European archives

The variety and riches of archival collections held by European institutions led in March 2024 to the decision to create this subpage of Digital archives. Thus hopefully the overview of both European and archives in other contients becomes clearer.

For one particular subject I have tried elsewhere to provide a fair selection of digital collections. Digital projects for and by archives concerning the First World War can be found at my blog Digital 1418. Some projects with sources for and problems in legal history are in a phase of crowdsourcing projects in which the general public is invited to join scholars in transcribing or indexing resources. On the page about palaeography of my site I have listed a number of major platforms for these projects.

It is good to be aware of the differences in archival terminology. I use often the word archives for the institutions which hold archival records, and also for archival collections with files stemming from one source, thus forming a fonds as the French would say. I use finding aid and inventory as synonyms. In Dutch the word archief can stand for both the institution and a particular archival collection. In American usage the term manuscript collection can refer to archival records. You can learn much in this respect from the Multilingual Archival Terminology created by the International Council of Archives. At the end of this page you will find a section with some links for standards, terminology, archival societies and their journals.

Archives in the Netherlands

For some subjects in Dutch history separate guides to archival sources have been published, many of them also accessible online at the Huygens Institute/ING, here a selection:

European archives

Albania

Andorra

Austria

Belarus

Belgium

Bosnia-Hercegovina

Bulgaria

  • Archives State Agency, Republic of Bulgaria – the website of the national archives agency; interface Bulgarian and English

Croatia

Cyprus

Czech Republic

  • Archivní fondy a sbírky v České republice (Archives and archival collections in the Czech Republic) – an overview in Czech, English, German and French, with among the archives the Národni archiv [National Archives], Prague (website in Czech and English)
  • Archival directory, Ceska archivni spolecnost [Czech Society of Archivists] – a concise overview of state archives and other archives; interface Czech – also in German at the blog Aktenkunde : Archive in der Tschechischen Republik
  • Badatelna – a portal for the Czech state archives, the national library, the museum for Czech literature, and the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the university of Prague
  • Archiv hlavního mesta Praha (Prague Municipal Archive) – interface Czech and English
  • Moravý zemský archiv v Brne (Moravian Regional Archive), Brno
  • Archiv bespecnosnich slozek [Archive of the Security Services], Prague – this archive has holdings from security services and departments during the Communist period; interface Czech and English
  • Vademecum Contemporary History Czech Republic / Soudobych Déjin Česka Republica, Oldřich Tůma, Jitka Svobodová and Ulrich Mählert (eds.) (Prague-Berlin 2005; online, PDF, 0,8 MB)

Denmark

  • Daisy, Riksarkivet – the search portal of the Danish national archives
  • Københavns Stadsarkiv, Copenhagen – the municipal archive
  • Arkivvejviser, Arkibas – a database for searching Danish archives, in particular for local history
  • Starbas.net – a portal for searching the online inventories of a number of communal archives
  • Diplomatarium Danicum – the online version contains only charters from the fifteenth century; interface Danish, introductions in four languages – the Kjøbenhavns Diplomatarium, Oluf Nielsen (ed.) (10 vol., Copenhagen, 1872-1887) has been digitized at the Danks Slaegtsbibliotek

Estonia

  • Ravhusarhiiv, Tallinn – the Estonian national archive; interface Estonian and English
  • Estica, Ravhusarhiiv, Tallinn – a database concerning archival records for Estonian history in other countries, such as Germany, Latvia and Russia; interface Estonian

Faroer

Finland

  • Kansallisarkisto (National Archives), Helsinki – interface Finnish, Swedish and English
  • Finna – a search portal for archives, libraries and museums in Finland; interface Finnish, Swedish and English
  • Arkistojen Portti – an archival wiki for Finnish archives; interface Finnish, Swedish and Russian

