Translation from Dutch to English
I'm translating the top right right record for Isabella Van Es.
I tried my best to translate the record below:
In the year 1881 on the 27th of November at 8 am, in front of us, Jean Philippe Vanderheyden, mayor and civil servant of this civil registry of Oud Heverlee, Arrondissement Loven, Province Brabant appeard Felix Van Es, 34 years old, day laborer, born and lives in Oud Heverlee. He and his wife, Virginia Coopmans showed us a female child. Virginia, housekeeper, 25 years old was born and lives in Oud - Heverlee. They declared she be named Isabella. Declaraction was made in front of Antonius Vandezande, 37 years old, day laborer who lives here and Lambertus Van Poels, 58 year old, day laborer who lives here. After this was all deeded and read they signed.
I'm assuming the day and time refer to the time she was presented to Jean Philippe Vanderheyden, not the time of her birth. Any notable things I missed or errors I made? Appreciate your help. Thank you.
Best Answer
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The date of the birth is the date which is accepted by the civil servant as the parents declare to be the birthdate. So you have to take the date for-only one-valid date as is given above.Also , "they showed us a child of....,Is a pro forma legal terminology from the medieval period, when a child mostly was born at home , on a farm or on the fields.Most of the time a midwife was only for well heeled folks and a dokter was for the rich happy few.A secondary function as well for the midwife and the dokters came later on, ...to be accepted as witnesses.But a child was not really presented at the desk.What is observed sometimes is this , when children were born on farms during the harvest , from different woman working on the same field during this ,the children were delayed in declaring them at the office ,until after the harvest.....to be declared in batches!!, so historians and statistics can see waves after the summer and spring. Your translate was very solid and good , i assume it to be derived from Google translate...
I used Chat gpt some days ago , to experiment,and get it in the fingers a bit.The machine can switch to Flemisch, Dutch,Latin and Church latin in the same one question and still generate a good response(not flawless), and the prompt is capable of lying; or pretending to tell the truth.It found me a term however that was unclear for some years.
Adrie
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Looks very solid for most part, altough i think Loven should be 'Leuven'.The link is invalid,and does not work, can you repost it =>without using 'enter', and going directly to post it after the copy paste.
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@Adrien Kintziger Thank you. Yes, you are correct it should be Leuven. I'm pretty sure the date recorded refers to when the child was presented to the official, not date of birth. Let me know what you think, appreciate it.
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@Adrien Kintziger Thank you for your help. This is my first attempt at translating Dutch as you noted. I'm familiar with German, but by no means proficient. I tried Chat Gpt on one record, but didn't have great success, I'll give it another shot. The flowing between multiple languages certainly can be challenging. Appreciate your background knowledge and insight, very helpful.
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Dutch and Flemish are basically the same and share the same spelling rules,altough the pronouncement is very different for the bulk of it. And 'Loven' was correct to read it that way, but today the spelling is Leuven or Louvain (French). You will encounter a great many French deeds, partially due to the reign of the french Republic, aprtially because French was the lingua franca in Belgium.Also, most of the surrounding area around Leuven or near it, speaks French, or is served by the government in French.I don't even speak French , btw.
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