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!

Last minute addition and it's not an April's Fool

Just received news that a third project is also available:
Belgie, Mechelen - Overlijden Registers 1851-1900

I was amazed to see this was more than just an announcement. The projects are already available for download to the software used to index these batches.
I actually worked on several batches yesterday,
It didn't take long at all since there were only 12 recoreds to index in each batch:
3 images with 4 records each.

One thing you need to know is that the default setting does not always match the number of records found in the images you end up with, so, make sure to insert the additional rows necessary to finish the work. For example, in these Charleroi batches, the default is 1 record per page. Since there are 4, you can either wait until youn have indexed the first one and a pop-up window asks you whether you want to add records. the default on that pop-up is "0" so, in the case of Charleroi records right now, you need to change the "0" to a "3".
3 more rows will appear under the one you just indexed, giving you the space needed to finish indexing the page completely.

OR
Before you start indexing, check out the number of records per page and click on "Tools" at the top of the page and then "Records per page" and change the number there and put a check mark in the bottom box so that this change will be made to all the pages in this batch.

There is a field-by-field set of instructions to index these records but the project manager also sends special reminders for cases not mentioned. I will add these here.
1. Age: If the age is not written, please leave the field blank! Don’t try to calculate the age, based on the difference between the birth date and the death date.
2. Place name: If the place is in Belgium, please list just the name of the town! If the place is outside of Belgium, and if the record mentions the country, you enter “the name of the town and the country name as written in the record” without punctuation. (Leyden Hollande)
3. Mother’s given and maiden name: The greatest number of arbitrations occurs in these fields. Please, take the time to enter the mother’s given and maiden name as it is written.
4. Numbers: Use single digits when you subscribe a day between 1 and 9. It is “1 Jan 1852”, and NOT “01 Jan 1852”!

When in doubt, please contact Jean Huysmans via email jean.gsu@telenet.be

Last month, the Belgian project indexed 35,168 records and arbitrated 33,371.
That's awesome!
L'Union fait la Force - Unity makes Us Strong...

FamilySearch indexing Projects

I received news today that might liven things up for the Belgian indexing project started by FamilySearch indexing a couple of years ago.

Jean Huysmans is the Belgian project manager. Every month he sends the indexers a report on the project's progress.
Up to now, the project has only released images of towns in Flanders and, even though there is work for both Dutch and French speakers, that has hindered a more active participation from many who might otherwise have added their efforts to the current indexers'.

The wonderful news came this morning that 2 test-case projects are about to be added:
one for Belgie, Kalmhout - Overlijdens Registers 1851-1900
and
one for Belgique, Charleroi - Deces 1851-1900


Similar projects have been released in the past and they usually get done faster than the current general projects. If this happens with the two above mentioned projects, FamilySearch will consider releasing more such smaller projects.

If anyone is interested in participating, they should contact Jean Huysman right away at jean.gsu@telenet.be or HuysmansJ@familysearch.org
Then download the indexing software from http://www.familysearchindexing.org/

A fluency in Dutch or French is not required to work on these records but it definitely helps as the highlighter available for projects like the census, will not be available as the information is found by reading the text of the record.
There is an added difficulty with the handwriting which may make reading the record impossible for those who are not acquainted with the language.

I hope this reaches someone and maybe lots of someones who will sign up and help us get these records indexed and the images available through FamilySearch (free access to qualified indexers, FHCs and members of the church in an intranet type setting)

For a quick idea at how these records will be accessible, go to
http://www.familysearchlabs.org/ and click on "Record Search"
or directly from the FamilySearch homepage at http://www.familysearch.org/
Click on "Search" and pick 'Record Search" from the pulldown menu.

I am really looking forward to working on this!
I hope many others will too!

Trying something new...

Over the past few years, I have subscribed to a growing number of forums and mailing lists in an effort to uncover new resources for my friends at The Belgian Researchers.

Some people will tell you they hate clutter in their email box... My thought on this is, I don't want to miss the one message containing key information to my work. I don't read everything. I weed through as well as wade through mail that comes in English, in French and in Dutch, from different US states as well as from Belgium and France.
I am sure most of those in charge of helping produce genealogical newsletters do the same.

I have researched my Belgian ancestors for a long time and have gained a form of expertise in the records I have used but am far from being an expert in all research matters.
Not long ago I received a phone call from someone trying to locate information on his Belgian ancestors who arrived in the US before it was a country. I have little experience with those records but I know people who do and so I referred him back to them.
I'm not sure he thought this was helpful but I preferred that to giving him wrong information.
So I am very grateful other more experienced researchers have been willing to share their knowledge so generously.

These individuals who participate on these mailing lists have helped me find marvelous information and more importantly, they have helped me make friends with people all over.
Note on mailing list etiquette: although those helping don't usually ask for anything in return, it is important to not be a 'taker' only but to offer your own help.

One such email arrived today that I would like to share with you... it's in French but it's easy to understand.

I credit Bernard Counen, member of the Liege yahoogroup - http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/liege/ who alerted the group to a site about Wallonia's clock towers and chapels.
http://www.clochersdewallonie.be


On the Home page, you can pick a letter to access the list of towns and then you can click on the small pictures to enlarge them.
On the left, under "Sites amis", you will find a link to the "Churches in Flanders" - "Kerken in Vlaanderen" (site in Dutch - so there is for everyone)


Going back to the left side, under "Description" you can find pictures of road side chapels with background explanations on the differences between them.

Chapels are religious buildings with a roof, doors, windows and in which one can expect to find an altar and chairs. Some are almost like little churches and can hold enough people to have a mass.
However, many are much smaller. They are found along the road all over the countryside and while their size prevents holding religious ceremonies, they provide a place for the passersby who want to stop to pray.

The “bornes-potales” are small edifices made of stone, metal or cement composed of several elements: a base, a body, a niche and a cross.
They can be found leaning against a wall and sometimes inside the wall itself or simply on the side of the road.
Their purpose is to protect the fields and the crops or simply serve as a reminder of a tragic event.
They can be used in religious processions, mark the presence of something sacred in the middle of an evil environment, or exist just because someone has wished to build one there.

The word “potale” in "Borne potale" finds its roots in the Walloon dialect. According to the area, it means hole or crease in a wall purposely made above a door or on the corner of a building, in plain sight, in which a religious statuette is displayed.

The Belgian emigrants brought this tradition with them when they came here and similar roadside chapels can be found in Wisconsin for one. I hope you make time to visit these sites and discover another side of Belgian culture.

Happy Hunting!