Gelderland

Gelderland is a province in the east of the Netherlands. It borders on Germany to the east, Overijssel, Flevoland and Utrecht to the north, Noord-Brabant to the south and Zuid-Holland and Utrecht to the west.

The capital city of Gelderland is Arnhem. Other large towns are:

• Nijmegen
• Apeldoorn
• Zutphen
• Doetinchem
• Tiel

Genealogy in Gelderland

Gelderland is a large province, and traditions weren’t the same everywhere. In the eastern part of the province, called the Achterhoek, people used to name themselves after the farms they lived on. Officially, this was abolished when the civil registration was introduced in 1811 but many people are still known by their farm name as well as their official name.

In the western part of the province, people called themselves after their father, using so-called patronymics.

Emigration from Gelderland

During the middle of the nineteenth century, poor crops, a growing population and the need for religious freedom caused many people in Gelderland to consider emigrating. Many of them did. Most of the people who emigrated from Gelderland ended up in Michigan, Wisconsin and New York. At the end of the 19th century, another emigration wave hit. People tended to emigrate to the same destinations as the generation before them.

Gelderland archives

Gelders Archief

The largest archive in Geldeland is the Gelders Archief in Arnhem. They keep the records created at the provincial level, by the municipality of Arnhem and surrounding municipalities, and some organizations and families that were relevant to the provincial history.

Other archives include:

• Erfgoedcentrum Achterhoek en Liemers, for the eastern part of Gelderland.
• Erfgoedcentrum Zutphen, for the area around Zutphen.
• Regionaal Archief Rivierenland, for the Betuwe area around Tiel and Zaltbommel.
• CODA Apeldoorn.
• Regionaal Archief Nijmegen, for the municipality of Nijmegen and surrounding area.
• Gemeentearchief Ede.
• Archief Wageningen.

Online sources

All of the marriage records from Gelderland and an increasing number of birth and death records can be found in WieWasWie, Open Archives, and Archieven.nl. Transcribed church records, tax records, feudal records, and court records of the eastern part of Gelderland, including Aalten, Dinxperlo, Varsseveld and Winterswijk, can be downloaded from Genealogiedomein. Select the name of the town on the left to see which records that are available. See the Digital Resources Netherlands and Belgium for more records.

Online images

There are a few online resources for images of Gelderland:

• Gelderland in beeld (Gelderland in the picture). This has an image bank (“beeldbank”) and a atlas by Blaeu.
• Collectie Gelderland (Collection Gelderland). This has images of artifacts in Gelderland museums and archives.
• Gelderland provincial atlas 1865-1870. This atlas contains a map of the entire province as well as maps of all the municipalities.

[this article was last updated 11 March 2022]