Dutch Genealogy News for April 2018

Here is an overview of the new sources, projects, and news about archives that were announced last month.

Online records

• The Rotterdam City Archives have made the information about 1.2 million people in the population registers for 1850-1930 available via Archieven.nl. The information was entered by volunteers at Vele Handen.
• The Amsterdam City Archives published an index and scans of the population registers of municipalities that have been annexed by Amsterdam for the period 1830-1921.
• The map collection of the Utrecht University Library was successfully georeferenced. The maps can now be searched through a geographic search engine and compared to modern maps.
• Volunteers of the Huessen Historical Society have transcribed two Huissen steward records from the 1500s. The transcriptions are available at the Historische Kring Huessen website.
• Cor Koene published several transcriptions of church records from the island of Goeree-Overflakkee.

Main street with church in Ooltgensplaat. Credits: G.J. Dukker, collection Cultural Heritage Service (CC-BY-SA)

Legal

• After a landmark verdict, whereby a copyright holder successfully sued the Erfgoed Leiden archive for putting postcards online, many archives have taken down large parts of their image collections. Erfgoed Leiden had not been able to establish the copyright holder of the anonymous postcard and published it as an orphaned work, but the judge found that that was not permissable and awarded the copyright holder the sum of 75 euros per postcard. Hundreds of thousands of photos have been taken down by archives across the country. Erfgoed Leiden is going to appeal the verdict.

Archives

• The Noord-Hollands Archief recently made their catalog, finding aids, and indexes available as open data. This allows other websites to re-use the information. [Source: Noord-Hollands Archief]

Projects

• The Streekarchief Langstraat Heusden Altena is looking for volunteers to index the civil registration and church records. [Source: SALHA]
• The Regionaal Archief Alkmaar started a project to georeference maps using volunteers at Vele Handen. The volunteers have already finished the work and the maps will be available shortly. [Source: Vele Handen]
• The Drents Archief is looking for volunteers to index the registration of people entering the pauper colonies. [Source: Drents Archief]

Willemsoord colony. Collection Rijksmuseum (public domain)