Kampen, Overijssel, Netherlands Genealogy

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Kampen is a city and municipality in Overijssel. It lies at the very mouth of the IJssel river. It nowadays has a population of 50,000. It has always been one of the prominent cities of Overijssel. 

The municipalitiy contains the following places: Kampen, Grafhorst, 's-Heerenbroek, IJsselmuiden , Wilsum,  Zalk, Bisschopswetering, De Heuvels,  Hogeweg,  Kampereiland,  Kamperveen,  Nieuwstad,  Oude Wetering,  Oosterholt,  De Roskam,  Veecaten,  De Zande and Zuideinde

The modern municipality is compromised of several former municipalities. It absorbed the former island of Schokland in 1859, then in 2001 it absorbed IJsselmuiden, which had itself absorbed Grafhorst, Wilsum, Zalk en Veecaten and Kamperveen.

Church Records

Many different religions existed in Kampen before 1811- Dutch Reformed, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish,Wallonian Reformed and Mennonite(Doopsgezinde). Church records can be accessed either from the Stadsarchief Kampen, VPND or Zoekakten. GeneaKnowHow is also a good source. Only some of the records have been transcribed or indexed, and these are detailed in the text below. It can generally be assumed that all images are online either at Zoekakten or the Stadsarchief Kampen inventory (search for "retroacta" and then find the place

According to the 1840 Census, the present day Kampen was 81% Protestant, 17% Catholic and 2% Jewish.

Dutch Reformed

In the city of Kampen itself were the Bovenkerk, Buitenkerk and Broederkerk.Baptisms from these churches are indexed and searchable on the site of the Stadsarchief Kampen. Some membership records (lidmaten) are available on VPND.

Records from Ens exist for baptisms back to 1688, and marriages from 1805.

Baptisms for Grafthorst are on VPND for 1775-1819 and marriages 1792-1795.

Baptisms for Kampereiland exist from 1670 and marriages from 1669.

Records for IJsselmuiden exist from 1624, and from 1637 can be viewed on VPND.

Catholic

In the city of Kampen there were two churches- the Pastoorskerk and the Paterskerk. Records for the Pastoorskerk start in 1738 and the Paterskerk in 1683.

Records were began on Emmeloord from 1714, and marriages only were recorded on Schokland from 1795.

Other Religions

In the city of Kampen there was a Lutheran church, with records starting in 1647, a Wallonian Reformed church with records starting in 1652 and a Mennonite church with records starting 1789.

Civil Records pre-1811

Post-1794.when the Netherlands fell to French-inspired rule, the former authority of the Dutch Reformed church waned. It was now required to marry before the secular authorities (whereas previously all marriages had been registered by the Dutch Reformed church).These records should be used in place of Dutch Reformed marriages between around 1795 and 1811.

Civil Registration

In 1811 the Napoelonic Regime began the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths. This has been continued by the Dutch government ever since. Civil registration is organized around municipalities of the time of the events.

For Kampen and its former municipalities, births from 1811-1912, marriages from 1811-1932 and deaths from 1811-1960 are on WieWasWie and OpenArch. The exception is births from IJsselmuiden village and parts of Mastenbroek, for which births are only available for 1811-1831.

The original images are not linked to this index, so use Zoekakten to access them. Zoekakten or the FamilySearch Catalog may also have images for births 1913-1916, marriages 1933-1941 and deaths 1961-1966. Births older than 100 years, marriages older than 75 years and deaths older than 50 years are able to be publicly released but archives can be up to ten years behind putting them online.