Last week at our Amsterdam Time Machine meet-up, Peer Boselie, city archivist in Sittard, presented AEZEL, a kind of ‘Limburg Time Machine’. Since 1989 the LGGI (Limburgs Genealogisch en Geschiedkundig Informatiecentrum) has been publishing and digitizing research and information on cultural heritage of the Southern Netherlands. Some twenty years later the AEZEL Project (Archief voor Erfgoed van Zuid-Nederlandse Eigendommen en Leefgemeenschappen, and yes ‘donkey’ in the Limburg dialect) started to collect and integrate all this data on the various historical projects of the LGGI through cadastral maps and GIS. The project is very popular in Limburg, with over 200 volunteers across several cities and villages enthusiastically contributing to the reconstruction of their regional history.

For more information about this great project visit the AEZEL website.