Should I search records from Belgium or The Netherlands?
I've been researching my ancestors from Belgium and have hit a brick wall with almost all family lines once I get back into the 1700's. My ancestors lived in the West Flanders region, mostly in small villages in the vicinity of Roeselare. My question is this: I know that Belgium did not become an independent country until the 1800's. So, does that mean for records in the 1700's I would need to search Netherlands records instead of Belgium? I am out of ideas for breaking down these brick walls and am thinking perhaps these earlier records would be found in the Netherlands because at that time West Flanders was part of The Netherlands (I think). I should note that almost all the records I have located are on the State Archives of Belgium site, not on FamilySearch. But again, I seem to have hit a brick wall, even on the Archives site. Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide!
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Belgium became part of the Netherland in 1815 after the defeat of Napoleon, before that it switched between France, Austria, Spain and Burgundy. But that's actually not that important, all sources (that I know of) can be found in the Belgian archives.
For a general strategy to find your ancestor I would refer to the wiki, specifically the page https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Belgium:_A_Strategy_to_Identify_your_Ancestors. For the 1700's the most important records are the chruch records (Kerkelijk register / parochieregister). These are both available on familysearch (search->catalog) and the state archive (Overzicht parochieregisters).
Specifically for the region around Roeselare, check out vrijwilligersrab, they have indexed many records. Specifically the tabs "parochieregister" and "Ancien Régime". The "Ancien Régime" tab contains information about other sources, which might be useful to supplement the church records, but is not necessary until the early 1600's. The original sources for the church record are localized, i.e. there is a record for each village (parochie). Other sources (such as orphan records, court records, poorterlijsten, ...) are aggregated, i.e. a big city made these records for the surrounding villages (for the south-east of Roeselare, this is Kortrijk).
PS: I also have many ancestors in that area. Also, I fear this is quite the information dumb, I'd be happy to elaborate where necessary.
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Thank you so much for this information and for pointing me toward the wiki. It sounds like it's going to be a challenge to trace my ancestors back further into the 1700's! I am curious to know, though, after you mentioned all the different countries which ruled over Belgium -- prior to Belgium becoming independent, what nationality would the people there have said they were? For example, my ancestors who lived in West Flanders in the 1700's -- would they have described themselves as Belgian, living in Belgium? Or would they have said their nationality was French or Dutch or Austrian or Spanish? I have never really understood when the concept of "Belgium" emerged as its own nationality.
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A quick history lesson:
After the French revolution, Napoleon (a general) becomes the leader of France. So, he did what generals do and starts conquering. He conquered the Holy roman Empire with relative ease, because they were just a union of autonomous city states and non of these states was strong enough to stand up against France. After Napoleons defeat, the victors created two buffer states, strong enough hold of France in case they try to conquer Europe again, but not strong enough to conquer Europe themselves. One of these was the kingdom of the Netherlands. However, in the south there were Catholics who didn’t like the protestants in the north and liberals who didn’t want a monarchy. In 1830 they got independent. To name their newly formed country they said: when conquering Gaul, Caesar said the Belgae were the braves. Let call it Belgium. And that’s how Belgium got created (more or less).
Now a days, Belgium and the Netherlands are referred to as the low countries, but before 1830, it was simply referred to as the Netherlands. So Belgium would be call the southern Netherlands (or Burgundian Netherlands, or Royal Netherlands, ... ).
Another thing: I’m not sure how much nationalism existed before 1800. It existed, there was a clear rivalry between the French and English, but at the same time loyalty to the king was way more important than loyalty to the fatherland.
West Flanders was part of the County of Flanders, so maybe they called themselves Flemish, although I doubt it. Personally, I would call them Flemish, but that’s a different story.
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Thank you for this detailed response! It inspired me to do some further reading into the history of Flanders. The region has had a complicated history, but this is all helping me to better understand this branch of my family! And I also wanted too thank you for directing me to the website vrijwilligersrab. It has been so tremendously helpful! I have already discovered several records there which have helped me to break through some brick walls! I'm very excited and very grateful to you for all your help.
My grandfather immigrated with his parents to America from Belgium after World War I (he was only 6 years old), and it's the one branch of my family I've never had much luck researching, since they haven't been in America for very long, and I am not very experienced in researching international records. I am so happy to have at last been able to trace back several more generations! Thank you so much for all your help!
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Belgium divorced from The Netherlands from 1830 to 1850 so many record do unfold 2 ways during that period , and tend to be regarded as dutch before that ; altough not always and there are pockets wit geografical exeptions, like say, "Brugge" or more specific parts of Western Flanders and Zeelandic Flanders.Many borders kept on shifting for long time after the departure from the Verenigde Nederlanden.
If you like to make yourself comfortable,feel free to search it both way's and dig in the Dutch records,
They contain a lot more than the Belgian registers.Many links are on this page above.It also is very helpfull if you have names to query.
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You can search the catalog, entering the place. The place listed is in the form of today. So church records of Roesalare or surrounding places can be found in Belgium, West-Vlaanderen.
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