Dutch Genealogy News for March 2021

This is an overview of the new sources, websites, and projects that were announced last month.

Sources

• Automatically generated transcriptions of Amsterdam notarial records from the 1600s and 1700s can now be searched via a website. These transcriptions were created using handwritten text recognition. The artificial intelligence used for this project was trained using data created by volunteers.
• Notarial records of several notaries and surveyors in Limburg between 1544 and 1842 have been added to the website of the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg.
• Correspondence about marriage dispensations by the bishop of Roermond (1665-1802) have been added to the website of the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg.
• Aldermen records of Zoetermeer (1675-1811) are now available via the Zoetermeer website.
• The population register of Liempde 1827-1939 is now available via the website of the Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum.
• An index of the orphan chamber records of Axel 1618-1795 are available via GeneaScript (PDF).
• Transcriptions of the city accounts of Gouda 1477-1535, 1601-1613 have been added to the Archiefman website.
• A new HisGIS project [historical geographical information system] just launched: the coastal area of North-Holland, with Haarlem, Alkmaar, and Medemblik. The geographical information system shows the situation in 1832, including the owners.
• A new collection of 270 photos of life on farms in and around Tilburg 1950-1970 is now available via the website of the Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum.

Websites

• The Streekarchief Hollands Midden, the Regional Archives for the Middle of Holland, which keeps the records of Gouda and surrounding municipalities, has a new website. The Personen section is a search engine for genealogical sources with more than a million records, including the population registers 1830-1920.

Streekarchief Hollands Midden website

Projects

• The Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie [Netherlands Institute for Military History] launched a volunteer indexing project for the personnel cards of the merchant navy in World War II. Volunteers can report to the project website.
• A new project was launched involving Hindu families in Suriname: the Calcutta letters. This collection contains correspondence between Hindus in Suriname and their families in India. These letters are part of a larger collection. They will have to be identified and, photographed, transcribed, and translated. The results will be published by the end of 2021. A crowdfunding campaign will fund the publication. [Source: Sarnamihuis]
• The Drents Archief is researching Jewish properties that were dispossessed during World War II. The municipality of Assen requested this investigation to learn about the role of the municipality in this process. At least 71 houses from Jewish families were taken from them and sold to others. [Source: Drents Archief]
• The Utrechts Archief will start a project to index Utrecht prison records from the period 1940-1950. [Source: Het Utrechts Archief]

Archives

• The national lockdown has been extended again, until 20 April 2021 at least. As a result, most archives are closed. Some stopped their scanning-on-demand services. Please refer to the website of the archives for specifics about the services they offer or not.
• The Utrechts Archief was the victim of ransomware. As a result, some parts of their online collection and services are unavailable. Services that are not available include scans of records, scans of building plans, and scanning-on-demand. No data was lost and no private data was leaked. No ransom was paid. Restoring the information will take several weeks. [Source: Het Utrechts Archief]
• The Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum acquired two feudal registers from the 1500s from the Echternach Abbey, which had extensive landholdings in Brabant. The records were in a private collection and the owners decided to donate the registers to the archives. [Source: BHIC]

Echternach feudal register