I am searching for a marriage record between a Canadian soldier who served with the RCAF during WWII
The soldier is Bernard J Amirault. She is Suzanne and some form of Demeyer. Their daughter Marguerite (or Greta) was born in Belgium in Feb 1946. The Canadian Wives' Bureau form lists that they lived at 65 Polder in Ninove, Belgium at the time of her immigration to Canada in 1946. Are there marriage records available from that time period?
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Marriage records are restricted for 75 years so it depends. You are right on the cusp. Email the town of Ninove with your request. bevolking@ninove.be. But you may want to wait until after the holidays. Their website says they are only responding to urgent requests right now, due to the holidays and probably also because of the lock-down. Meanwhile, have you look on Geneanet?
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Actually - you will be better off emailing the Ninove city archives. I just looked at their website (https://www.ninove.be/het-stadsarchief). Email them at archief@ninove.be. If they were married in 1944 or 1945 they may be able to send you the certificate. Good luck with your research! Kristine
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The dates are in the bracket of time that is restricted,so you will not be able to acces them.There are some exeptions,however , like being a relative, and within the framework of inheritance/property issue's.Impossible to unlock such things over the e-mail/desks.
But Kristine has a point that you can always try..it can unlock other information.
Might i ask, what makes it a certainty that they were married in Belgium?The birth of their daughter in 46?...maybe the daughter was born on mothers fam-name and legalised
to Amirault later on by marriage and acceptation?
Do you have a scan of the document "Canadian wives bureau"?... would be very nice to work with.
There are no polders in Ninove , and only two possible locations match, one is 'Pollare'
and the second, probably the correct one is "Polderbaan 65 Ninove" wich you can acces via Google streetview.The house is still there.I will use the location for some try-outs;...but obviously the war/end of the war and the aftermath made a terrible hash of
the country, and many left only leaving their footprints behind.
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To correct my obvious mistake, location would be "Pollarebaan 65 Ninove" -- not Polderbaan; i'm getting sloppy.
Adrie
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This is the image of the Canadian Wives' Bureau file. They are the first entry under R.C.A.F. Greta's birthdate is 8 Feb 1946. This document lists her as 6 months old. The indexed information of the file says they departed Southampton, England to Canada in 1946.
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Thank you very much for the information! I appreciate your help.
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I have not checked Geneanet. Thanks!
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Thanks for the scans.
Until now , the most solid case is the one Kristine proposed._IF_ the daughter would be born in Belgium,as i doubted
yesterday, as many people fled the Country here towards England especially from te neck of the woods West Flanders
and including many other localities.A great many camps existed in England to shelter the Belgian refugees.
If this is the case at hand it could imply that the marriage took place in England and that the daughter is born there.
In the first document you scanned her place of origin is shown as England....so the town of Ninove will not have the marriage on the shelf if so....
Suzanne's maiden name is not on the document.That is a downer.
If i look at the locations the other filled in, it shows that the clerck/scribe allowed the people themselves to dictate and spell their locations of origin.Many used the old left behind toponyms from their youth and used old spellings even for as far as 1946... so i would not worry too much about Pollare or 'Polder' as she writes; i will keep playing with possible locations because sometimes they can confirm dates an locations on other documents like say marriagerecords and so.
Until now the only thing i found was a "Marguerite Suzanne De Meyer" born in Zottegem 08/08/1900 wich could be the possible mother of Greta if she was 45 yrs of age at marriage; But i only found the indexed batch in the Belgian Rijksarchief
and i cannot send the link as my login would expire by mailing.
Ancestry seems to have her if you have a login,but be aware , we have no proof , only thing we know is that Zottegem is about 15 miles from Ninove.So this could be interesting.
=> Second page third entry
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/?name=Margueritte_Meyer&pg=2
I tried to find her in the catalogue here at Familysearch but that year is absent in the Zottegem entry's.but feel free to search all the books,as my search was very shallow.
Do you have any knowledge about the husbands regiment and place of origin in Canada, or his stationing in England?
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Found her anyway , in the familysearch database.
Birthcertificate Marguerite Suzanne De Meyer, born 1900, do you like to have a translation? Right upper corner.
