The National Archives and State Archives in the Provinces, in short the ‘State Archives’, is a federal scientific institution, composed of the National Archives in Brussels and 17 State Archives repositories throughout the country.We ensure the proper preservation of about 280 km of records, dating from the Middle Ages until now, created by the central institutions of the national – now federal – government. Furthermore, businesses, politicians and private individuals having played a major role in the social life of the country also hand over their records to the State Archives. We manage all of these records and we make them easily accessible to the public.Records can be consulted in our 18 reading rooms open to everyone: researchers, genealogists, students, amateur historians, notaries, civil servants, etc. At the State Archives, past and future come together. Indeed, in order to effectively preserve the country’s rich historical heritage, our institution creates digital copies of parchment and paper documents. Priority in digitizing is given to those records that are most often consulted: parish registers and civil status registers. The readers can access these digitised documents in our 18 reading rooms. More and more resources are also online available via our website.