“It is june 1572 and count Willem van den Bergh occupies and plunders Zutphen. For a short while, the city is free of the Spanish. In October, his brother-in-law William of Orange comes to check up on him and reports to Jan of Nassau that the situation is unfavorable. Indeed, in November don Frederik ends the occupation and the city is Spanish once more. There is a war on in the Netherlands, there is a war on in Zutphen. A team from the Regionaal Archief Zutphen has transcribed and published a new series of city bills (1570-1575) from this turbulent period from Zutphen’s history.”
(RA Zutphen | January 6th 2008)

The online archive of the Regionaal Archief Zutphen, which was set up by Pictura, has been expanded greatly in the last months. Except for the 16th century city bills, the Regionaal Archief has also unlocked a great number of old church registers from the (former) municipalities of Brummen, Gorssel, Warnsveld and Zutphen. “For people doing genealogical research, the church records are important sources for finding persons from before 1811,” says an employee of the archive in an article that was published in De Stentor of January 9th 2008.

More recent information for genealogical research can be found in the data of the civil registers. The family cards play an important role in this. On these cards, Zutphen’s civil service kept track of family members, occupations and if someone would move. The 20.000 cardboard cards were scanned by Pictura in very high quality and given easily accessible indexes. They can now be studied on the website of the Regionaal Archief Zutphen.

The Regionaal Archief Zutphen will not rest here. In the coming months she will keep rapidly expanding her online collection. With Pictura’s help.