Finding an Ancestor in Belgium (Part 5): The Latin Records

In Part 1 of my series on Belgium Research I talked about the challenge of finding an ancestor in Belgium Records. In this last post on the series, I will show you the next hurdle we faced - records written in Latin.

A search of the Roman Catholic Church Records of Kuurne in 1749 was successful and we found the marriage of Archie De Meuleunaere's 3rd great grandfather Joannes Franciscus Vereoestraete and Maria Catharina Callewier. But to our surprise the records were in Latin.



Marriage Record 1749
in Kerkelijke registers 1694-1813

 We had gone to attempting to read Flemish to French to Latin in the space of a half-day. But we were  in luck. I took Latin for five years (don't ask why, it's a long story) and even though that was more years ago than I care to say, I remembered a few words. It was enough to spot some words. I'm quite sure that even if a person knew no Latin they could still recognize the words for Marriage, Birth or Death.

And of course most of us will recognize the words "filia" (daughter of) and "filius" (son of) In this record I spotted the name Maria Catharina Callalwiere "filia Petrus Callewiere et Margaritae de groot" (4th line above the signature) So now we knew Maria Catharina's parents' names.

Johannes Franciscus Veroughstraete's parents' names were recorded as Joannes [Veroughstraete] and Anne van Brabant. Johannes Fanciscus was said to be from Pitthem which was another very nice clue.

By taking our time and going very slowly, we were able to find and understand many of the records we needed to find Archie's ancestry in Belgium back several generations. The records are wonderful - very complete and we could have gone further back but I developed a severe headache after a day of struggling to find, read and translate three different languages.

There is much I  could not understand even with the help of a French-English dictionary and a Dutch-English one. But I understood enough to allow us to find names; birth, death and marriage dates and birth, death and marriage locations. We will continue to add details to what we found, and one day we'll continue tracing the Belgium roots even further back in time.

So don't be dismayed by  the challenges. It can be done with perseverance and determination (and some dictionaries!)

Finding an Ancestor in Belgium (Part 4): The French Republican Calendar

In my previous post on Belgium Research I told of finding a record for Emmanuel Blomme which began with a date. This date read

"on the 18th of Frimaire in the 8th year of the French Republic"

I did not know I'd wandered into the confusing world of the French Republican Calendar which was used in territories ruled by France from October 1793 to December 1805. Luckily we were researching in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and I was able to find a good guide to this calendar.

You will need a guide if you find yourself reading records based on this calendar.

MONTHS: The 12 months of the French Republican calendar do not correspond to our standard months January through to December. The months are based on natural events of the season. So there are 3 autumn months, 3 winter months, 3 spring months and 3 summer months. In French the months are

Autumn: Vendemiaire; Brumaire; Frimaire
Winter: Nivose; Pluviose; Ventose
Spring: Germinal; Floreal; Prairial
Summer: Messidor; Thermidor/Fervidor; Fructidor

Depending what country you are searching in, these months will be recorded in the language of that country (German, Dutch, Italian, Latin or French)

YEARS: Years are counted from the start of the French Republic (which learned was 22 September 1792) So I calculated that meant Wyant Emmanuel's record "....in the 8th year of the French Republic" should equate to 1792+8 or 1800.

But in the French Republic Calendar every year has 12 months and each month has 30 days exactly. Every 4 years (starting with the 3rd year of the Republic) an extra day was added. These extra days have their own special names.

There are only two leap years - 1796 and 1804. I found it very confusing!

Luckily the Family History Library Research Guide has a wonderful calculator. You must first find the day of the French month in one column then look across the page to the French month. There you find the standard month and day.

Then you return to the top of the calendar calculator and convert the French Republican year given in the record to a Calendar Number.

Then you turn to the correct Calendar (there are four in the guide) and convert the French Republican year to an actual date. It takes time but you can do it.

I was trying to convert "the 18th of Frimaire in the 8th year of the French Republic"

Using the Guide instructions, I looked up the  French Republican Year 8 in Calendar Three. The conversion was 1799.

Next I found FRIM. (abbreviation for Frimaire) and looking down the column under FRIM I stopped at 18. Remember I needed 18th of Frimaire. That converted to 9 December in our calendar.


Thus I could convert the record for Wyant Emmanuel from

"the 18th of Frimaire in the 8th year of the French Republic" to 9 December, 1799


In Part 5 of my series on Belgium Research we will delve into Church records recorded in Latin.

Finding an Ancestor in Belgium (Part 3): The French Records

In Part 1 of my series on Belgium Research, I talked about finding my husband's great-grandfather Archie De Meulenaere's birth registration in 1884 in Tielt. It was written in Flemish but it wasn't too difficult to pick out and translate the key points. Having found Archie's parents' names, approximate years of birth and places of birth, we moved on to Step 2 - finding their marriage record and birth records.

Many of the records we found up to this point were in Flemish. Luckily it is seemed similar to Dutch. Since I can read standard Dutch phrases found in Church Records we could figure out the main points of each record.

We were ready to move on to Step 3 - continuing to look for birth and marriage (or death) records of the new ancestors we were finding.

This is when we began to encounter church records written in French. I began to feel quite confident, after all reading basic French is pretty easy for me, so no worries.... It turns out I was a little too optimistic and overly confident but more on that later.

Each record we had found so far had given us much new detail - places of births, exact birth dates and so on. So continuing backwards was quite easy. The challenge was in the various languages used in different records!

