Dutch Genealogy News for August 2019

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

Online sources

• MyHeritage just added a new collection of Netherlands newspapers 1659-1899. These newspapers are available at Delpher. If you have a tree at MyHeritage, you will start receiving record matches for these newspapers.
• The Brabant Historisch Informatie Centrum has now published half a million notarial records from the north-east of Noord-Brabant online. The index and scans can be found on the BHIC website.
• An index of people mentioned in criminal records of the manor of Bredevoort, which includes Aalten, Bredevoort, and Dinxperlo over the period 1711-1723 was published at GenealogieDomein. The index has a link to the scans of the original records at FamilySearch.
• Real estate sales tax records for various places in the eastern part of Gelderland in 1790 have been added to Genealogiedomein.
• Over 40,000 images from the island of Schouwen-Duiveland have been added to the image bank of the Zeeuws Archief.

View of Brouwershaven, about 1570. Credits: Braun and Hoogenberg (public domain)

Projects

• The Holland Society of New York announced that they will be digitizing their collection of family bible records. (Source: Holland Society)
• The RKD, the Netherlands Institute for Art History is digitizing its collection of 5.5 million images. The first million have been scanned. They will become available online by the end of 2020. (Source: RKD)
• Volunteers at the Tilburg regional archives have finished transcribing the contemporary indexes of notarial records of Loon op Zand and Hooge en Lage Zwaluwe. The transcriptions will become available on the RAT website later this year. (Source: RAT)
• The Utrechts Archief finished a successful pilot with handwritten text recognition using Transkribus. After training, the computer was able to transcribe text with 98% accuracy. The archive participates in the EU READ project (Recognition and Enrichment of Archival Documents). (Source: Het Utrechts Archief)
• The Utrechts Archief is looking for volunteers to help index the notarial records of the city of Utrecht (1560-1811). See Vele Handen for more information.

Public notary in his office. Credits: Job Berckheyde, collection RKD.

Archives

• The records of the Counts and Dukes of Gelre at the Gelders Archief will be temporarily unavailable. They are being preserved and repackaged. These records cannot be consulted from 1 October 2019 to 1 April 2020. See the announcement for a complete overview of unavailable record groups.
• The digital repository of the National Archives of the Netherland was awarded the CoreTrustSeal, an international warranty for secure information storage. (Source: Nationaal Archief)

Law

• Family law will be changed to better reflect changes in society. The new law will provide clear regulations for surrogate mothers, a central register where children can find out their identity and biological family, and regulations for shared custody in situations where more than two people are raising children. (Source: Rijksoverheid)