Municipal Archives

The municipal archives hold approximately 900 linear metre of records from the municipalities of Wassenaar and Voorschoten. Not only are the archives of the municipal governments and their predecessors managed here, but also the judicial, notarial, and orphan court archives, as well as baptismal, marriage, and burial records, and a large number of archives from churches, associations, and foundations. In addition, we have an extensive collection Maps of drawings, books, photographs, local newspapers, and other documentation.

The municipal archives do not manage building blueprints; for this source, we refer you to the construction counter of the municipality. 

Digital Study Room

Part of the source material from the municipal archives is available digitally.
You can view this below in our Digital Study Room.

• Historical images. In the Image Documents collection (Digital Photo Archive), you will find over 12,000 scans of photos and picture postcards from Wassenaar dating from 1860 to the present, as well as older prints. Nearly 3,000 scans of photos and picture postcards from Voorschoten have now been added to the collection. More scans of images of Voorschoten will follow.
• Newspaper collection and address books. Are you looking for information about an event, a newspaper article, or an advertisement? Or are you looking for a person's address or the names of all residents of a street? The newspaper collection offers scans of De Wassenaarsche Courant from 1919-1941, the Weekblad voor Roomsch Wassenaar from 1929-1930, Roomsch Wassenaar from 1929-1939, and Groot Wassenaar from 1933-1939. Due to copyright reasons, we are not permitted to display scans of Het Wassenaars Nieuwsblad / De Morgenpost from 1945-1992 and De Wassenaarder from 1951-1992. These newspapers can be searched, but the scans can only be viewed during a visit to the municipal archives. In the address books collection, you will find scans of address books of Wassenaar from 1917, 1923, 1927-1941, 1947, 1951-1952, 1960, and 1967, and scans of address books of Voorschoten from 1953, 1957, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1978.
• Persons, deeds, and registers. Through Deeds/registers and through Persons, you can search the civil status birth certificates from 1811-1912 (both Wassenaar and Voorschoten), marriage certificates from 1811-1940 (Voorschoten up to and including 1932), and death certificates from 1811-1963 (Voorschoten up to and including 1960) of Wassenaar and Voorschoten. Marriage attachments have also been added to the marriage certificates 1812-1842 of Wassenaar and Voorschoten. Scans of all certificates and attachments are also displayed. Through Deeds/registers and through Persons, you can search the Reformed baptismal registers of Voorschoten from 1621-1811 by name. Scans of these baptismal registers are also displayed. The baptismal, marriage, and burial registers, as well as the tax collector's registers of Wassenaar, can be consulted (search for DTB-W* or gaarder*). These have not been indexed by name.
  The population registers of Wassenaar from 1839-1934 have also now been scanned and can be searched by name.
• Books and magazines. You can view the “ catalogue ” from the municipal archives library here. It contains titles of books, magazines, and reference folders about Wassenaar, Voorschoten, and the region. The number of titles will continue to grow in the near future.

Material offline

The Municipal Archives of Voorschoten have decided to take all scans of anonymous picture postcards offline. This involves more than 1,000 images. Recently, the subdistrict court in The Hague ordered Erfgoed Leiden to pay a fine for publishing anonymous picture postcards online. As a result of this ruling, we no longer consider it responsible to make this type of imagery available online.

More information:

• Inventories Voorschoten