Our first record to hunt for was the marriage of Henry and Rosalie. From that we assumed we might learn their parents' names which would help us verify that a birth record for each was the correct individual.
What a find the marriage record was! Exact dates of birth for bride and groom! Names and ages of parents! The record even noted Henry's mothers' name and the exact date she died. We were pretty excited.
Henri and Rosalie married in Tielt in 1882. Here is my translation:
We knew from Archie's birth registration that his father Henri or Henry was born circa 1843 in Kanagem. Now we had an exact date of birth and knew his parents' names so finding the correct birth record would not be difficult. A check in the FHL catalogue proved that records for this area existed for the time period we needed. We found the right microfilm and began looking. Once again the records were written in Flemish but I wasn't as worried about understanding them.
Henry de Meulenaere, servant, 39 yrs old, living Schuyffers-Kapelle, born Canaghem 15 July 1842, father Felicianus de Meulenaere, labourer 71 yrs, living Tielt, mother Amelia Groothaert died in Tielt 12 Sept 1847 & Maria Blondeel, 31 yrs, living Tielt, b in Pittem 2 aug 1850, father Frans Blondeel, "kleermaker" (tailor), 62 yrs, mother Ida Veroughstraete, 60 yrs
We knew from Archie's birth registration that his father Henri or Henry was born circa 1843 in Kanagem. Now we had an exact date of birth and knew his parents' names so finding the correct birth record would not be difficult. A check in the FHL catalogue proved that records for this area existed for the time period we needed. We found the right microfilm and began looking. Once again the records were written in Flemish but I wasn't as worried about understanding them.
Henri's birth registration was found in the Civil Records of Kanegam.
It was fairly easy to spot his parents' names but I wanted to translate the entire document if possible.
There seemed to be so much writing that I figured there might be important details I would otherwise miss. It took me awhile but this is my translation to the best of my limited ability:
6 July 1842. Appeared before me Felicianus de Meulenaere, weaver, 32 years old, born in Thielt and living in the district, presenting a child from his marriage, born in the [....] and his wife Amelia Groottaert, spinster 32 years old, born and living in this district, a child by the name of Henry. Presented by Ferdinand de Bruyne [....can't read his occupation], 37 years old and Francis de Cloet, weaver about 57 years old, both living in this district
So far we had managed to go back two generations from Archie, and so far we only encounted Flemish records which to my eye were very similar to Dutch. So my little Dutch English dictionary plus my familiarty with early Dutch Church records of the 17th and 16th centuries was proving adequate for translation.
No comments:
Post a Comment