Can all the archives be consulted freely?
In theory, all archives that are more than 100 years old, which have been deposited by a public authority at the State Archives, are public and therefore subject to the Archives Law of 1955.
Provided their consultation does not contravene the law concerning the protection of the private life of the citizen (privacy), the State Archives will take all possible steps to guarantee access to the most recent documents. The law concerning rights of access to public documents guarantees that they are accessible from the point when they are created.
It sometimes occurs that free consultation is limited in order to preserve the physical condition of the archive documents themselves. For this reason, it is not permitted to consult originals if a replacement copy exists, usually on microfilm or in digital format.


How do I search for an archive document?

The basic principle that archives must be filed according to the authority that produced the relevant documents and not by subject affects the approach that you will adopt for searching the archives. The search for an archive document is completed in three stages.

Stage 1: Which archive groups do you need?
In order to find a specific subject, you must know which authority is responsible or – if it is a specific institution – who was active within this field. In this way, a search concerning a mill must first of all find out whose jurisdiction this mill came under over the years, for example the seignority, échevinat (local council), court of law, provincial administration, cadastre, tax office, etc.
It is useful if you refer to the archive group overviews kept at each depository of the State Archives. Here you will find a brief history of the archive producer and his responsibilities for each archive group, in addition to information concerning the nature of the archives that have been deposited by the producer in question and the available documents for a given period.
See also: Searching the archives.

Stage 2: Which inventory is to be consulted?
Once you have determined the archive fonds that contain valuable information for your research, you can consult the inventories describing these fonds. An inventory only gives a summary of the content of each archival unit (a number and a description per piece, batch or folder). Analytical inventories, such as regest lists and indexes and repertoires, provide more detailed information about the contents of the archive documents.
Always read the introduction of an inventory. You will find information on the archives producer, his or her competences and activities among other useful indications to help your research.

Stage 3: Which archive number can be of use in your research?
In general, each piece or act of an archive fonds is not described individually in an inventory. All archive documents from a common legal act or addressing the same subject usually have a single global description. You might not find any information under “mills in…” about the mills looked for above, but maybe in the acts of the aldermen (i.e. local council – the sale of this mill), the so-called Vingtièmes (tax under the Ancien Régime), declarations of succession (description of the mill and chattel), etc. You should always ask yourself in which type of document you will most likely find useful information about your subject.