France

The Revue de l’Institut français d’histoire en Allemagne 3 (2014) is a special on Geschichte machen in Frankreich, with an article by Florence de Peyronnet-Dryden and Matthias Nuding on ‘Archive in Frankreich’. At the portal Criminocorpus you can consult a web version or PDF of the Guide des archives judiciaires et pénitentiaires en France (1800-1958) by Jean-Claude Farcy (1992). The archival guides by Andreas Wilkens, Archivführer Paris 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Zentrale Bestände zu Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Archiven und Bibliotheken (Sigmaringen 1997) and Wolfgang Hans Stein, Inventar von Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte in Pariser Archiven und Bibliotheken : Band 2: Archive im Bereich des Verteidigungsministeriums, Archive des Außen- und Finanzministeriums, Stadtpariser Archive und Bibliotheken (Koblenz-Stuttgart 2002) have been digitized by the German Historical Institute in Paris.

Germany

A post by Mareike König (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Paris), Travailler dans les archives allemands at Germano-Fil contains a nutshell guide and a wealth of relevant web links. In 2018 Frank Bischoff contributed a fine guide to German archives at Clio-online. The Bodleian Library in Oxford has a fine guide to archival research in Germany. eStudies offer a Tutorium Archivarbeit. On Perspectivia.net F. Bretschneider and J. Guilbaud contributed ‘Les archives en Allemagne’ as part of the scholarly guide Faire l’histoire en Allemagne (2011). For archives in the DDR the guide to DDR history by Henrik Bispinck for Clio-online (2018) is helpful, as are the guides at this platform for other periods (Epochen) in German history.

Greece

Greenland

  • The Archive, Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu / Greenland National Museum & Archives, Nuuk – with also some digitized collections

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Kosovo

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

  • Lietuvos vyriausiojo archyvaro tamyba (Office of the Ltithuanian State Archivist) – the national archival service with information about all Lithuanian archives; interface Lithuanian and English

Luxembourg

North Macedonia

Malta

Moldovia

Montenegro

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Roumania

  • Arhivele Nationale ale României, Bucharest – the Roumanian national archive, with an interactive map to find 42 branches; interface Roumanian and English
  • Arhiva diplomaticâ, Ministerul Afacerilor Externe, Bucharest – interface Roumanian, English and French
  • Vademecum Contemporary History Romania. A Guide through Archives, Research Institutions, Libraries, Societies, Museums and Memorial Places, Stejarel Olaru and Georg Herbstritt (eds.) (Berlin-Bucarest 2004; online, PDF, 0.6 MB)

San Marino

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Some archival guides are available online as PDF’s, in particular the Guía de los archivos de la Iglesia en España, J.M. Martí Bonet (ed.) (Barcelona 2001) and the Guía de archivos militares españoles (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2012).

Sweden

  • National Archives Database (NAD}, Riksarkivet – searching for archives in Sweden; interface Swedish and English; you can also use for state archives the overview of Verksamhetsplatser
  • Rigsarkivet, Stockholm – the Swedish national archive
  • Stadsarkivet Stockholm – the city archives
  • Arkivregister Stockholms Län, Föreningsarkiven i Stockholms Län – a database for finding archival institutions and collections in the province Stockholm
  • Arken, Kungliga biblioteket, Stockholm, and Umeå Universitetsbibliotek – a database for finding archival collections and personal papers at thre Swedish national library
  • Sondera – until January 2020 a search portal for searching with one action in the Libris library portal, the national archival database NAD and audiovisual documents in the Svensk Mediedatabase; interface Swedish and English
  • Kringla, Riksantikvarieämbetet (Swedish National Heritage Board) – a search portal for collections in Swedish museums, including also archival collections and books

Switzerland

Infoclio has created an online guide for research in Swiss archives, available in German and French. Ad fontes introduces you to the Klosterarchiv Einsiedeln and the Staatsarchiven of Aargau and Zürich.

Ukraine

United Kingdom

See also the printed guide by Janet Foster and Julia Sheppard, British archives. A guide to archive resources in the United Kingdom (4th ed., Basingstoke-New York 2002). Archives Hub (JISC) has an online guide Using Archives: A Guide for the Inexperienced.

