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

Nouns and adjectives

French doesn't have the same word order as English.  In French most adjectives go after the noun.

An example is "cher," which is commonly part of a greeting.  If it's used before a noun, it means "dear" (ex: Chere Julie), whereas if it's after a noun, ex: "une robe chere", then it means in this case "expensive", "an expensive dress."

However in Walloon the opposite is true., so you'll find the adjectives first:

on foirt ome; ene blanke majhon (Walloon)

un homme fort; une maison blanche (French)

a strong man; a white house (English)

When it comes to speaking, Walloon's phonology includes sounds, such as 'tch' and 'dj', that do not exist in French. (Speaking of 'dj', and I have also seen 'cz', that seems more Slavic... French with Slavic and Norwegian influences)

The word "cow" is "vache" in French, and "vatche" in Walloon.

The word "leg" is "jambe" in French, and "djambe" in Walloon.

The word "yellow" is "jaune" in French, and "djaene" in Walloon. (think jaundice)

You'll notice that hyphens (-) and apostrophes (’) are used much more than in French. For a good overview of diacritic (accent) marks see this Merriam-Webster page that explains the markings above and below letters.

When it comes to investigating phrases you might have heard, using google translate and clicking the speaker icon so you can hear how it sounds is very helpful. You will come across words that don't translate to anything close to what you might have heard. At first you might attribute this to the differences between modern day French and Walloon. However many times you'll get really close to what you heard if you investigate synonyms for the word or words that don't seem to fit.

Let's look at a common mildly vulgar phrase that means "my god anyway." My first attempt to write this was "mon dieu po sa." You should notice that "dieu", would equate to deity or God. When you put the English "my god anyway" into translate you get "mon dieu en tout cas." So you know the word "anyway" is not right. Substitute the synonym "however" for "anyway" and you get "pourtant". Again click the speaker icon to hear it and you'll recognize this is right. (French words look funny to us English folks.)

Another is "kiss my ass". "Kiss" in French translates to "embrasser", where as the rest "my ass" is "ma cul" which sounded right when I had google say it. So I looked for synonyms. "Buss" is a synonym for kiss, and then you get closer to how its really spelled.. "buss ma cul".

Again all this gives you the modern day French spelling and sound when you use the speaker icon to hear it. This is not how it's spelled in Walloon nor necessarily how it's said, but for us English speakers this is likely as close as we can get. And if you write it this way, at least down the road should you forget what "mon dieu pourtant" means, at least you'll be able to figure it out. And that at the present time is what I am after. A way to write down what I heard in a way that I can later reference and figure it out. Eventually we will have Kelly Biers' Wisconsin Walloon orthography will focus on a standard way to write it for us English speakers that makes more sense to us.

The classic example is the term "booyah." This is one of the few Belgian words that seems to have an accepted English spelling. It appears to be a variant of "bouillon". It is thought to have derived from the Walloon language words for "boil" (bouillir) and "broth" (bouillon). The spelling with an H has been attributed to phonetic spelling by Wallonian immigrants from Belgium.

Wikitongues

 Interesting project I stumbled upon; 

Wikitongues is building a seedbank of linguistic diversity by crowdsourcing video oral histories, audio files, and lexicon documents. Read our archival policy to learn about our preservation methods, or submit your own video."  

Much to my surprise a young man, Thomas Thibaut submitted a video on the Walloon language.   

What we know

What follows is a short email that I slapped together to share with a couple of my cousins. They'd ask "how do you know that?".... Sadly I haven't been able to determine with Marcel died, so I never really put the finishing touches on what follows. 

What we know, and how. 

There are a few big names when it comes to what we know about our Belgian ancestors. What we know today is built on a lot of shoulders. Sometimes it's interesting to stop and research the researchers. Hopefully knowing a bit about them can inspire others. 

One of the earliest sources was Charles I. Martin (1857-1894), who wrote on the History of Door county in 1881. His book biographies of nearly seven hundred families, and mention of 4,000 persons. 

Mathias Tlachac Sr (1829-1924), Born in Bohemia, dying in Door County. His interest in genealogy and history later led him to write a series of 10 articles about The History of the Belgian settlements in Door, Kewaunee and Brown counties. They were printed after his death in 1973 by the Algoma Record-Herald. 

Hjalmar Rued Holand (1872-1963) A Norwegian-American historian and author of a number of books and numerous articles principally dealing with the history of Door County. ie. Wisconsin's Belgian Community in 1931. 

There are three big names of recent times that come to mind. 

The first was Mary Ann Defnet (1930-2016) of Green Bay. She was a founding member of the Bay Area Genealogical Society, Vice-President and Historian of the Peninsula Belgian-American Club, a member of the Brown County Historical Society, the Belgian Researchers, the Wallonie-Wisconsin Society, the Center for Belgian Culture, and was a 35 year member of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society. 

She researched and wrote the entire Belgian section of the “Farewell to the homeland: European immigration to N.E. Wisconsin, 1840-1900” She spent countless days at the UWGB research center where all the delcations of intent and other documents are filed. She compiled a list of all the Belgian’s who settled in the area with their dates of arrival. 

Father Jean Ducat (1922-2016) of Biesme, Belgium is a gentleman from Belgium who compiled lists of Belgian passengers who left for America. He was a parish priest and later a professor of Catholic doctrine at the Gosselies State College. He was president of the Archeo-Paleonto-Historique de Charleroi and member of the Wallonie -Wisconsin Association. He worked with Mary. 

Marcel Lacourt of (1924-?) Vitrival, Belgium created a list of over 18,000 Belgians who left the country and came to the US. His spreadsheet denotes birth dates, origin, ship names, landing port, destination. (He died about 2010-12), I am still trying to find out) Marcel spent quite some time in Wisconsin doing local research. 

Previously mentioned the Peninsula Belgian-American Club. It was formed in the late 1960’s in Door County. They have been helping arrange trips back to Belgium, at regular intervals. This started in the early 70’s with hundreds of Belgian Americans going back to reconnect. The Wallonie-Wisconsin association, is the sister organization in Belgium, for those looking to reconnect and visit here. 

Also definitely worth mentioning is The Belgian Researchers. It was founded in 1976 by Micheline Gaudette and Ardiena Stegen. They publish Belgian Laces. This publication has the stories of Belgian immigrants, their role and contribution to the development of particular industries in the US as well as their stories of the trials and tribulations connected with starting a new life in a new country. A special feature of the magazine is the "Queries", in which members desiring information about a particular person or event can submit a query in the hope that someone will be able to help. 

There are many other people and sources, but these are just a few off the stop of my head. When looking into other ethnic backgrounds, similarly looking into who and what has been others have done is probably the most important piece of help you will have. Step one is always to visit the library of the area you are researching. Visit the local history / genealogy department and ask the librarian what they have that no one else has in their reference section.