In the week of 16 December 2024, the search engine ‘Archive inventories’ in the new search environment AGATHA will be launched. It will replace the search engine ‘Search in archives’ from the old search environment SEARCH.
PLEASE NOTE: On 23 December 2024, the old search environment SEARCH will be completely deactivated and will therefore no longer be accessible! Users, who still surf to the old search website, will automatically be redirected to AGATHA. In the meantime, SEARCH will no longer be updated! So no new inventories or digitised documents will be added anymore.
Our reading rooms
The Belgian State Archives have 20 repositories spread throughout the country. Every repository service is fitted with a public reading room enabling you to consult archival documents in written, printed or digital format.
Our reading rooms are open to all persons interested – students, researchers historians, genealogists, civil servants, architects, land surveyors, etc. …!
You will always find a State Archives nearby!
Attention: Book your place in the reading room you want to visit at least 2 working days in advance.
The reading room of the National Archives is accessible with or without booking. Bookings must be made exclusively using the online booking form.
- The reading room of CegeSoma is acessible upon appointment only via this online form.
- The reading rooms of all other State Archives repositories are only accessible upon appointment per e-mail, made at least 2 work days in advance and addressed to the repository in question. You can find the contact details of the State Archives repositories here.
Stay up-to-date via this page or and our Facebook page. You do not know to which service your question should be addressed? Use our contact form.
Civil status registers and church registers online!
From now on, the digitised parish and civil status registers can only be consulted via the genealogy website. This search website contains over 38.6 million birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial records as well as indexes for all of Belgium.
The digitised documents can be viewed for free, but you need to register and get your login and password via our website.
Collection of cadastre maps and documents online
From now on, the search engine ‘Search archives’ also allows you to find some 23,423 digital images of ‘primitive cadastral maps’ and some 61,530 digital images of the ‘minutes of measurement’ setting the municipal boundaries. These scans originate from the Federal Public Service Finance and can be accessed via the following links:
Primitive cadastral maps
Minutes of measurement
Consultation is free but if you wish to access the actual images, you need to have a login and password, which you can obtain on the website.
Click here to watch the clip
Search engine instruction clip online
The State Archives conserves over 315 kilometers of archives. Each year, at least 10 km are added after appraisal. So, how do you search this vast treasure of information? Use the search engine. Ths instruction clip shows you, after a brief presentation of the State Archives, practical hints about how to get the most out of our powerful search engines.
Click here to watch the instruction clip via YouTube