address and then click "Save".

The website interface is available in French, Dutch, German and English. You can set the language of the interface by clicking on the language buttons “NL”, “FR”, “DE” or “EN”.

Attention: the digital records are in their original language and have not been translated!

The following browsers are supported:

• Google Chrome, from version 94.0
• Firefox, from version 92.0
• Safari, from version 15.1
• Edge, from version 93.0

Attention: the “Genealogy” website does NOT work on Internet Explorer!

Web addresses change regularly, for example when an organisation changes its name or is acquired by another one. In order to avoid this problem, permalinks are put in place to leave the content accessible at the same web address.

Unfortunately, some links of the old search engine were not permalinks (see “What is a permalink?”) which is why they could not be connected to the new search engine. So via the church and civil status registers you can find back the links to records you have previously saved.