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Thank you very much for researching those records for me. The family believes that Suzanne was born in the 1920s and they indicate she died as recently as 2017 in Ontario. I have not found any sources yet to confirm that, but I will. It is possible that this might be Suzanne's mother. It is interesting that some of the family trees online show Suzanne's father as Edward De Meyer, which matches the linked information, but they have her mother as Hermina DeJonghe (various spellings). No sources, again, so that information could be wrong.
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Yes, possibly this could be the mother.Multiple marriages are possible, and indeed , it is very interesting that the name of Edward is mentioned earlier on,and_matches with the link.I made some querys, but to no gain.These war years are always very difficult and if combined with emigration and possible naturalisation after being a refugee in Britain(about 250.000 Belgian people fled the war scene to England) things can become very messy.
I also found 'Polderbaan' in Ninove with a valid nr 65; but found nothing related, and , as an aside, the names De Meyer and De Jonghe are_very common here.
i have some questions, like the J in Bernard J Amirault-- Joseph/James? i do not know.
I'm unsure about his nationality, was he a full Canadian? or English?, as the regiment that i found on the scan has the caption above it RCAF, but then 2828 group 6 wich
was an English regiment/airfield that had her outside skirts and perimeter protected by the rcaf during the war.In other words,...was he moved out there under the umbrella of the Commonwealth of Nations to serve under British command , or was he British of nationality..?( I did not find him in the Canadian databases , altough my search was shallow for now)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._6_Group_RCAF
Protecting the airfield , in the article!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RAF_Regiment_units
Scroll to 2828 first colum gives two possible locations.
https://www.rafweb.org/Organsation/Regiment2.htm
Additional/provisional.
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Anyway.
In the year 1900 at the 8th of August at 9 o clock before noon,before us , Eugeen Droesbeque , mayor civil servant of the civil desk of the town of Zottegem , provincie Oost-Vlaanderen did appear Eduard De Meyer age 39 dayworker born at Strijpen and residing here Molenstraat--whom declared at us that yesterday at 11 o clock in the morning in this municipality is born a child of the female gender from him and his housewife Odile Marie De Rouck
age 38 years housekeepster, born at Strijpen and residing with him.
wich child he did show and declares to give the name of Marguerite
Suzanne. This declaration and appearance is done in the presence of Cesar De Kock(witness) Aged 55 (deurwaarder) and Henri Walgraeve (witness) aged 50 yrs (koster) both residing here ,and on request of the father are witnesses wich will deposite this deed immediately after readig out aloud with us, have co-signed.
signatures
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Again, Thank You! I have tried all manner of determining what regiment Bernard might have served with, and have asked his family to request his service record from the R.C.A.F in the hopes that his marriage might be noted within the file. My research into the Canadian Wives' Bureau said that his commanding officer would have had to have granted permission for the marriage. That was my only idea until I found this forum.
Bernard James Amirault was born 6 Jan 1920 in Nova Scotia, Canada, and died there 22 Aug 2001. The family was recorded incorrectly in the 1921 Canada census as Amiro instead of Amirault. Bernard's parents are James Alphonse Amirault and Marguerite Isabelle Amirault. They were both born in the mid-1890s in Nova Scotia, Canada. They lived in Boston, Massachusetts for a time, but died in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1970-1971.
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Correct that his commanding officer would have had to give his permission for the marriage , especially for officers.
When my father was in the Belgian army in 1958 he had to ask for permission to marry my mother as he was still under active duty and in another country in service.The arrangement still stands to this day.It does not automatically imply that the marriage will be noted into the military file, but it is also not excluded, you could be lucky one day.
The reason that i still think that the marriage was done in England, is basically nothing more than an assumption
based on some other assumptions.
The rcaf was kept out of the battle in the sense that they had no boots on the ground just after d-Day altough the Canadian army itself was very active on the ground be it with other regiments and not around Ninove.
They were mostly involved in the battle for the Scheldt, liberating the pocket of The Scheldt, And basically the environment where i live here,( Zelzate )Breskens, Sluiskil, Sas Van Gent, the Leopoldcanal, the canal of Ghent /Terneuzen , too much to mention but you will find the info here.A great many Canadians died here , and we have massive graveyards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Scheldt
Given all that, concluding , they were only after the physical liberation allowed to ride with the British and Americans on a liberation tour; and only then Canadians drove around in Ninove.
