Saturday, February 20, 2010

Are you Looking in Hoogstraten?

I can't remember when I discovered this site but I rediscovered it this morning
http://www.erfgoedbankhoogstraten.be/

I still don't speak Dutch and so I struggle with the contents of this site, therefore, the only way for me to learn what is behind each tab, is to just click...

Under Beeldbank, I discovered pictures: postcards of streets, church, nuns, people of all sorts.
You can even do a search if you prefer to not browse through the different pages.
Just type in a word in the box above the list of selections then press "zoeken".

Under Filmbank, I found old video clips. The quality of the video isn't great but we have all gotten spoiled with HD, let's face it.

Under Erfgoedbibliotheek you can do a search through a series of publications.

The Geluidsbank contains interviews relating to events listed chronologically.

The next tab tells you about the Stedelijk Museum Hoogstraten - of course in Dutch, so if you don't know the language and really want to know what is being said, you might want to do a quick "Free Text" translation at www.worldlingo.com
There is a tab for the museum collections under Collectie.
and the Educatief tab tells about programs offered by the museum.

The Forum is not very active but you can always leave a call for help.

The most valuable tab for the researcher is the one I have kept for last: Genealogie

There you will find 28 links to pdf files containing images of actual birth, marriage and death records from 1797 to 1812.
You can search through them as you see the search menu above:
- by name
- by birth place
- by birth year
- by year of death
- by place of death
or you can save these files to your pc and read through them one page at a time.

Remember that this information is made available to you free of charge and should remain such.
These records may be hard to read so be ready to refer back to the blog article on tackling old records or take this paleography course online to help you extract the information from these original records. This course is for English records but it will help you build confidence in your ability to decipher the old handwriting.

Remember too that the Hoogstraten site is a growing site, so go back periodically to see what has been added.

Happy Hunting!!!

http://thebelgianresearchers.blogspot.com/