HOW TO FIND A PORTUGUESE JEWISH MARRIAGE IN AMSTERDAM, FOR A FEE, OR FOR FREE.Update 4 September 2024: Access to the Amsterdam City Archives and its digital holdings is free, ever since 1 January 2017I have been meaning to write this for a long time now, but a question by Gregory Marek speeded it up a bit. Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam were required to register their intended marriage with municipal authorities who wished to keep a tab on these marriages. The marriages were then publicly announced three times during three consecutive weeks, during which people could express opposition against the intended marriage. If no one protested, the marriage was on, and the Portuguese Jews proceeded to the synagogue to have a ketuba dranwn up. Some Portuguese Jews resisted this urge to register and some of them simply did not, for whatever. Most did, though, for a very simple reason. If they did not, the marriage in the Synagogue was null and void in case of judicial disputes about divorce, inheritance, purchase of a house, etc.The marriage bans register the given name, the surname, where from, age, job, address and whether one or two of the parents are alive of both partners. In addition there is mention of witnesses and their family relation to groom or bride. It also mentions former partners, if there were children from an earlier marriage, and, if you are lucky, a reference to the Orphan Chamber (Weeskamer) which may lead you to another research. The marriagebans do not give you the date of the marriage itself, because that was in the Synagogue.Obviously, this is a great resource for genealogy, for it begins before 1600 and ends… no it did not end, because today we also have to register a civil union, of whatever kind. But this post ends for practical reasons with the year 1810. Also, it is unique in its kind because it includes everyone, Reformed, Catholic, Jew or otherwise.Step 1This importance did not escape Dutch genealogists. Dave Verdooner and Harmen Snel produced an index to Purtuguese Jews registered in the marriagebans. First it was only available in a printed form, later it became available online through Akevoth, which now is better known as Dutchjewry.org, which is the place to go to for everything Jewish and Genealogical. You can find it here: http://www.dutchjewry.org/phpr/amsterdam/tim_sephard_marriages/amsterdam_tim_sephard_marriages_list.php Wonderful database! And it is very useful for every name in the marriageban has been normalised to a basic form. Rois, Roiz, Rodriges, Rodriguez, Rodrigues have all been converted to: Rodriguez. Type it in in the searchbox and you will find 12 pages with 20 records each of every Rodriguez ever married in Amsterdam between 1595 and 1810. You can sort on every column, but I always sort on Marriage year, because genealogy is a chronological business. There is a reference to Marraige act.nr., for example 713-148. The first number is important, the latter is useless.I said: Wonderful database, and I mean it, because, if it wasn’t there, research would be much, much more difficult. The database tells you that there was a marriageban. Less wonderful: the database leaves out a few of the things registered that I summed up above: job, adress and in this context more important: the date of the marriageban. And you need that o find the marriageban. Step 2Suppose you found a marriage and you want more, then it’s time for the next step. The Amsterdam City Archives also have a database for the marriagebans, but that one covers all of them: Catholic, Reformed, Jews. You can find it here: https://archief.amsterdam/indexen/ondertrouwregisters_1565-1811/zoek/index.nl.html Sorry, I couldn’t find the english version of this site, for the moment (15 September 2016.)And now we are in trouble because this index looks for exact matches, so you have to try Rois, Roiz, Rodriges, Rodriguez, Rodrigues. But even using those will not find you: Rodrigues Pereira. Solution: check the box: ongeveer. Rodrigues will result in 61 hits, with fuzzy it is 285, many of them useless, but including Pareira Rodrigues and other variants. Another drawback is that there is no box: religion. Which perhaps is PC, but also very inconvenient. You have to be creatibe here, very creative. Suppose you are looking for Santcroos, an Italian Sephardic family, easily to find on Dutchjewry. But on the site of the Amsterdam City Archieven he is Abraham Santecroix, and very difficult to find. Suppose I found Abraham Santecroix in the database, I will see immediately that I can purchase a scan, if I am willing to pay. The website of the City Archives has a detailed instruction on how to do this. The more scans you purchase the cheaper it gets. Quality is excellent and in colour, very good for publication. But if you only want one scan, it will cost the full price of the scan, plus a transaction fee of € 2,50. Is there an alternative way to access that scan? And if we are going to another source, I can skip this step?Step 3There is an alternative, and no you cannot skip the last step, because it gives you the date of the marriageban. . The alternative is Familysearch. You can easily loose your way there, so some helpful Dutch people made this: http://zoek akten.nl/plaatsen.php?id=NH|0363| Check the box in the row upperleft: (Onder)Trouwen, Trouwbijlagen, then click on:Maak een keuze. Now use the book inventory number you noted from Dutchjewry and keep a note with the date of the marriage nearby. Look for the right marriagebook by looking at: alle gezindten. Those are everyone except the Reformed.You can try Control +F, but some microfilms say, for instance: 707-709, and you will not find book nr. 708 this way.Click on the link, for example: Trouw-aang. 1703-1709. I see that there are 615 images, which is a lot. If you have a marriagedate in say 1606 – which you found through step2 – You might proceed through a step-forward, step-back tactic. Go to page 300, if you are still in 1705 go 50 page up. If you are too far ahead, go 25 page back, etcetera.Then there might be a lot of marriages on the same date (marriagebans could only be registerd once a week.) Now you have to read your way through all of them, to find the right one. The pagenumber you have found through step 1 and or 2, will not help you, because it is different from what the mormons filmed in the fifties.Question: do I need all three websites? Answer: no, if you want to pay up. Step 1 establishes if there was a marriage. Step 2 brings you directly to a high quality image in colour which you have to pay for. Answer: yes, if you want it for free. Step 1 will establish if there is a marriage, step 2 will give you a date for a marriageban, step 3 will lead you to a highquality scan, in black and white.Question: why isn’t there a database which leads you straight to the right page of Familysearch? Answer: good question! It has not been made yet.Question: why do I need an image of the marriagebans when there are two databases? Answer: because the marriageban itself contains information that is not indexed, yet. If you do not consult the actual marriageban itself you are bound to make mistakes, as can easily demonstrated by numerous faulty Sephardic familytrees out there on the net. I wish you happy hunting and a lot of patience.