Open Archives API » Records/Search

Beware: this is the documentation of the 1.1 version of this method which uses archive_code (not archive) for archive code. The old version 1.0 is still available, see the 1.0 documentation.

This method searches the genealogical dataset and returns the found persons (and records).

URL

https://api.openarchieven.nl/1.1/records/search.json

Method

GET

Input

The parameters of this method correspond to the HTML version of search.

Name	Required	Description	Default
name	Yes	Search query (see search examples on front page for advances queries, can include 2 names separated by & and year/period)
archive_code	No	Filter returned search results on archive (obtain a list of valid archive codes via Stats/Archives)
number_show	No	Number of results to show (max=100)	10
sourcetype	No	Filter results on source type (obtain a list of valid source types via Stats/Source types)
eventplace	No	Filter results on event place
relationtype	No	Filter results on relation type
sort	No	Column to sort the results on (negative value to sort descending, positive ascending): 1 = Name 2 = Role 3 = Event 4 = Date 5 = Place 6 = Source	1
lang	No	Language code (nl for Dutch, en for English) - this has only effect on the name of the archive, the sourcetype, the relationtype and the eventtype values in the search results.	nl
callback	No	Function name to be called on JSON data
start	No	Initial results to return (for paging)	0

Output

The returned JSON(P) contains basically two items: the query as interpretered by the API and the response which contains an array of search results.

Example: https://api.openarchieven.nl/1.1/records/search.json?name=Coret&lang=en&number_show=5 outputs (in pretty-print):

{
  "query": {
    "archive": null,
    "name": "Coret",
    "only_results_with_scans": false,
    "start": 0,
    "number_show": 5,
    "sort": 1,
    "language": "en"
  },
  "response": {
    "number_found": 1060,
    "docs": [
      {
        "pid": "Person:d930055c-462d-11e3-a747-d206bceb4d38",
        "identifier": "6b396b55-ffe0-5ccf-a1e0-8330f78157b5",
        "archive_code": "bhi",
        "archive_org": "Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum",
        "archive": "Brabant Historical Information Centre",
        "personname": "2 Coret",
        "relationtype": "Bride",
        "_relationtype": "Bruid",
        "eventtype": "Marriage",
        "_eventtype": "Huwelijk",
        "eventdate": {
          "day": 3,
          "month": 11,
          "year": 1855
        },
        "eventplace": "'s-Hertogenbosch",
        "sourcetype": "Civil registration marriages",
        "url": "https://www.openarchieven.nl/bhi:6b396b55-ffe0-5ccf-a1e0-8330f78157b5/en"
      },
      {
        "pid": "fd898f9d-6f91-e0bd-8f23-d1a670e57ed3",
        "identifier": "bc8d84ad-3a6b-e37a-a009-112236f9d3e6",
        "archive_code": "ihc",
        "archive_org": "Indisch Herinneringscentrum",
        "archive": "Indian Remembrance Center",
        "personname": "A. Coret",
        "relationtype": "Passagier",
        "_relationtype": "Passagier",
        "eventtype": "Registration",
        "_eventtype": "Registratie",
        "eventdate": {
          "year": 1947
        },
        "eventplace": "Tandjong Priok",
        "sourcetype": "Passenger registers",
        "url": "https://www.openarchieven.nl/ihc:bc8d84ad-3a6b-e37a-a009-112236f9d3e6/en"
      },
      {
        "pid": "Person1",
        "identifier": "3567361c-5570-102d-9037-005056a23d00",
        "archive_code": "ghn",
        "archive_org": "Nationaal Archief",
        "archive": "National Archives",
        "personname": "A. Coret",
        "relationtype": "Military",
        "_relationtype": "Militair",
        "eventtype": "Registration",
        "_eventtype": "Registratie",
        "eventplace": null,
        "sourcetype": "Studbook",
        "url": "https://www.openarchieven.nl/ghn:3567361c-5570-102d-9037-005056a23d00/en"
      },
      {
        "pid": "36636298-0f92-f5e0-dc65-29950fadaf3d",
        "identifier": "7a6e187b-84ec-a95b-cd77-c8ea79cdb362",
        "archive_code": "ihc",
        "archive_org": "Indisch Herinneringscentrum",
        "archive": "Indian Remembrance Center",
        "personname": "A. Coret",
        "relationtype": "Passagier",
        "_relationtype": "Passagier",
        "eventtype": "Registration",
        "_eventtype": "Registratie",
        "eventdate": {
          "year": 1947
        },
        "eventplace": "Tandjong Priok",
        "sourcetype": "Passenger registers",
        "url": "https://www.openarchieven.nl/ihc:7a6e187b-84ec-a95b-cd77-c8ea79cdb362/en"
      },
      {
        "pid": "Person1",
        "identifier": "5f312b06-355f-447e-e053-09f0900afd8f",
        "archive_code": "ghn",
        "archive_org": "Nationaal Archief",
        "archive": "National Archives",
        "personname": "A. Coret",
        "relationtype": "Registered",
        "_relationtype": "Geregistreerde",
        "eventtype": "Registration",
        "_eventtype": "Registratie",
        "eventplace": "'s-Gravenhage",
        "sourcetype": "Management file",
        "url": "https://www.openarchieven.nl/ghn:5f312b06-355f-447e-e053-09f0900afd8f/en"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Errors

One of the following errors may be thrown:

Error code	Error message
1	Invalid archive
4	Invalid lang
21	Missing required name

An example error looks (pretty-printed) like:

{
	"error_code": 4,
	"error_description": "Invalid lang"
}

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