Vatican City

  • Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (AAV), Città del Vaticano – the online overview of archival collections at the AAV in ArchiveGrid is based on the Michigan project (1984-2004), but you will need older printed guides, too; the most recent is by Francis Blouin et alii (eds.), An Inventory and Guide to Historical Documents of the Holy See (Oxford 1998) which incidentally goes beyond the AAV; see also the introduction of the Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University; the most recent edition of the Indice dei Fondi e relativi mezzi di descrizione e di ricerca dell’Archivio segreto Vaticano is available online (PDF)
  • Archivio storico della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Feda (ACDF) – the archive of the congregation long known as the Sant’Uffizio, the Roman inquisition, founded in 1542
  • Inventories of archival collections, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – this great library is home to several archival collections, for example the Chigi and Colonna families, and medieval notaries in Orange

Digital archival collections in Europe

  • European History Primary Sources: Archival documents, European University Institute, Florence – this was a section for archives of this useful portal to numerous digital collections in Europe
  • Open Society Archives, Budapest – an archive and library concerning human rights and post-war society in Eastern Europe, with digital collections and the Parallel Archive
  • CrossbordersArchives: Written Sources of Slovak and Austrian Archives – digitized archival records in one of the projects of the ICARUS platform [International Center for Archival Research]
  • Matricula Online, ICARUS – a project for digitizing church registers in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland and Serbia
  • Porta fontium, Generaldirektion der Bayerischen Archive, Munich and Státni oblastní archiv v Plzní (State Archive, Pilsen) – a portal to digitized archival records in Bavaria and the Czech Republic
  • Acta Publica, Moravý zemský archiv v Brne, Brno – a portal to digitized church registers for birth, baptism and death from South Moravia and Austria; interface Czech, German and English
  • Archivum Rhenanum: Digitale Archive am Oberrhein / Archives numérisées du Rhin supérieur – a Franco-German project of archives on both sides of the Rhine, with a blog
  • Social History Portal – selected digital collections of research institutions in the field of social and economic history, such as the IISH (Amsterdam)
  • European Film Gateway (EFG) – digitized films from the collections of 38 institutions
  • EUscreen – a portal for digitized televison and videos from the holdings of major institutions and broadcasters
  • Yerusha: Jewish Archives Europe – an initiative to create a digital portal for archival records concerning European Jewish history
  • The Pinkassim Project, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem – a project for the digitization of Early Modern deliberation registers of Jewish communities in Europe
  • Judaica Europeana, Jewish Heritage Network – 35 digitized collections, with manuscripts, rare bok=oks, photographs and archival records
  • Digital collections, International Tracing Service Arolsen – a part of the collections has been digitized; interface German and English
  • Medieval Scrolls Digital Archive, Harvard University – a good selection of medieval scrolls in various genres
  • Monasterium.net – a portal with mainly digitized medieval charters from 170 archives and other cultural institutions
  • Visual Archive Southeastern Europe, Universität Graz and Universität Basel
  • Sound Toll Registers Online, Tresoar, Leeuwarden – a database created from the famous Danish tax registers (1409-1857, complete from 1574 onwards), interface Dutch and English; there is an online index at the Nationaal Archief, The Hague, for the period 1721-1763
  • Der franziszeische Kataster, Universität Innsbruck – a project around land taxation from Habsburgian Austria around 1800, with attention to regions such as Carinthia, the Bukowina and Silesia
  • ICTY Court Records, International Court for the former Yugoslavia, The Hague – access after registration, interface in five languages – you can use also the case transcriptions created by the ICTY

