Need help identifying birth town on death record
I'm working on translating a death record from Belgium and need some help with identifying the birth town of the deceased. The record is #25 on the the first page for Odile Brahis.
This is what I have transcribed from the section that lists her age and place of birth:
"Odile Brahis, âge de quatre vingt treize ans, née a Vapahe, journalier de profession"
I've studied other records by this scribe and my best guess is that the first letter is a capital V, but I could be wrong. I've tried many variations on this spelling as well as similar sounding words but I haven't found any locations in Belgium that match.
If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Answers
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Zooming in on the whole area via google maps,and searching visually sometimes helps,..
-I would read the first as a V also, but i do not see the location either.
Sometimes i dump it to the printer ,and overdraw with a pencil.
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Thank you Adrien, I will give that a try.
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I would approach it with tiny steps. Do you know any of her children's names? Where were they born? Marriage certificate? Where? Husband's place of birth? Have you found the husband's death certificate? Did it give his place of birth? People born in 1726 normally did travel far from home. Get a general area, and then start looking on a 1700-1750 map. Also try geanet to see if other family members have done a tree.
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Thank you for the information. Odille was one of eight Great Grandparents of the original person that I was researching (wife of my 3rd Great Uncle from Italy). I did find Odille's husband's death certificate as well other documentation. Her husband was born in Huy but died in Brussels in 1799 and the date of death was listed in the format of the French Republican calendar which was fascinating to read.
Adrien's advice to zoom in the Google maps was very helpful it helped me to find church archives from nearby areas for other relatives on the same tree. Many were born and died in nearby areas such as Wanzoul, Vinalmont and Villers-le-Temple. I've been so busy researching the others that I haven't gone back to research Odille Brahis but I will get to it soon.
I will try to find a map for that era as you mentioned. Again thank you to everyone for your advice, it has been extremely helpful.
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Took some time to reconsider this one.
The term is probably a very bad write for parish. In French paroisse,in Flemish parochie.
Sometimes also written as paroise.
First have a look at how the scribe writes the name Of Pierre Brahis , same entry..
Seems to be a very strong resemblance with the so called V of Vapahe, but as the location does not exist on the web nor on google maps or on the list of old Toponymes around Hoei (Huy), the term needs another solid explanation.
Browsing to page 516 entry 42 Durand,it dawned at me, that the term is better visible altough also a bad write... he writes - cette commune en la "Paroisse", the double "S"
as Fs, a common practice.For comparison look at the word Profession-the double "s" is
also written as fs here as it is in the basic entry of Brahis, just look at profession.
Back to our term, zooming in closely at the last "A" before the so called H , it is not an "a"but _OI_, if you look very closely. And the so called "H" is an _FS_ missing the lower leg of the S.
Personally i would make a pitch to read it as Paroise, probably Saint Denis, at Huy.
Adrie
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Adrie,
Thank you for the reply and information. Odile Brahis was one of the Great Grandparents of Marie Gamette, who was the wife of my 3rd Great Uncle. I've found records for most of the other Great Grandparents but not Odile.
For the others I've located records in Huy, Vinalmont, Villers-Le-Temple and Antheit but did not find a single Brahis in any of these locations. I also searched the records of a few other villages nearby without success.
I checked the Saint Denis parish in Huy and did not find her, but I plan to do another search of all the parish records for Huy to see if I can locate her. I did this initially when I was looking for the other surnames but I was not focused on the Brahis surname at the time.
I think your explanation is very intriguing and this may be the clue I need to figure this out. I'll let you know how it goes.
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