Records
Vital records form the base of genealogical research. European records often go a long way back in time. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) held in northern Italy, was one of the Roman Catholic Church's most important councils. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. The Council, among many other things, stated that baptisms, marriages and funerals had to be recorded in registers. Only around 1600 this rule was widely followed in the low countries. Therefore the most commonly used genealogical resource during the Ancien Régime (that is the period before the French Revolution), the baptismal, marriage and burial registers were made and kept by parish priests. These were the so-called parish registers. Depending on the diligence of the parish priests, the records resisting the ravages of time etc, a lot of parishes have records dating back to 1625, and in a number of cases to about 1580. A larger city would of course have several parishes, and produced separate records. By the "Eternal Edict" of 1611 by Archdukes Albrecht & Isabella, all aldermen were ordered to annually produce a certified copy of the parish registers. Unfortunately this was ignored in some regions, despite later urgent reminders like one in 1711. In 1754 Empress Maria Theresa of Austria imposed a powerful decree on all village priests to make duplicates of the records and deliver them to the local government. The French Revolution and the annexation of the Southern Netherlands resulted in the replacement of parishes by municipalities, were the Civil Registry was kept, replacing baptisms and burials with births and death registration, and a very new kind of record for divorces. The old parish registers from before 1796 were claimed by the municipal government. They were manually indexed. New records - the civil records - were as from that date indexed every 10 years, as is still the case.
There are however many other records that are unfortunarely not so easily consultable. These range back to the fifteenth century and in some cases even before that time. Commercial and military registers, "burgher" lists, records relating to the daily life in and around churches and monasteries, tax records, local population censuses, records of the Guilds, various correspondence between towns and foreign authorities, orphan registers, poor-house lists, land registers (cadastre), goods inventories, land sales, notary files, official edicts and laws, court verdicts, accounts of the aldermen, etc. These records contain without doubt much more interesting information than barely the civil records, but are unfortunately in most cases totally unindexed. Although a lot of volunteers have been producing name indexes, maybe only 5% of all material is indexed. Those documents are kept either locally in town halls or town archives, or were moved to provincial depositories.
More recent archives hold national and local newspapers, addres books, obituary cards, military records etc.
Offical civil records however are subject to the Belgian privacy law, This means that there is a ban on all recent vital records.
The privacy law changed in March 2019 and protects vital records as follows:
There are however many other records that are unfortunarely not so easily consultable. These range back to the fifteenth century and in some cases even before that time. Commercial and military registers, "burgher" lists, records relating to the daily life in and around churches and monasteries, tax records, local population censuses, records of the Guilds, various correspondence between towns and foreign authorities, orphan registers, poor-house lists, land registers (cadastre), goods inventories, land sales, notary files, official edicts and laws, court verdicts, accounts of the aldermen, etc. These records contain without doubt much more interesting information than barely the civil records, but are unfortunately in most cases totally unindexed. Although a lot of volunteers have been producing name indexes, maybe only 5% of all material is indexed. Those documents are kept either locally in town halls or town archives, or were moved to provincial depositories.
More recent archives hold national and local newspapers, addres books, obituary cards, military records etc.
Offical civil records however are subject to the Belgian privacy law, This means that there is a ban on all recent vital records.
The privacy law changed in March 2019 and protects vital records as follows:
- Death records: 50 years;
- Marriage records: 75 years;
- Birth records: 100 years;
- Census: 120 years.