Andorra

Austria

Belgium

  • ‘Belgium’s digital archival treasures: a survey’, Rik Raetschelders, Porta Historica – a fine survey from 2013 with copious comments and direct links
  • Searching the States’ Archives collections – the search portal of the Belgian state archives, with both online inventories and increasingly digitized items
  • Topografisch-historische atlas, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels – some 3,500 digitized images, with a focus on the First World War
  • Archiefbank Brugge, Stadsarchief Brugge (Bruges) – access to finding aids and some digitized collections [for example medieval court records and First World War ordinances and proclamations], see also the heritage portal Erfgoed Brugge
  • Scabinatus 4000, Archives de l’État de Liège – a project of the Université de Liège to digitize a series of régistres des échevins, aldermen’s registers from 1409 to 1797; the years 1409 to 1510 are already accessible
  • Itinera Nova, Stadsarchief Leuven – in cooperation with the University of Cologne aldermen’s registers from 1365 to 1792 are transcribed and digitized
  • Registers of the Raad van Vlaanderen, Rijksarchief te Gent – 329 digitized registers with acts and sentences of this court, active between 1386 and 1795
  • Histoire et Archives, Archives de l’Université catholique de Louvain – three digital collections: photographs from the Great War, an exploration of the Saudian peninusula, and the archive of astronomer Georges Lemaître
  • Kadocerfgoed: Religie, cultuur en samenleving, KADOC, Leuven – digital collections, virtual exhibitions and remarkable objects concerning catholicism in Belgium; interface Dutch and English
  • Archives de Quarantaine / Quarantaine Archief, AAFB and VVBAD – an initative for a Belgian COVID-19 archive
  • Sonuma: Les archives audiovisuelles – a portal for digitized audiovisual colections in Wallonie
  • Databanken, Quetelet Centrum, Ghent University – a variety of statististical databases, also with historical statistics and HISGIS

Croatia

  • Digitalni arhiv, Hrvatski državni arhiv, Zagreb – digital archival collections of the Croatian national archives
  • Pisana baština [Written heritage], Regional Archive Zadar and Universität Graz – a project for the digitization of manuscripts and archival records, some of them in Glagolitic script; there is an accompanying virtual exhibition

Czech Republic

  • Digitalni badatelna, Národni archiv – digital collections of the Czech national archives; interface Czech and English
  • Digital archive, Moravý zemský archiv v Brne, Brno
  • Digitální archiv, Statni oblastni archiv v Treboni (Regional State Archive Trebon) – interface Czech, English and German
  • Václav Havel Library – a documentation center with a digital library and archive; interface Czech and English
  • Thomas G. Masaryk Papers, University of Pittsburgh Libraries – 22 archival documents from the years 1918-1919 concerning the beginnings of the Czech Republic
  • Terezín/Theresienstadt Collection, Jewish Museum, Prague – a collection with archival records from hte concentration camp during the Second World War

Denmark

  • ArkivDK – a database leading you to finding aids of Danish archives and where present also digitized materials
  • Arkivalieronline, Rigsarkivet – searching for and looking at digitized records from the Danish national archives; interface Danish and English
  • Kilder på nettet, Københavns Stadtarchiv – digitized police registers and much more from Copenhagen; note the nifty multilingual interface
  • The Danish West-Indies, Rigsarkivet – 5 million scans of documents concerning 250 years of Danish presence in the Caribbean, in particular on the Virgin Islands
  • Dansk Kulturarv – a platform for digitized materials concerning cultural heritage from several Danish institutions, including the Rigsarkivet
  • Retrodigitalisering: Kilder til danske kommuners historie [Sources for Danish communal history] – not just digitized parish registers and communal registers, but also crowdsourcing for transcribing these resources
  • Danske Kancellis Supplikprotokoller 1705-1795, Aarhus Universitet and Rigsarkivet – digital versions of an edition with supplications to the Danish chancery

Estonia

  • SAAGA, Ravhusarhiiv, Tartu – the portal for digitized archival records of the Estonian national archive; interface Estonian and English
  • Virtual Reading Room, Ravhusarhiiv, Tartu – a variety of digital resources and databases; interface Estonian and English

Finland

  • Finna – the portal for (digital) collections of Finnish archives, museums and libraries
  • Kansallisarkiston Digitaaliarkistoon – digital archival collections of the Finnish National Archives; interface Finnish, Swedish and English
  • Tuomiokirjat [Finnish district courts records], Kansalliarkisto and Transkribus – searching in digitized and transcribed records from 1810 to 1870; interface Finnish, Swedish and English
  • Diplomatarium Fennicum, National Archives of Finland – a database with digitized medieval charters; search interface Finnish, Swedish and English
  • Documenta Carelica, Kansallisarkisto and National Archive of the Republic Karelia, Petrozavodsk – documents from the Carelia region; interface Finnish, Karelian, Russian and English

