Historisch GIS - Historical Geographical Information System, the digital archive of the Delft ORA (Oud-Rechterlijk Archief Delft - Old Judicial Archive of Delft) property (real estate) records.
This web lets you search for properties on maps of both 2004 and 1832. The results, often spotty, show the trail of transactions and taxes involving that property. You see the names of the people who made the transactions, mostly sales and inheritances. In addition, most of them have references to the actual sales letters, stored separately, that will often give dates and prices.
It lets you query several registers, most of which involve Leeuwenhoek's time. It includes some tax collection registers that are in the OAD.
- Haardstedenregister (1600)
- Verpondingskohier (1620-1632)
- Verpondingskohier (1632-1654)
- Haardstedenregister (1638)
The heart of the GIS are the housing protocols, the first of which is also from the OAD:
- Huizenprotocool - OAD inventory 731 (1585-1648)
The so-called "old" housing protocol, officially the Register van met losrente belaste huizen, where the houses in the city were registered along with the remaining debt.
The other two, with the bulk of the records, are from the ORA's the real estate registers (Registers van Onroerende Goederen):
- the "1, 2 and 3 Prothocol" - ORA inventories 281-283 (1648-1811)
This is a "topographical register of the houses in Delft with statement of the remaining obligation and the names of the succeeding owners, with reference to the protocols and registers, and a table of the streets."
- ORA inventory 285 (1648-1811)
The same as inv. 281-283 for the land surrounding Delft. For Leeuwenhoek's family, this register covered their properties outside the Waterslootpoort on the Buitenwatersloot and outside the Oostpoort on what is now Dr. Schaepmanstraat.
The screen shot below shows the search screen. On the lower left corner are your choices. You can search by Hudig Adres (current address), one of the two Kadastral numbers, or Anders (other), which has been selected here. Bron (source) will reveal the choices in the sreen shot above. You must choose one and you can only choose one.
The familienaam (family name) does not accept wildcards, so you have to try all the spellings. It will, however, give longer versions of shorter words. Thus, a search for Leeuwen will give every name that begins with those letters. It will not, however, reveal the family members who used only their patronymic.
The screenshot below shows only two entries from the results of a search for Leeuwenhouck. Bron says that it came from the second source, the ORA (Old Judicial Archives) inv. 281-283, which dates from around 1648. Bladz./postnr. is the page/posting number; v1 means verso, column 1.
The next line has the Perceelkoppeling, the parcel it is referring to. 034 is Delft, D is one of sections A though E and 28 is the parcel number, often expressed as four digits: 0028. Next come the line number, the name, the Beroep (profession), Verkoopbrief (sale letter), Huisnaam (house name), Soort Acte (type of legal action), Notaris (notary), Datum (date), and Notitie (notes). The sale letters are stored separately and most of the early ones are missing.
The screenshot below shows the results for one property, in this case the property on the Oosteinde that Barbara de Meij inherited from her father when she had been married less than a year. She and Antony had just bought the house on Hippolytusbuurt and she was pregnant with their first child.
The display shows the parcels from the 2004 Kadaster, on the left, that overlap the old property. The 1832 Kadaster on the right shows parcel boundaries that are not always exactly what they were in the 1600's.
The table below the maps shows the ownership history from page 407 of the ORA inv. 281-283. The x in the far right column means "married to".
Most of the data on the Lens on Leeuwenhoek web concerning property owned by the members of Leeuwenhoek's extended family came from querying this database.
A practical application of this archival data is the web Achter de Gevels van Delft, Behind the Facades of Delft. It began with a book by that name, but has been greatly expanded based on ongoing archival research. The web site presents the history of dozens of still-standing houses from the 16th and 17th centuries, mostly on Delft's west side along the Oude Delft gracht. It is chockful of fascinating details about life in Delft in the 1500 and 1600's.
