Kampen, Overijssel, Netherlands Genealogy

Kampen is a city and municipality in Overijssel. It lies at the very mouth of the IJssel river. It nowadays has a population of 50,000. It has always been one of the prominent cities of Overijssel.

The municipalitiy contains the following places: Kampen, Grafhorst, 's-Heerenbroek, IJsselmuiden ,Wilsum, Zalk, Bisschopswetering, DeHeuvels, Hogeweg, Kampereiland, Kamperveen, Nieuwstad, Oude Wetering, Oosterholt, De Roskam, Veecaten, De Zande and Zuideinde

The modern municipality is compromised of several former municipalities. It absorbed the former island of Schokland in 1859, then in 2001 it absorbed IJsselmuiden, which had itself absorbed Grafhorst, Wilsum, Zalk en Veecaten and Kamperveen.

Church Records
Images of Church Records are accessible from the  Stadsarchief Kampen and VPND. Transcriptions and indexes can be found at the HCO, GeneaKnowHow, VPND and Sallands DTB.

All couples, regardless of their religion, were required before 1794/5 to have their marriage registered in the Dutch Reformed church. From 1795-1811 all couples were required to marry before the secular authorities (gerecht).Burials of non-Dutch Reformed persons may also have taken place in the Dutch Reformed church.

According to the 1840 Census, the present day Kampen was 81% Protestant, 17% Catholic and 2% Jewish.

Dutch Reformed
In the city of Kampen itself were the Bovenkerk, Buitenkerk and Broederkerk. Baptisms from these churches are indexed and searchable on the site of the Stadsarchief Kampen. Some membership records (lidmaten) are available on VPND.

Baptisms for Grafthorst are on VPND for 1775-1819 and marriages 1792-1795.

Records were kept in Wilsum from 1769 onwards, and are transcribed on VPND

Baptisms for Kampereiland exist from 1670 and marriages from 1669.

Kamperveen kept baptism records from 1689, which are transcribed on VPND, and marriages from 1791.

Records for IJsselmuiden exist from 1624, and from 1637 can be viewed on VPND.

Zalk en Veecaten kept records from 1603, which are transcribed on VPND.

Catholic
In the city of Kampen there were two churches- the Pastoorskerk and the Paterskerk. Records for the Pastoorskerk start in 1738 and the Paterskerk in 1683.

Other Religions
In the city of Kampen there was a Jewish synagouge with records starting 1794, a Lutheran church, with records starting in 1647, a Wallonian Reformed church with records starting in 1652 and a Mennonite church with records starting 1730. No transcriptions of these records are available.

Civil Registration
In 1811 the Napoelonic Regime began the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths. This has been continued by the Dutch government ever since. Civil registration is organized around municipalities of the time of the events.

For Kampen and its former municipalities, births from 1811-1912, marriages from 1811-1932 and deaths from 1811-1960 are on WieWasWie and OpenArch. The exception is births from IJsselmuiden village and parts of Mastenbroek, for which births are only available for 1811-1831.

The original images are not linked to this index, so the FamilySearch Catalog may also have images for births 1913-1916, marriages 1933-1941 and deaths 1961-1966. Births older than 100 years, marriages older than 75 years and deaths older than 50 years are able to be publicly released but archives can be up to ten years behind putting them online.