Introduction
The Dutch population registration started in 1850. It is a kind of ongoing Census, based on the information of the Census of 1849. From 1850 on, every change was registered. The original volumes are listing the residents of every address. Movements, births, deaths, marriages .... everything was written down. Even if a child went to a boarding school for a few months, you can probably find it in the population registration.

Bad news
This is sounding very promising, don't you think? Unfortunately I have to spoil your genealogical pleasure a little bit. There are several difficulties:

The registers are often hard to read. Until 1920 the system was organized by address. If a family moved out, then the original listing was crossed out. Not good for the legibility.

Every ten or twenty years they started over, because the books became very mixed up, with a lot of references to additions in new volumes. Of course they also made a new index. So you have to check all the indexes, and if you are looking for a family with a frequent surname, that can be a tough job.

The population registration records are usually not kept in the provincial archives, but locally. Sometimes in the town hall, or in separate municipal archives. It is also possible that the population registration is kept in regional archives.

Good news
There is also good news. If you are able to find the address of the town hall of smaller places, they often send you free copies or for a very small fee. Of course there are no guarantees, every municipality is different. The archives of big towns like Amsterdam have their own web sites, where you can find their rules and fees.

After 1920
The records were not anymore organized by address, but by family. Every family got a card, and it is a lot easier to find all the different addresses. Especially poor people moved often every half year in the cities. From 1938 until 1994 on every person got a card. Nowadays there is a digital system. The records of the population registration from 1938 till now are not public, to protect the privacy of living people. However if someone is deceased, the personal records (card or electronic file) are going to the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie. You can order a copy by snail mail.

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