A search in the Civil Records of Ooghem found the marriage registration of two of the new names we found in searching birth records - Jan Baptiste Veroughstraete and Victoire van den Bulcke. The text was in French but it was very lengthy and very faded. My translation skills were far too limited to understand (or even see!) more than the basic details.

27 August 1820. Jean Baptiste Veroughstraete & Victoire Van den Bulcke, [...] age 26 years, born in Ooghem 27 November 1794.

Other names in the document were Anne Marie Grinonprier (it was difficult to make out) and Collette van Brabant who I had learned was Jan Baptiste's first wife. Here is what the French document looked like.
















Another document we found written in French was a birth registration in the Civil Records of Kanegem for 1812.

Key facts from document:

* 4 March 1812
* Child Amelie Grootaert born at 4 o'clock in the afternoon
* Parents Colette Blomme, 28 years old, spouse of Joseph Grootaert, 31 years old. Joseph's occupation was given as journalier
*Witnesses Augustin Blomme, 22 years old and Ignace [...] 64 years old.

This 1812 document was very clear and legible, such a treat to be able to read it without resorting to magnifiers, pastel paper and other methods to enlarge or make the image more legible.
We found and translated a few more French documents, growing more confident with each one. Then came a puzzler. I found a record for another ancestor - Wyland Emmanuel Blomme.

It was in French and it started with the date, which I read and translated as

      "18th of Frimaire in the 8th year of the French Republic"

I sat back at the microfilm reader and I'm sure my mouth dropped open. I had no idea what "Frimaire" meant and no clue what was meant for the "8th year of the French Republic!" I had just entered the rather confusing realm of the French Republican Calendar, something i had never heard of before.

More on the French Republican Calendar and how it affects your research in Belgium records in my next post.

Finding an Ancestor in Belgium Part 2: More Flemish Records

In Part 1 of my series on Belgium Research, I talked about finding my husband's great-grandfather Archie De Meulenaere's birth registration in 1884 in Tielt. It was written in Flemish but it wasn't too difficult to pick out and translate the key points. Having found Archie's parents' names, approximate years of birth and places of birth, we moved on to Step 2 - finding their marriage record and birth records.

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:

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.

Anyone with Belgium ancestry should not be hestitant about diving in to the records. Yes we did run into much  more challenging time periods and records written in Latin and French, as well as the confusing (to me) French Republican Calendar, but all those obstacles were overcome with patience and perseverance. But more on that in the next blog post!

Finding an Ancestor in Belgium Part 1: The Flemish Records

A few days ago I talked briefly about Belgium research on my Ask Olive Tree blog. Several readers responded with more questions, so I thought I would elaborate in a series of blog posts.

My husband has Belgium ancestors, starting with his great-grandfather Archie De Meuleneare who was born in Tielt Belgium on 29 March 1884. Several years ago we took a research trip to Salt Lake City Family History Library with the goal of researching this line. It proved to be a very educational and challenging adventure! We very quickly learned that Belgium had two areas - Flemish and Walloon. Thankfully we knew Archie had been born in Tielt so it was an easy matter to check a map to find out that we needed to look in West Flanders records.

We started our research, checking first for Archie's birth in the microfilmed records for Tielt. The records are very complete, there are hundreds of microfilm reels of Civil Registrations, Parish Records and so on. But they are in a variety of languages, depending on the time period and the location! Some are in Flemish, some Dutch, some Latin and some French. We did not know this when we began our research but believe me, we quickly discovered it.

We stuck with Civil Registrations and Parish Records because of the language barrier. I erroneously thought the Church Records and Civil Records would be in Dutch (which I am familiar with due to my research for my New Netherland Series of books) but I was wrong. Luckily I can read basic church records in Dutch, French, Latin (and of course English). I cannot read any of them well enough to understand records that don't have standard phrases. So we thought we were good to go!

We found Archie's birth record in the Registers van de Burgerlijke Stand, 1795-1900 which has been microfilmed on several reels. These are the Civil Registrations for Births, Marriages & Deaths (Geboorten, huwelijken and overlijdens) in Tielt. The records are written in Flemish and French. When I saw that description I crossed my fingers that Archie's would be in French, the language I am most comfortable reading. I've never seen Flemish so had no idea if I could understand anything other than a name.

Archie's record was in Flemish but poring over it I realized it was very similiar to Dutch! I could understand some of the common phrases and words used in the record. Archie's birth registration was a complete surprise, since we had no idea his given name was Achilles. We had to phone my husband's grandmother to ask her to verify that we had the right man before we accepted that we had the correct record (even though the date of birth was correct and we knew his father's name was Henri).

As an aside, it took us some time to figure out why a man named Achilles would end up with the name Archie after arriving in Canada. My French sister-in-law explained that Achilles is pronounced as "Aw-shee" which of course sounds like Archie to our English ears!

Poring over the record we spotted the names of his parents quite easily - his father was Henry and his name was larger and bold so easy to pick out. It was a challenge to read but with a bit of time and the help of my Dutch-English dictionary I had it figured out.

Father Henry De Meulenaere was "een en vertig jaer" (41 years old) and "geboren Canegham" (born in Kanegem)

His mother's name was not bolded or large, but it wasn't hard to spot - Maria Rosalia Blondeel. The record gave her age "dry en dertig jaer" (33 years old) and where she was born "geboren Pitthem" (born in Pittem)

We were ready to move on. Our plan for our next step was to hunt for three items - the marriage of Henry and Maria Rosalia, and the birth records of both. Fingers were crossed that birth records of Archie's parents would be as detailed as Archie's and provide us with ages and places of birth of his parents.

I'll talk about looking for, and finding those three records in my next Belgium Research blog post.