Starting a family tree in the Netherlands: where to find the records

In your parents' attic there is a marriage booklet with a hard cover. Your grandparents, 1938, a municipality in Brabant. In it are the names of their parents, and sometimes their dates of birth. Without knowing it, you are holding the beginning of a family tree. This article tells you where to look next, and what of it is online for free in the Netherlands.

The short answer

Start with what you have at home and with those still living. Then search for free in WieWasWie and Open Archieven, which bring together records from dozens of archives. Birth records are public after 100 years, marriage records after 75 and death records after 50. Before 1811, you search the church baptism, marriage and burial registers. And you request the personal record card of a deceased grandparent from the CBG.

Step 1: start at home

The best sources are often in the house: marriage booklets, funeral cards, old letters, diplomas, photos with something written on the back. Ask those who still remember, too. For each person, note what you know for certain, and where you found it. A family tree without sources cannot be checked later.

Step 2: search online for free

• WieWasWie, run by the CBG (the Dutch Centre for Family History), searches records from more than thirty archives. Searching is free; a paid subscription gives you extras.
• Open Archieven searches hundreds of millions of mentions of people in records, also for free. With a paid subscription you get alerts and can export data.
• FamilySearch has Dutch collections by province, free with an account.
• The regional archive of the area where your ancestors lived often has more than the big search sites: scans, registers and help in the reading room.

Step 3: before 1811, the DTB registers

Civil registration begins on 1 January 1811 in most of the Netherlands, and as early as 1796 in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Zeelandic Flanders). Before that, the churches recorded baptisms, marriages and burials in the church baptism, marriage and burial registers, DTB for short. These have usually survived from the late sixteenth century onwards. Expect Latin in Catholic registers, and bear in mind that each church kept its own books.

Which records are public

Record	Public after
Death record	50 years
Marriage record	75 years
Birth record	100 years

After that period the registers go to the archive and anyone can consult them. You request a more recent certificate from the municipality where it was drawn up, with your proof of identity. Anyone can get an extract; for a full copy you need a legitimate interest.

Population register, family card and personal record card

Where the civil records tell you when someone was born, married or died, the population register tells you where and with whom they lived:

• Population register (bevolkingsregister), from about 1850: who lived in each household, with moves. Usually in the municipal or regional archive.
• Family cards (gezinskaarten), from 1920 to 1939: one per family.
• Personal record cards (persoonskaarten), from 1939 to 1994, and after that personal records (persoonslijsten): one per person, with parents, partner, children and addresses.

You request the personal record card or personal record of a deceased relative from the CBG. A search costs €4.65 in 2026, even if nothing is found. If the death was less than twenty years ago, the addresses are left out.

Other sources that yield a lot

• Notarial archives: public after 75 years, wills after 100 years. Found in the regional archives.
• Memories van successie (1806 to 1927): inheritance tax declarations, listing heirs and possessions. For South Holland at the Nationaal Archief (the Dutch National Archives), for the other provinces at the regional archives.
• Militia registers (1815 to 1922): with parents, occupation and a physical description, in municipal and regional archives.
• Memorial cards (bidprentjes): mainly in Catholic families. The CBG has a large collection from the Netherlands and Belgium.

Help and software

The CBG, the Dutch Centre for Family History, has a starter guide for beginners and large collections. The Nederlandse Genealogische Vereniging (NGV), the Dutch Genealogical Society, has more than twenty regional branches with courses for beginners, the magazine Gens Nostra and a library in Bunnik.

To keep track of your family tree, Aldfaer and Gramps are free; both read and write GEDCOM, the exchange format of family tree programs, as does GensDataPro from the NGV. On Genealogie Online you can publish a family tree for free by uploading a GEDCOM file. If you have received or made such a file, thememorypalace.ai/gedcom shows you, for free and without an account, how many generations it contains, who the oldest ancestor is and where the gaps are. The file never leaves your device.

If you are also searching in Belgium, read our guide to starting a family tree in Belgium.

From records to people

A record tells you when someone married, not what the celebration was like. That is in the photos, in the stories, in the letters someone kept. In The Memory Palace, the family tree comes in as GEDCOM and each generation gets a place next to its photos and stories, so the names become people again.