Rotterdam Archives

Instructions for using Rotterdam Archives Website

The Rotterdam Archives or Gemeentearchief Rotterdam includes various different kinds of records for the municipality of Rotterdam as well as other municipalities that, over time, have become a part of Rotterdam such as the municipality of Kralingen which was annexed in 1895. Many of these are beneficial to genealogists. For example, the Rotterdam Archives includes indexes from baptismal, marriage, and burial registers beginning in the 16th century and civil registration which begins in 1811 and runs until 1950. The archive also includes notarial records which run from 1585 to 1811, and scans of city address books that run from 1808 to 1939.

The indexes for baptismal, marriage, and burial registers that date from the 16th century are extremely helpful because before 1811 these were the only vital records available for the Netherlands. Although some of these records have already become accessible through FamilySearch Historical Records, there are still many that can only be looked at using microfilm. The index for these records on Gemeentearchief Rotterdam enables researchers to avoid wasted time at the microfilm reader. The indexed civil registration records are also important because the popular Dutch Genealogical database, Genlias.nl, has yet to index any birth, marriage, or death registration entries for the Rotterdam municipality. Without Gemeentearchief Rotterdam, researchers would be left to examine the ten-year-tables on microfilm or on FamilySearch Historical Records.

In order to have success when using the Gemeentearchief Rotterdam web-site, researchers should remember the following:

The website address is: http://www.gemeentearchief.rotterdam.nl/

It would be wise to use an internet browser such as Google chrome that would allow you to translate the page from Dutch into English unless you know the language.

The historical records can be accessed by clicking on the “zoek op mensen” or “looking at people” link on the first page.

When typing your query in the search box use only surnames. Too many search terms will cause the search to have a negative result and it will seem that there are no hits to your query.

The number of hits for your query will be shown in the row of boxes on the results page. You can access the results by clicking on the hot link contained within the boxes.

All results are organized by date.

Rotterdam Archives Helps thumb|left|]

Gemeentearchief Rotterdam