In order to consult the digitised archives online (Genealogical Sources and Archive Inventories search engines) you must register for free. Simply enter your e-mail address and the password of your choice. It must be at least eight characters long and contain at least one lower-case letter, one upper-case letter, one number and one special character. The final step is to activate your account after receiving a confirmation e-mail. Once registered you can consult and download the digital records in which you are interested. For more information, see “How do I download a record?”.

No account is required for the Analyses of records and Archives producers search engines, as they do not contain digitised documents.

To connect to your user account, enter your e-mail address and your password on the start page of our search engine, then click on “Login”.

You can disconnect by clicking on “Close session” below your name.

After your registration you receive a confirmation mail. If you have not received this conformation mail, please check your Spam folder and verify that you have entered your e-mail address correctly.

In case you still have not received the confirmation mail after these verifications, please use the contact form so that an administrator can activate your account manually.

If you wish to delete your user account, please use the contact form.

If the message “E-mail address already in use” is displayed during the registration process, you probably already have an acount or tried to create one. In this case, enter your e-mail address in the section “Login” of the start page. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking on “Forgot password?” in the connection section. Next, enter your e-mail adress and click on “Send”. You will receive an e-mail with a link to reset your password; after having chosen a new password you can connect to your account again.

Attention: If you already have a user account for the old search engine, this account remains valid for the new search engine too!

To change your password, go to the profile page and set a new password. It must contain at least eight characters of which at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter, one number and one special character.

If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking on “Forgot password?” in the connection section. Next, enter your e-mail adress and click on “Send”. You will receive an e-mail with a link to reset your password; after having chosen a new password you can connect to your account again.

To change your mail address, go to your profile page, enter the new mail address and then click "Save".

The account is valid for the entire AGATHA search environment. It is only mandatory for the Genealogical Sources and Archive Inventories search engines (coming soon) however, as they both contain digitised archives. To find out how to register, see “How do I create an account?”.

The website interface is available in French, Dutch, German and English. You can set the language by clicking on “Français”, “Nederlands”, “Deutsch”, or “English”.

Please note that for the Genealogical Sources and Archive Inventories search engine, the digitised documents are in their original language and are not translated.

For the Analyses of records search engine, certain data such as comments or descriptions are written in the language of the person who analysed and described the documents. They are thus not translated.

The following browsers are supported:

• Google Chrome, from version 94.0
• Firefox, from version 92.0
• Safari, from version 15.1
• Edge, from version 93.0

Attention: the “Genealogy” website does NOT work on Internet Explorer!

Web addresses change regularly, for example when an organisation changes its name or is acquired by another one. In order to avoid this problem, permalinks are put in place to leave the content accessible at the same web address.

Unfortunately, some links of the old search engine were not permalinks (see “What is a permalink?”) which is why they could not be connected to the new search engine. So via the church and civil status registers you can find back the links to records you have previously saved.

This search engine allows you to access digitised parish registers (until 1796) and civil status registers (from 1796 onwards). These sources can form the basis of your family tree. To help you with your research, we invite you to see the page “Genealogical research: How to start?”. Please also read the “User Guide” to be able to get the best results from our search engine.

To search for a digitised record, use the “Genealogical Sources” search engine. Choose the type of document you are looking for and the municipality and/or parish where the document was created. For more information see the User Guide.

To download a record simply click on then on . For practical reasons you cannot download more than 100 pages per day.

Please note that a user fee must be paid to the State Archives in case you want to use a document (including records) in a publication. The terms of reproduction and user fees can be found in our tariffs.

Please use the contact form if you wish to order a copy of a record that is not available online because it has not yet been digitised.

You can report errors using the contact form. Please describe errors as clearly as possible. For example, if you have found an error in the metadata (such as a date error: 1885 instead of 1858), please mention the URL of the object.

If you find an error on the website itself (for example a button does not work), please mention which browser you use and the location of the error.

The church and civil status registers on our search engine are updated every three months. These updates consist of additions (municipalities, years or missing record types) and corrections of errors that users have reported via our contact form (see “How to report errors”). You can check the digitisation progress of registers as they are transferred by the courts of first instance by using the filter “Date of update”.

The Analyses of records search engine is the result of decades of work by our numerous volunteers and the staff of the State Archives. Thousands of pages of archives have been systematically analysed to provide a succinct description of the document (content, date, place). In addition, the names of all the people mentioned in the document were noted, and if possible other data such as place of residence, profession, date of birth, etc.

In order to make the most of your research and to be able to get the best results from our search engine please consult the User Guide.

Most of the information available via the search engine comes from genealogical documents, such as church registers and civil status registers. But the search engine also allows access to analyses of notarial deeds, building permits, property records, militia registers, foreigners' files, etc.

The search engine can be used to find information on Belgian municipalities as well as certain foreign municipalities, provided they are mentioned in the documents analysed. The volume of information available varies from one region to another, depending on the data analysed.

With Free search, you can search for keywords, i.e. a document, a person, a company or an institution.
With Find a person, you can search for a person using surname, first name, place and/or date. It is also possible to filter by type of record and project.

For more information, please refer to the User Guide.

The Analyses of records search engine is the result of decades of analysis work by our numerous volunteers and the staff of the State Archives. Not all church or civil status registers have yet been analysed and described in detail. The same applies to other types of records. The State Archives does not guarantee the quality or consistency of the data fed to the database. Depending on the project, the level of information is not the same, so some data may not have been recorded and others may not be readable.

Would you like to take part in a volunteer project? Do you already have analyses of certain types of records for a given period and place, and would you like to make them available to the research community? Let us know via the contact form!

In some cases we do not have the full date or place of the record because the information is not legible or because the data is not available. Sometimes, volunteers have referred to “indexes” that mention the information “year”. Only the year is thus mentioned.

If a person's first or last name is stated as N.N. (Non Nomine in Latin), this means either that the name is illegible or that it was not mentioned in the record. The acronym S.N. stands for Sine Nomine (without a name in Latin) and is used for stillborn babies who have not been given a first name.

If you know of a missing first or last name, you can submit it to us using the contact form or via the Mention an error button in the record file.

For church and civil status registers, you can use our Genealogical Sources search engine. For more information, please refer to the User Guide.

More information about access to other types of documents, such as citizen lists or declarations of inheritance, can be found in the inventory of the archive (URL mentioned on the project sheet). If the documents analysed have already been digitised, they can be accessed using the Archive Inventories search engine. If this is not the case, the original document can be requested in the reading room of the State Archives where it is preserved. Reproductions can be ordered in the same way, at the following rates.

To print a record analysis, simply click on the Print button in the detailed file of the record. The analysis can also be downloaded (saved in PDF format) via this button.

Errors can be reported using the contact form or via the Report an error button in the list of results or in the record file. Please describe errors as clearly as possible. If you have found an error in the analysis (for example: an act dated 1885 is dated 1858), please keep the URL displayed in the URL field and mention the identifier of the analysed record (at the top of the record).

If you find an error on the website itself (for example a button does not work), please mention which browser you use and the precise location of the error.

An overview of new additions or corrections is available on the page Project list in the Date of update column.
Errors reported are corrected either by updating an entire project, or on a case-by-case basis if the project is internal to the State Archives.

The Archive Inventories search engine is not yet online. It can be used to search for inventories and digitised documents. In the meantime, you can still use our old search engine.

The Archive Producers search engine is not yet online. It will allow you to search for archive producers, i.e. the individuals, groups of individuals or organisations that have received or created archive documents and which are held at the State Archives. In the meantime, you can still use our old search engine.