Some early history

Every now and then I like to look at what recent books have been added to the Internet Archive collection that you can borrow/check out.

The following is from "The growth of the Belgian Nation" by: Jan Albert Goris published in 1946:

Belgium has also at all times evinced a spirit of expansion. Although the Belgians have occasionally been reproached for being stay-at-home folks, history seems to contradict this accusation. A few years after Caesar conquered Belgium, Walloon soldiers were fighting in the ranks of the Roman legions. Later they took part in ail the big European battles, during the wars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Considerable numbers of Flemings and Walloons followed William the Conqueror to England, and later the weavers of Flanders settled in Great Britain by thousands. There were Belgian migrations to Pomerania, Silesia, Hungary. And at the time of the great voyages of exploration and discovery, natives of Ghent peopled the "Flemish Isles" which later were called the Azores.

This helps explain why you'll find some people with the same surnames in England as you do in Belgium.

And as early as the 9th century, miners and iron workers came to Sweden from southern and eastern Belgium, along with neighboring areas in France. Most of the Walloons were iron workers coming from the Liege and Namur regions, along the Meuse River.

Belgian Population Registers

Ron Flemal has spotted some Belgian Population Registers on FamilySearch that are helpful to settlers in the Door and Kewaunee County areas.

I am reposting it here like I do a number of things since things get lost on social media due to the walled garden effect and generally don't get indexed by the search engines, etc.

The population registers are as close as you get to the United States census records. Kristine Smets' wrote a very good overview of the Belgian population registers, explaining the background and what you can expect to learn from them.

Film#: 008895560 (DGS) https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1395667?availability=Family%20History%20Library
There are a few neighborhoods on this continuous film, an area of interest; Emimes begins at image 831:

Emines, Namur Population Register 1846-1866: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-Y3GZ-DD41?i=830&cat=1395698

Film#: 008895560 Neuvilles and Gilots, of Emines, Belgium (beginning at image 954): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-Y3GZ-DZY2?cat=1395698

Film#: 008897195 (DGS) Saint-Denis, Namur Population Register 1846-1900: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1409269?availability=Family%20History%20Library

Film#: 008897195 Delwiche of Saint-Denis, Belgium (beginning at image 92): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-13G6-6611

Film#: 008897195 Jeanquart of Saint-Denis, Belgium (beginning at image 119) https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-B3G6-66N7?cat=1409267

Don't Drink This Water

From the Li walon po tertos group:

Language is about identity

In a 2013 paper by Jacqueline Lee Tinkler, titled "Determinants of Ethnic Retention As See Through Walloon Immigrants to Wisconsin," she pointed out;

"For generations, the community remained a close-knit, cohesive, nearly self-sufficient ethnic island, maintaining their religion, language, and customs.

After Indian reservations and the Amish communities, the settlement of Walloon Belgians in northeast Wisconsin is the most enduring ethnic island in the United States. "

Recently a two page article on revitalizing Indigenous languages in Wisconsin appeared in the local newspaper. (GBPG Wed, Jun 9, 2021)

"Laugauge is at a core of what ie means to be Oneida, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Mohican, Potawatomi or Ojibwe, as the phrases and sentences consistently reinforce an Indigenous way of thinking at looking at the world", Francour and others say. "Language is about identity as a people, and it had been nearly completly taken away through forced assimilation..."

The article about Native American lanugages really can apply to our own native Walloon language. It's worth a read. Think about lanugage in the context that Belgium didn't become its own county till 1830, and just a short time later many left to come to Wisconsin. It wasn't so much their county that defined them as it was their language. That language traces back to the Holy Roman Empire.

And we have all heard or read the story of when our ancestors first came to Wisconsin and had planned to settle near Sheboygan, but had trouble communicating there as it was mostly all Germans. So they headed North as they heard there were French speakers there.

Sewing/Quilting - Margaret Monfils