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.