If you know about a relative who immigrated via Antwerp to Belgium, you can find his alien file at the Antwerp Archives (FelixArchief).
In an earlier article on the Antwerp Archives (FelixArchief), I summarized which files are already in the archives (see An introduction to the alien/immigrants files at the Antwerp Archives). But before you can take a look at the files, you need its file number. In this article I will show how to find the file number via the indexes (there are other ways to find out the file number like police reports, censuses, deportation orders, etc).
The indexes which are in the possession of the FelixArchief (Antwerp Archives) cover the following range of years:
- 1840-1874
- 1875-1885
- 1886-1900
- 1901-1915
- 1916-1930
- 1931-1950
- 1951-1961
- 1962-1970
- 1971-1990’s
Here are a few examples of how these indexes look like. As you can see, each row contains the file number, the names, and the place and date of birth.
This example is from the index of 1886-1900 with some people whose surnames were Timberg:
Here is another example with a part of two subsequent pages from the index of 1916 – 1930 with more people whose Continue reading