Foreigners Police. Alphabetical file cards of the individual files opened between 1835 and 1912 (files nos. 1-999.999)

The State Archives in Brussels (Belgium) hold more than 154,000 original nominal file cards that provide an entry to the collection of individual foreigners' files between 1830 to 1890. The files were transferred to the State Archives in 1948 and cover about 286 meters. They are arranged chronologically according to the opening date. The alphabetically ordered nominal file cards, that contain basic individual details on each foreigner such as name, geographical origin, occupation and file number, constitute the main source to retrieve a person's file. The archives of the Foreigners Police form a unique and essential source for both genealogical and historical research. In October 2015, the IMMIBEL project 'Outcast or Embraced? Clusters of Foreign Immigrants in Belgium c. 1840-1890' started under the guidance of Dr Bart Willems and Filip Strubbe. The project was funded by the Federal Science Policy Office within the framework of the research program BRAIN-be. The aim of the project was to provide a digitally accessible index to the file cards, so that the Foreigners' files are easier to find and consult. For two years project employee Sarah Heynssens was responsible for coordinating the entry of the data from the file cards into a database. STATISTICS Number of persons: 151.863 Last updated: April 26th, 2018 Input: Sarah Heynssens Status: Finished