France

Germany

Deutsche Statistische Jahrbücher, Universität Mannheim – statistical almanacs in three series, 1880-1942 and 1952-1990, and also for the DDR (1955-1990)

Greece

Hungary

  • Hungaricana – at this portal you will find several archival collections, with medieval charters, documents from Budapest, royal letters and decrees, a census from 1767 and much more; interface Hungarian and English
  • Digital Archives Portal, National Archives of Hungary and Budapest City Archives – a combined protal for digital collections of both institutions; interface Hungarian, English and German
  • Hungarian Archives Portal – quick access to digitized resources, with also a bibliography; interface Hungarian, English and German
  • Adatbasizokonline (Databases Online) – a portal to online archival databases with overviews for categories and repositories, and for subjects; interface in five languages
  • Budapest Fóváros Levéltára (Budapest City Archive) – with a number of digitized archival collections (criminal procedures, notarial deeds, inheritance cases); interface Hungarian, English and German
  • MTVA Archivum – digital audiovisual collections and also music scores and press media; interface Hungarian
  • Arcanum Maps – digitized country maps, city maps and historical land registry maps, including Katasterkarten for the Habsburg Empire; interface Hungarian, German, English and Rumanian

Iceland

  • Stafrænar heimildir (Digital resources), National Archives of Iceland – a wide choice of digitized archival records; judicial records can be found in the section Dómabókagrunnur; interface Icelandic, Danish and English
  • Einkasjöl – electronic archival records at the National and University Library of Iceland; interface Icelandic and English

The Diplomatarium Islandicum –Íslenskt fornbréfasafn, Jón Sigurðsson et alii (eds.) (16 vol., Reykjavik 1852-1972) exists only in print form, digitized at Baekur.

Ireland

Italy

Lithuania

  • Pergamentu kolecija, Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania – digitized medieval charters, with a number of papal documents; interface Lithuanian and English
  • Pergamentu / Parchments, Wroblenski Library, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences – nearly 300 charters; interface Lithuanian and English

Malta

  • Malta Parish Archives, The Malta Study Center at the Virtual Hill Museum and Library, Saint John’s University – digitized parish registers from the sixteenth century onwards
  • Notarypedia, Notarial Archives – a recently launched project for creating digital access to notarial registers

Netherlands – more can be found at my Old Dutch Law page

  • Nationaal Archief, Den Haag – the search portal Ga het NA has been intergrated with the website of the Dutch national archives; increasingly digitized items are added to the online inventories and clearly indicated, among them for example a series of the “Prize Papers” from the High Court of Admiralty kept at Kew and many Dutch East India Company records
  • Zoek Akten (Search Acts) – a genealogical portal bringing you mainly to digitized civil status records, often the microflims created for FamilySearch; this site has stopped, however, you can visit for similar purposes Wie WasWie and Open Archieven
  • Archieven in beeld: Historische transcripties – a pilot for a platform of several major Dutch archives for searching with AI in transcriptions of some 200.000 digitized scans
  • Beeldbank Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed – a database with nearly a million images concerning Dutch cultural heritage and history, including the cadastral maps (land registry maps) created between 1811 and 1832
  • Alle Amsterdamse Akten, Stadsarchief Amsterdam – a portal for Early Modern notarial acts; access to the acts after free registration; you can now search directly in transcribed acts at Transkribus
  • Boedelbank, Meertens Instituut/KNAW, Amsterdam – a searchable database for the texts of Early Modern house inventories from four Dutch regions showing the movable goods and belongings of deceased persons
  • Dutch Prize Papers, Huygens Institute, The Hague – one of the projects to digitize and transcribe prize papers from records series of the High Court of Admiralty, TNA
  • RemDoc: Rembrandt Documents, Huygens Institute and Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen – a database with transcribed documents concerning or mentioning Rembrandt van Rijn, a lot of them are legal documents
  • BoschDoc, Huygens Institute and Radboud Universiteit – a similar project with records concerning the life and work of Jheronimus Bosch
  • The Amboyna Conspiracy Trial, Monash University – a digital collection – also for educational use – about a case confronting the Dutch and English at the island Ambon in the Indonesian archipelago in 1623
  • Digitale Charterbank Nederland, Huygens Institute – a tool for searching among some 170,000 charters in Dutch archives, increasingly with images and sometimes transcriptions
  • Charterbank, Regionaal Archief Tilburg – some 1200 late medieval charters with transcriptions and summaries
  • Digitized collections, Zeeuws Archief, Middelburg – among them the Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie, and guides for the Admiralty of Veere and resources concerning Suriname
  • Pilgrim Archives, Erfgoed Leiden en omstreken (Heritage Leiden) – a selection of digitized documents from the early seventeenth century
  • Historische collectie, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) – statistical data from the 19th and 20th centuries
  • Volkstellingen 1795-1971, CBS and DANS – Dutch general census data
  • GlOBALISE Transcriptions, Huygens Institute – access to transcriptions of 4,8 million scans of the series Overgekomen brieven en papieren [Received Letters and Papers] in the Dutch East India Company archive (VOC) (1610-1796)

