Some short years after the founding of the modern country of Belgium in 1830, the government there made the decision to track all foreigners living within its borders. In order to accomplish this task, it created the Police des Éstrangers (Alien Police), and required local municipalities to submit copies of all interactions with foreigners to the local Police des Étrangers and to a central office in Brussels which kept a master-file of records on all foreigners across the country. The central office files are now kept in the State Archives in Brussels. From the 1920s on, if the files were still active, they will almost certainly have photographs of the people described in the file (a file generally covered a nuclear family, and as children became adults they would have their own files opened).
To use an American analogy, this is akin to the FBI keeping records on every foreigner living inside its borders, and every city in the United States keeping records on those foreigners, and forwarding copies of those documents to a huge central repository in Washington, DC.
Most municipalities destroyed these files over time, but Antwerp is one of the few that kept these files and provides access to them in their local city archive, called FelixArchief (Felix Archives). The Felix Archives contain copies of all the records of the local Police des Étrangers (and its successor organizations) from 1840 until 1990, although only the records through 1930 have a public index. Due to privacy laws in Belgium, the files which exist for 1931-1950 will not be released until 2026, the files for 1951-1961 will not be released until 2037, the files for 1962-1970 will not be released until 2046, and the files for 1971-1990 will not be released until 2075. If you are present in the Felix Archives, I believe it is possible to view at least the 1931-1950 index, although you will not be able to order copies of the files unless you are the person in the file or a child or other close relative.
Due to limited resources at the Felix Archives which prevented archivists there from helping interested people research people listed in these indexes (and the files they index), they made a very progressive decision and digitized the entire index to the records from 1840-1930 and posted the index online. This allowed anyone to research whether the archive possessed records on individuals, and provided the file numbers needed to get copies of these files. These indexes were hand-written and there was no search engine, but you could browse the records and find people in the alphabetical indexes for each time period that an index existed for (1840-1874, 1875-1880, 1881-1885, 1886-1900, 1901-1915 and 1916-1930). The Felix Archives web site provided a very basic interface for browsing these images, essential a page for each time period that had links for each letter, and the page for each letter that listed links to all the images, showing the first and last surname on each page.
In November 2010 FamilySearch.org, the genealogical web site of the LDS Church, posted their own searchable version of this same index. Searching the index shows you basic information, and allow you to load the index image if you want to, but browsing the images on FamilySearch.org, while possible, is very difficult - essentially 5000+ images with no guide. Shortly after FamilySearch.org launched their searchable index, the Felix Archives dropped the finding guide to their own index files on their web site. While the images of their index were still online, there was no way to find them as the web pages listing the images were dropped from their web site.
For many people, the searchable FamilySearch.org index is a much better solution than the browsable images, and it even factors in certain variances in surnames, so searching for Sacks, for example, will return Sach, Sachs, Sachse, Sack, Saks, Sax, etc. That said, however, browsing the images does provide some advantages, and it is because of that fact that this web site was created – to provide a new browser of the Felix Archives index images.
This website works very simply. On the left side is the long list of all 5,000+ index pages (actually 10,000+ since most images show two index pages from the index books). The index is divided into separate time periods (1840-1874, 1875-1880, 1881-1885, 1886-1900, 1901-1915 and 1916-1930) and for each time period, the index is alphabetical for files opened during that time period. It doesn't matter if the people you are researching lived in Belgium at a later date, the files are indexed based on when the file was opened, which in theory should be close to when they moved to Belgium (although in some cases was later).
Navigation Aids
Before the listing for each time period, there is a series of links to help navigate through the whole page. For example, before each time period, there is a set of links allowing you to jump to a different time period. You are then shown which time period you are looking at, and are given a set of links to jump to a letter within the alphabetical index for that time period. This is intended to make it easy to navigate the rather long list of files. You never have to scroll through the menu very far to get to another set of navigation links to help you get to where you want to go. If you do get lost in the menu, you can always just scroll to the top of the file to begin again. You can also click on the Show Introduction and Instructions link on the top or bottom of the menu panel on the left, to bring back this longer set of instructions.
When you're scrolling through the menu, you'll notice that for each letter it shows you which time period you are viewing in parenthesis. This is because as you scroll through some of the longer time periods it because easy to get confused as to where you are in the menu.
Surnames
Note that each link to an index image actually shows the first and last surname from that image. In the first listing, for example, the link is to Aaem_Abel, which means that the first surname on that page is Aaem and the last is Abel. You can use your browser's Find function (click in the left-side menu and then use Control-F on Windows or Command-F on Mac) to search for these surnames, but keep in mind that not all surnames are shown in these links. For example, searching for Abato would not get you any results, even though that name shows up in that same first image.
If you have an idea of when the person you're looking for moved to Antwerp, you can just skip to that time period and look for the index file that contains their surname. Sometimes this will mean looking at several images since common surnames can span more than one index image. Even uncommon surnames can span more than one index image if it shows up at the end of the page and then continues at the top of the next page.
Finding which microfilm the file is located on, and where the microfilm is located
Once you've found a file number for someone, you need to then download this PDF file (option-click to download) and find which microfilm number (and the microfilm's location) that record is located on, so that you or someone on your behalf can locate the record at the Felix Archives in Antwerp. The list of microfilms starts on page 7, and find the line where the file number (which is what you found in these index listings) falls between the number in the Van column and the Tot column. On the same line, mark down the microfilm number and the kast and lade numbers which are the cabinet and drawer numbers where the microfilm is physically located in the archive.
Making Copies of the Files
You, or someone on your behalf, must physically visit the reading room of the Felix Archives in order to make copies of the records. Scanning pages from these microfilms onto a USB drive is free, however. So whomever is going to scan the pages just needs to go to the reading room armed with the names, file numbers, microfilm numbers (with accompanying cabinet and drawer numbers) and of course a USB drive. Once in the reading room, they can take the correct microfilm(s) and browse the microfilm(s) on a microfilm scanner and can scan whichever pages they want to the USB drive.
Searching Records
To search this index by name, use the search at FamilySearch.org: Belgium, Antwerp Police Immigration Index, 1840-1930.
Suggestions
If you have any suggestions for improving this site, please e-mail bloodandfrogs@gmail.com. Thank you.