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At the Noord-Hollands Archief you can search for your ancestors that lived in this province. At present most of the search will have to be conducted in our search room, but a growing amount of sources are being made available from the Internet. Our most important sources for genealogical research are:

• The "akten van de burgerlijke stand", or civil registration of births, marriages and deaths. At present the following years are available for public research: births 1811-1902, marriages 1811-1932, together with the "huwelijksbijlagen" or annexes to the marriage certificates (these are the documents that were used to prove the data stated in the marriage certificates), and deaths 1811-1960. We have a complete registration for all municipalities in the province of Noord-Holland with us.
  
  Please note that from several municipalities in Noord-Holland there are no annexes to the marriage certificates for the period 1811-1888. These were burnt in a fire in Alkmaar in 1890. For a complete list of the municipalities involved, please click here.

• The "bevolkingsregister", or registration of inhabitants that lived in the municipalities. The content of this registration can be compared to that of the American and English censuses. We do not keep this registration for all municipalities in the province of Noord-Holland, but only those that have joined the Noord-Hollands Archief. You can check the list of municipalities for the ones available with us. In general the "bevolkingsregister" starts at about 1850, and it has been handed over to us up to approximately 1938.

• The "Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken", often abbreviated as "D.T.B.". This is the Dutch term for parish registers. The civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in the province of Noord-Holland dates from 1811. Prior to that year you have to rely on parish records, containing baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials. The date this registration starts may vary, for some cities or villages you will find records dating back to the early seventeenth century; others often start at a much later date. We keep the records of most cities and villages in Noord-Holland, except those of the city of Alkmaar (these are kept at the Regionaal Archief Alkmaar) and those of the city of Amsterdam (these are kept at the Stadsarchief Amsterdam).

If you want to see which sources are available online, please check our databases. Apart from the databases Digitale Stamboom and Genlias, there are several other indexes available; you should take into account that all the original sources are written in Dutch. A complete list of available online sources can be found here. At your request we can do (limited) research for you, but this involves a fee. We are happy to provide you with an estimation of the fee.

We offer an online service to search the catalogues of the archives and collections we keep. You can see what records we keep in the "Archievenoverzicht" (our catalogue of archives and collections). You have to keep in mind that this is a service in Dutch, so if you want to track down any of the records, please use Dutch keywords.