So that is the reason i suspect that Suzanne lived in England as a refugee.....making it possible that the marriage was done there.
Tomorrow i will give it another shot..
Adrie
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Just another hint which may be nothing at all. Greta claims to have been the first baby born in Belgium at the end of WWII. She told that her mother was asked to carry her in the parade celebrating the end of the war. The family thought that her birthdate was Feb 1945, but I noticed on that Canadian Wives' Bureau file dated 1946 that Greta was listed as 6 months old, so I suspect the story may have been a legend she heard or imagined growing up.
Also, the granddaughter I am working with says that Greta and Suzanne both spoke French.
After reading the information on the RCAF Regiment/Squadron information and mapping the locations where he was based, the only obvious scenario is that Bernard and Suzanne met and married in England before his squadron was disbanded in August 1945. Would the airmen in that squadron have been reassigned? or sent back to Canada immediately?
I will search for marriage records in England, too.
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If Greta claims her birthplace as Belgium, it would be Belgium.Not England.
The age, well , WW2 in big parts of Europe was ended in May, so possibly she was 3 months old when the Germans were driven out, altough the official end off WW2 is in September.I'm more in favor of this line of reasoning as the one you propose is
probably due to something else.
Many ocean liners and carriers did not allow to travel for too young baby's , maybe the age was set at a mandatory fork of min 6 months of age.
It is very typical for immigrants and immigration related issue's to adapt the story to the mandatory requesting desiderata.The journey was always difficult and the boats
overpacked.
I used lots of time today to try to filter something out,and was occupied with 'Pollare' for long because the Pol in Pollare should be an old toponym for polder.Turned out not to be the location,so i headed for the other possible location, as it is clearly on the scan
that she makes the scribe write Polder.
After some time it dawned at me , Polderbaan 65=Polder 65 as..... Polder would be short for Polderkwartier (Polder-Quarter) (we write it contracted) Polderquarter--
as in sleeping quarter; so if it was a neighborghood or hamlet ,it is correct as valid adress.
Launched some prompts for Polderkwartier , found it , and the map of it , and indeed , altough not an official toponym, a used one by the inhabitants who use the short form , Polder.-----And it includes the Polderbaan in its boundarys.----
Left quarter above; and all the colored place is Polderkwartier
https://www.ninove.be/bpa-polderkwartier-centrumlaan:-plan
Also found it in this plan , very difficult to find with the eyes, but written as Polderkwartier.
page 73 very small image , but on a windows machine it could be enlarged very far,and shows the kwartier; i tried also on my Apple , could not enlarge.
So , Basically , we can safely assume that her adress is valid as Polderkwartier
Polderbaan 65.
I also found masses of Amiraults in Nova Scotia, and they seem to have a dedicated wikitree! It is possible someone over there has the complete story.
https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/AMIRAULT
As an aside, most people here in Belgium are bilingual or even tri-lingual. Ninove is very close to Wallonia and Brussels and those parts of Belgium are French speaking like Quebeq
in Canada and St Pierre and Miquelon. i don't think it would help us in the query.
Okay, that was it for this afternoon, if it rains this evening , i will give it another shot.
Adrie
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The route she took was via Southampton to Halifax Pier 21 , so possibly some information about the vessel is to be found at their site, altough they only seem to have vessels and arrivals , not manifests.
https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-records/ship-arrival-search
This could be interesting or promising..
http://southpeacearchives.org/war-brides-collection/
But i found her in the collection of Findmypast; so they certainly have her and the vessel
as well as her departure in 1946. I do not have a subsciption to browse their content but hey start at 9.99 dollar
She is listed as Suzanne J Amirault/ Southampton/1946 collection of .... BRITISH AND IRISH ROOTS COLLECTION AND PASSENGER LISTS LEAVING UK 1860_1960
FURTHERMORE there is only one child that matches the daughter and is born in the year
we searched listed as diane m amirault whom also departed in the year of the mother
so if you subscribe at
SORRY FOR THE CAPTIONS AND THE STRANGE LAY-OUT I'M HAVING DIFFICULTIES WITH MY KEYBORDS
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