Was one of your Belgian family members a soldier during WW1?

Then you should check this site: 

http://www.tenboome.webruimtehosting.net/guldenboek/Guldenboekprojecttotaal/goldenbook.htm

"The Golden Book of Firecard" aka “Guldenboek der Vuurkaart” in Dutch or "Livre d'Or des Cartes du Feu" in French is a compilation of cards issued to soldiers who fought during World War I published between 1933 and 1940: 8 in Dutch and 8 in French.

These books were indexed a few years ago and are now available online.
 http://tenboome.webruimtehosting.net/guldenboek/Guldenboekprojecttotaal/guldenboekonline.htm

Not every soldier who fought during WWI is listed in these books as not everyone was interested in filling out the form required to have their card published.
For that reason, if you do not find your family member listed in the index, you can have his name added and his story told by contacting Marc Verlinden

You can browse thru the books but it might be more productive to first check the index.

You can check the list (pdf format) in three ways:
Alphabetically ordered by family name
Alphabetically ordered by place of residence
Alphabetically ordered by regiment

Say you are looking for

Felicien ABSIL

You will need to look in book 33-34 p449 (image 449)

There are symbols under the pictures. A link enables you to download a 2 page-pdf file containing a legend for these and other abbreviations.

In the case of Felicien ABSIL:

he was from Namur, a soldier who received the Ordre de Leopold II medal, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille de la Victoire and the Medaille Commemorative de la Guerre 1914-1918.  Not sure I understand the other numbers and letter "7 ch. fr" or "1 ch. bl" but you can always inquire on their forum:


Regimental histories are also available if you know the regiment in which your family member served.  I have only one complaint: the content of those pages are yellow print on white background.

Using Felicien ABSIL as an example again, the index shows he served in the 1 Grenadier.
I highlighted the page to see what I was looking at and found that the 1st and 2nd Grenadier histories were grouped.  The history is in Dutch so you might want to highlight, copy and paste it into a translation software if you don't read Dutch.  It might not be perfect but will give you the gist of things.  For a better translation you might want to request someone's help on a forum.

The site is available in three languages: Dutch, English and French.

Happy Hunting!

http://thebelgianresearchers.blogspot.com/

Bel-Memorial

Are you looking for Belgians who were killed during WWI or WWII?
Not sure exactly where they might have died?
Try this web page: Bel-Memorial
This bilingual site (Dutch - French) is dedicated to the memory of those who died during these conflicts.

A total of 1012 monuments are listed in the database to date.

You can browse through a province, or you can search through a complete alphabetical listing of all the towns in Belgium that are available.
To do this, just click on "Toute la Belgique" (French) or "Heel Belgie" (Dutch)

But you are not limited to Belgian memorials, you might also like to check out some that are located in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. Click on "Etranger" or Buitenland"

The sad story of Camille Coquette whose mother died wondering where her son was buried seems to have stirred conflicting emotions over why it took 93 years for them to solve this mystery, but as researchers we know that sometimes these things happen and what a treat to have a place to look now!
Camille Coquette's grave was found in Colchester, England, along side of 3 other Belgians


An easier way might be to search the Name database: Tous les noms - Alle namen
for a complete alphabetical listing of all the dead found so far.

I want to thank Jean-Paul Leburton for pointing me to this web page. It is really well done, complete with personal stories and an impressive list of participants and links to more similar sites.

Those who paid the ultimate price to keep their fellow man free deserve to be remembered.

The next few weeks will also be filled with events commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.

You will also want to visit the official website of tourist information for the Belgian Luxemburg

Let us never forget...
and may our hearts be always full of gratitude for the sacrifice made by these brave men!

Treasure Trove for Grand-Leez researchers

Our member Rick F was looking for family in Grand-Leez, Belgium. Several families from Grand-Leez ended up in Wisconsin between 1855 -1856, but the people he was looking for left in 1871. He had found a connection in Belgium and their family names compared well but they could not find a common link to tie their family trees together.
One of our members suggested he visit Netradyle, a site containing a lot of extracted records: http://www.netradyle.be/
Another sent a link to Ron Flemalle’s site: PenBelGen: 19th Century Belgian Residents of Door Peninsula, Wisconsin
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=PenBelGen&I11.x=30&I11.y=1
I forwarded the query to http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/geniwal_magazine/ and received a most interesting answer redirecting me to Philippe Josis’ webpage at http://grandleez.be/

Another member went further and must have contacted the page owner as this morning I found a reply to the query in my mailbox. And what reply this was!
Mr. Josis had sent a link to an image from the Population register of Grand-Leez, showing Rick’s family.
Population registers in Belgium are maintained by decades and follow families over that time span: births, marriages, emigrations etc.
Allow me to extract the image for you:

