Actual family archives
The Salm Family Association is proud to own a very extensive family archives, including more that 2700 archived items in 118 boxes. The actual archives are stored at the Nationaal Archief (National Archives) in The Hague. The Centraal Bureau van Genealogie (The Central Bureau for Geneology) is in charge of our archives. The Salm Family archives are completely accessible to the public (because they are placed within the national archives). For privacy reasons, certain items pertaining to the lives of current members can be placed “under embargo’ for a certain period of time or may be accessed only with permission of the family.
Archival database
Besides the actual archives, certain archived items have also been digitised and brought into a database. The technical management of this is outsourced and the Family Salm archivist manages the contents. The plan with this database is to continue scanning in texts and photos and to bring these into the database in order to make them accessible to the family. The database of the archives consists of three (interlinked) parts:
- Archives: Consists of archived items of the VFS.
- Family: Includes the information of family members, such as their folio number, name, lineage, date and place of birth, date and place of death, etc. (but no address contact details). It further gives an overview of the relationship vis à vis other family members, the linked archived items of this family member, and potentially an image of the family member.
- Family Tree: Includes the family tree of the VFS.
This database forms the foundation for making the treasure trove of information in the archives accessible and understandable in a well organised and structured manner.
The digital archive is hosted on a different platform, family members can visit the archive by clicking on the link below. To enter youhave to use the logins from the picture.
How do we assemble the database of the archives?
In 2008, the former archivist, Marianne Salm, started to scan or photograph all items that had been received by the Board of Directors and which met the archival standard to have a digital version of these items in the archival database. At this moment (March 2018) around 2715 items have been scanned and uploaded. These are packed in 120 boxes. There are still eight boxes to go, it is a very time-consuming task.
We now directly scan new pieces as they come in, so we are mostly busy with catching up with older archival pieces. It is therefore very worthwhile to check the database from time to time and to for instance look by folio number, to see the new digitised items that have been added. De VFS archiefsite is gemoderniseerd waardoor het thans mogelijk is om film- en geluidsbanden aan de website toe te voegen. The VFS archive site has been modernised which makes it possible to now also upload film and sound footage to the website.