Norway

  • Digitalarkivet, Arkivverket – the digital archive of the Norwegian governmental archives; interface Norse and English
  • DigitaltMuseum – at this portal for digitized museal collections you can find also some collections of archives
  • Oslo Byarkiv – the digital archive of the municipal archives in Oslo
  • Diplomatarium Norvegicum, Digitalarkivet / Dokumentasjonsprosjektet, Universitet i Oslo- a database version of the 23 volumes concerning medieval charters; interface Norwegian and English; most of the printed volumes have been digitized by the Nasjonalbiblioteket
  • Regesta Norvegica, Digitalarkivet / Dokumentasjonsprosjektet, Universitet i Oslo – a database version of this work with summaries of all historical medieval documents until 1430; currenly some 13,000 items
  • Diplomsamlingen, Universitetbiblioteket i Bergen – formally only a catalog for some 1,250 documents, among them 300 medieval charters, but with many images attached

Poland

  • Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (National Digital Archive) – audiovisual materials and archival records from the Polish State Archives; interface Polish and English
  • Szukaj w Archiwach – searching online for some 23 million digitized archival records in Polish archives; interface Polish, English and German
  • Archiwum Akt Nowych – an archive in Warsaw for 20th-century archival records
  • Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warzawie (Central Archive of Historical Records in Warsaw) – a search interface for a number of digitized collections in Warsaw
  • Lubelskie Archiwum Cyfrowe (Digital Archive Lublin) – documents from a city archive
  • Archiwa Prezolumu 1989-1991 (Archives of the Breakthrough) – digitized records about the Polish revolution around 1990 and the role of Solidarnosc
  • ArchiwaOnline, Diocese of Radom – digitized parish registers, also for other Polish dioceses, and also for records at Lviv and Vilnius
  • IURA: Źródła prawa dawnego / Sources from old laws, Jagiellonski University, Cracow – a portal with seventeen collection cocnerning Polish law and institutions from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century; interface Polish and English

Portugal

Rumania

  • Arhiva Medievalâ României – an international project for the digitization of medieval documents, as for now already some 55,000 documents

San Marino

  • Antichi documenti, Archivio di Stato – access after registration; interface Italian

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

United Kingdom

Vatican City

  • Atti ufficiali della Santa Sede – a digital collection with the officials acts in the Acta Sanctae Sedis (1865-1908), the Acta Apostolicae Sedis from 1909 onwards, and an edition of acts and documents concerning the Vatican during the Second World War [Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, Pierre Blet et alii (eds.) (11 vol., Città del Vaticano 1970-1981)]
  • Archivi, Digital Vatican Library – not only manuscripts are being digitized these years, also items from several archival collections held by this library, such as the Archivio Capitulare di San Pietro and the archive of the Chigi family

More links