As Head of household: DAVISTER, Louis Joseph, day laborer, born in Ernage, 17 July 1792, illegitimate son of DAVISTER, Marie Joseph, who is the daughter of DAVISTER, Pierre and BERGER, Marie Barbe
His Wife: LEGROS, Marie Thérèse, born in Sauvenière in 1788, daughter of LEGROS, Philippe (who is the son of LEGROS, Laurent and BRABANT, Magdelaine) and JOSET, Marie Josephe.
Their children:
- Marie Catherine, born in Sauveniere in 1815, married to DESSART, Amand, resides at Grand lez
- Ghislain Joseph, born in Sauveniere in 1818, married 1 BERNARD, Antoinette and 2. (blank)
- Hubert Joseph, born in Sauveniere in 1821, married to BEQUEVORT, Anne Julienne, resides at GrandLez
- Clement Joseph, born in Sauveniere in 1823, married to LOOSEN, Albertine, resides in Sauveniere
- Marie Françoise, born in sauveniere in 1829, married to Philippe LANGELE, resides in Incourt

Philippe Josis has spent the greater part of the last 10 years extracting the Grand-Leez records and as of now, he has photographed the all of the Grand-Leez parish registers from 1613 to 1796 (He is also working on the 11 other parishes of Gembloux).
He is working on the French period records (1796-1803) of the cantons of Gembloux and Spy.
For the new régime (1803 – abt. 2000), he has photographed the original records found in the Parish registers as well as in the Civil registers.

On his site’s Home Page - http://www.grandleez.be/grandleez.be.htm -, under the tab “Population”, you can find 5 lists:
- The 1693 enumeration of Mont-Saint-Guibert (Grand-Leez was a part of that location in those days): it’s one of the first enumerations!
- The 1709 enumeration of Mont-Saint-Guibert: 16 years later, with more details
- A list of Heads of Families taken around 1830 by the Abbot Surlectiaux: contains both spouses, house numbers, according to villages/hamlets
- A more recent population listing of Grand-Leez, first published in "Chez Nous" around 1990: includes street names, house numbers, names/surnames of both spouses or companions as well as telephone numbers
- A 2006 list of households of Grand-Leez, according to house number and street

Back to the main page, under “Histoire” you will find a local history (in French), a time line and the coat of arms along with pictures of 2 books dedicated to local history:
- Le Pays de Gembloux: Des Origines a L’An Mille: Jean Martin’s superb summary of 1000 years of History of Grand-Leez and its surrounding: The triangle Gembloux (Baudecet) – Walhain – Grand-Leez
- Notes d’Histoire sur Grand-Leez, also by Jean Martin covers 20 centuries of history and is available through the Cercle Royal d'Art et Histoire de Gembloux .

Let’s return again to the main page and this time click on “Généalogies”.
On this page Philippe Josis explains how so far 26,000 have been extracted from the Grand-Leez records and this has enabled the reconstruction of many old family trees.
If you have family in Grand-Leez, you will want to contact Philippe Josis to see if he can help you find your ancestor.

Be aware though that only specific questions will receive answers. There will be no reply to queries seeking “All information on any surname” so as not to deprive the researcher from experiencing the fun in personal discovery.
On that page, just click on the highlighted “en annexe” where many answers to archived queries can be found.
At the top of the page you will find tabs in alphabetical order.
Since we are looking for DAVISTER, let’s click on the one that says “de A à D”, then select D. This leads us to more alphabetical tabs at the top of the page.

In Internet Explorer, when you hover over “Recherches D”,

a menu comes down giving you some names. Move to the person you are interested in and click. A picture of a record or a family tree will be displayed.

Back to the main page again, this time click on “Tranche de vie” to discover two articles dedicated to personalities who made their mark on Grand-Leez and who deserve to be remembered.
- Henry II de Leez, Bishop of Liège, related to the Grand-Leez nobles
- Mathieu PORTIER, notaire at Petit Leez.

Under the “Evénements” tabs of the Main page, you will find lists of people who participated in events that marked the village history:
- List of young men enlisted in Napoleon’s armies
- List of those who emigrated to America between 1855-1856
- List of those who died or were deported during WWI
- List of those of were captured or/and died during WWII

Under “Liens”, you will find links to further sites to help you discover the region and if you have family in Gembloux, to help you further your research.
Under “Contact” you will find a form to fill out to make your request for research.
Just remember… it must be specific and show that you have given serious thought to your personal research before asking.

Philippe Josis enjoys making this information available to all freely but his work is copyrighted and should not be used for any other purpose than personal research. He juggles many hats besides and wishes for many more years with 32-48 hour days.
Please visit his wonderful site.
You will rave about it as I am, and I don’t have any relatives in Grand-Leez… I searched my database to verify as I would have LOVED finding one and tying into this Gargantuan work. He yet plans to take photographs of the cemetery to add to the information already available.
THANK YOU, Philippe for an amazing site!