Netherlands, Noord-Brabant Province Population Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records

Title in the Language of the Record
Nederland, Noord-Brabant Provincie bevolkingsregisters

Record Description
This Collection will include records from 1820 to 1930.

The records from 1850 to 1920 were kept in bound registers that were sorted by addresses. Later registers were sorted by family names. From 1920 to 1940, the registration was done on family cards. As individuals died, their cards or printouts were sent to the Central Offices for Statistics.

The population register was introduced in 1850 to keep track of families as they moved from one residence to another, although some localities began recording moves as early as 1820. It contained much the same information as the earlier censuses but added changes of address; occupations; births, deaths, and marriage dates; and immigration information. With all the changes, pages could get messy, so it was necessary to close some of the registers and start new ones. The 1850 register entries were based on information gathered from the census taken November 19, 1849. Early registers were sorted by address. Later registers were sorted by family name. Around 1920, the bound registers were phased out and replaced by a loose-leaf system known as family cards (gezinskaarten), which was used until 1940 when a new system came into effect.

For a list of records by localities and dates currently published in this collection, select the Browse link from the collection landing page.

Local magistrates needed a better system to keep track of inhabitants as they moved from place to place.

Because of all the copying and changing, the population registers contain a lot of errors; however, they do contain a lot of information not easily found elsewhere. Information found in these registers should always be checked against vital or church records

Record Content
Records usually contain the following information:


 * Name of each member of the household
 * Birth dates and places
 * Occupation
 * Relationship to the head of the household
 * Marital/civil status
 * Religion
 * Arrival date and where he or she moved from
 * Removal date and where he or she moved to
 * Death dates and causes of death

How to Use the Record
To search the collection, ⇒Select "Browse through images" on the initial collection page ⇒Select the "Municipality" ⇒Select the "Volume Number" which takes you to the images. Search the collection by image comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine which one is your ancestor. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to make this determination.

As you are searching it is helpful to know such information as your ancestor’s given name and surname, some identifying information such as residence and age, and family relationships. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as your ancestor and that your ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.

The registers are a very important source of genealogical information. They contain complete families, addresses, dates, occupations, and some other important remarks listed by the magistrates. To find a family in this collection, it is necessary to know the place where the family lived and the family surname.

Related Web Sites

 * Genver - This website can help simplify getting to the correct location in this collection. (Website is in Dutch.)
 * Regionaalarchiefwestbrabant - WieWasWie is a compilation of indexed civil records from the Netherlands, including some from Dutch colonies, mostly dating from 1811 until the mid-1900s

Related Wiki Articles

 * Netherlands
 * Noord-Brabant Population Registers
 * Population Registers

Known Issues With this Collection
There is a site in Dutch which contains all the known issues and the correct waypoints for all Netherlands Familysearch collections. It is at Genver

Citations for This Collection
When you copy information from a record, you should list where you found the information (often called citing your sources). This will help people find the record again and evaluate the reliability of the source. It is also good to keep track of records where you did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records. Citations are available for the collection as a whole and each record or image individually.

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