Katana VentraIP

National Archives of Belgium

The National Archives of Belgium[1] (French: Archives générales du Royaume, Dutch: Algemeen Rijksarchief, German: Generalstaatsarchiv; all lit.'General Archives of the Kingdom') is the main depository of the State Archives of Belgium (Archives de l'État; Rijksarchief) and is located on rue de Ruysbroeck/Ruysbroeckstraat, next to the Mont des Arts, in central Brussels. This archive repository holds over 70 kilometres (43 mi) of archives.

The archives of the government bodies and collateral colleges (Council of State, , Council of Finance) and the archives of their legal successors (Royal Council of Philip V, Council of the General Government under Joseph II).

Privy Council

The archives of the Court of Accounts.

The archives of the secretariat that assisted the governor general and the government councils (Audience, Secretariat of State and War, German Secretariat of State).

The subordinate offices created during the Austrian period to disengage the collateral councils from a given issue (Junta for Repayment, Committee, Committee of the Religion Exchequer, etc.)

Jesuit

The archives of the Courts of Justice: , Council of Troubles, etc.

Great Council of Mechelen

The archives of the Creation of and the Royal Square, of the House of Charles of Lorraine, of the Bureau of the Works of the Court, etc.

Brussels Park

The National Archives preserves the archives of the central institutions of the Burgundian Netherlands, the Spanish Netherlands and the Austrian Netherlands until 1795, of the central public authorities of the French period (1795–1815) and of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830). It also holds the archives of the central institutions of the national, and later federal government, from the foundation of Belgium (1830) until today, except for the archives of the Ministries of Defense and of Foreign Affairs.


Among the preserved archives are:


Beside the public archives, the National Archives also preserves numerous private archives such as the archives of politicians who entrusted their records to the institution. The richness of those archives is also due to the sometimes voluminous archives of the most influential Belgian families handed over to the National Archives:


Also worth mentioning:


The National Archives is equipped with a reading room for the public. Researchers, historians, students, people interested in local and family history, etc. can consult the available documents while respecting the privacy of certain information. A number of exhibitions aimed at valorising the collections are organised in the entry hall and accessible to the public for free. Colloquia and study days are held on a regular basis for a learned public. The National Archives also houses the national coordination services of the institution.

Digital reading room[edit]

Some 24,000 church registers from all over Belgium and an increasing number of civil status registers not older than 100 years can be viewed as digital images in the 19 reading rooms of the State Archives, including the reading room of the National Archives. Furthermore, researchers and victims of Nazi persecution or their relatives can consult, upon request and under certain conditions, the digital copy of the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) at the National Archives. This digital copy (over 80 million digital images, stored on roughly six terabytes) pertains to the civil victims of the Nazi regime and contains documents about labour, concentration and extermination camps, registration files about displaced persons, lists about forced labour and a central name index, the originals of which are preserved in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Since January 2013, the parish registers and civil status registers are also accessible for free via the website of the State Archives. Other types of digital documents available in the digital reading room or on the website of the State Archives are, for instance: the proceedings of the Councils of Ministers (1918–1979), the statistical yearbook of Belgium (and the Belgian Congo) since 1870, over 20,000 seal molds, etc.


The reading rooms in the different repositories are accessible to every holder of a valid reader’s card.

(Belgium)

State Archives

Académie Belgo-Espagnole d'Histoire

Muret P., Guide des fonds et collections des Archives générales du Royaume. Archives ecclésiastiques du Brabant : Doyennés, paroisses, collégiales, série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 17, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 1994, 2 volumes.

Soenen M., Guide des fonds et collections des Archives générales du Royaume. Institutions centrales des Pays-Bas sous l'Ancien Régime., série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 15, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 1994, 589 p.

Vanrie A., Guide des fonds et collections des Archives générales du Royaume. Archives scabinales et communales du Brabant, série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 16, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 1995, 607 p.

D'Hoore M., Archives de particuliers relatives à l'histoire de la Belgique contemporaine (de 1830 à nos jours), série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 40, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 1998.

Van Nieuwenhuysen A., completed by Laurent R., Guide des fonds et collections des Archives générales du Royaume : Archives de familles et de particuliers, série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 29, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 1999, 233 p.

Jacquemin, Madeleine (2007). "Les fonds d'archives d'entreprises conservés aux Archives générales du Royaume". In Aubry, Martine; Chave, Isabelle; Doom, Vincent (eds.). Archives, archivistes, archivistique dans l'Europe du Nord-Ouest du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Histoire et Littérature de l'Europe du Nord-Ouest (in French). Vol. 36. France: Publications de l’Institut de recherches historiques du Septentrion. pp. 81–89. :10.4000/hleno.148 – via OpenEdition Books.

doi

De Mecheleer L., Aperçu des instruments de recherche disponibles à la salle de lecture des Archives générales du Royaume : Situation au 1er janvier 2008, série Archives générales du Royaume et Archives de l'État dans les Provinces : Guides. Volume 67, Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 2008. Accessible on the website of the State Archives.

Vanden Bosch H., Amara M. et D’Hooghe V., under the direction of Tallier P.-A., Guide des sources de la Première Guerre mondiale en Belgique, (Publ. 4921), Archives générales du Royaume, Brussels, 2010, 1057 p.

Official website of the State Archives of Belgium

WorldCat.

Belgique. Archives Générales du Royaume

Archives I Presume? Traces of a colonial past in the State Archives

(in French)

Overview of the research instruments available at the reading room of the National Archives

(in French)

Research vade mecum about the individual files on foreigners produced by the Sûreté publique (Police des étrangers) (1835-1943)