The project – Goetgevonden

Goetgevonden was created by the REPUBLIC project: Resolutions unlocked in a computational environment. This project was carried out between 2019 and 2024 at the Huygens Institute for Dutch History and Culture. The Huygens Institute collaborated with various partners. The project was made possible by a grant from the Dutch Research Council.

The REPUBLIC project involved the collaboration of historians, developers and experts in the field of information extraction and data management. The project used innovative methods and techniques. Various tools were developed specifically for the project or successfully applied to historical source material for the first time. Many volunteers also worked on the project.

The main objective of the project was to digitally unlock all resolutions (decisions) that the States General took during their existence as an autonomous political entity (1576-1796). This goal was achieved with the launch of Goetgevonden in December 2024.

Making the resolutions of the States General accessible to researchers and other users was a long-cherished aspiration. Attempts to do so were first made in the 1820s, a few decades after the early modern States General ceased to exist. Several partial editions were published over the course of the two centuries that followed. The REPUBLIC project has now succeeded in making all resolutions available and searchable.

The project has yielded more than just the search application Goetgevonden. Entities have been recognised in the resolutions to facilitate searching through them. The lists of entities that this has yielded are also available as separate datasets. Publications have been issued on many aspects of the project. In addition, several videos are available in which parts of the project are further explained.