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Contact: mikell @ rogers.com                                                            updated 2019-03-27

This web site contains over 250 charts showing the ancestors of my grandfather, Achille Wybou (1878-1944), and their many descendants and spouses. In each case I have indicated links between the charts -- it is not much of an exaggeration to say that everyone in the data set is related to everyone else!

The charts are grouped around 19 families, most of them headed by a direct ancestor. A few others are included because of the many cousins they hold. There is an index listing all of the charts.

The corresponding database of some 48,000 names also includes many extended in-laws who are not otherwise related and are not included in the charts. It can be found on the following sites:

familysearch.org

ancestry.com

geneanet.org

genealogie.com

genealogieonline.nl/en/klerken-woumen-zarren-families/

wc.rootsweb.com - under database mikell5 (earlier version)

Most of the records are for Klerken, Woumen, and Zarren but there are many entries for other towns throughout West Flanders as well as scattered other locations. The main sources are the church and civil records (approximately pre- and post-1796 respectively) filmed by the Mormon Church (the civil records are available online at familysearch.org under Belgium, West Flanders, Civil Registration).  An index is being compiled by volunteers and is available at vriwilligersrab.be.  In most cases the entry in the index is linked to the actual record at familysearch. The only disadvantage of the index is that it requires an exact spelling of a surname, a laborious task when searching variants of such names as Wybou or Hendrycks.  These records generally only go up to the early 20th century.  I have supplemented them with other postings on the internet.. The main sources are the databases of Ignace Debruyne (ignacedebruyne.eu) and Roger Clauw (users.telenet.be/rogerclauw).  I have cited all sources in the database, usually under the marriage record which provides the most detail.

Also included is a census of Klerken taken around 1814-1815 which then had a population of 2,125.  The records were transcribed by Ignace Debruyne.  I have annotated about 90 per cent of them with the years of their birth, marriages, and/or death, including the surnames of prior and subsequent spouses. Finally there is a family tree showing all the identified direct ancestors of Achille.

I would welcome additions (if they are related to names in the database) or corrections.

A note on spelling

There is no standard way to spell the names in these records.  A single individual may appear in different records with various versions of his surname and even given names can vary.  Given names were most often in their Latin form, except during the period of French annexation.  The presumably Flemish equivalent by which people were normally known appears rarely except in the later years.  I have used whatever variant I encountered first, sometimes with an English equivalent, and used slashes to indicate when alternative given names appeared.  The variations in surnames within the same family may provide a guide as to where to search.  I have never left a space within a surname to make it more convenient to search - variations in handwriting make such distinctions somewhat arbitrary in any event.

Modern spellings are used for locations.

Some oddities

Tradtionanlly seven sons in a row has been a sign of good fortune and the King of Belgium is the seventh son’s godfather.  The Queen serves as godmother for seven consecutive daughters.

Pieter Vanpoucke and Juliana Sophie Vestraete (m 1885 in Klerken) had eight sons, including a set of twins, in a row over a period of 12 years.

Joannes Baptista Bracqué and Joanna Theresa Barrette (m 1763 in Zarren) had seven sons in a row over a period of 14 years.

Judocus Huyghe and Petronella Jacoba Timmerman (m 1756 in Zarren) had seven sons in a row over a period of 14 years.

Hendrik Jozef Lachat and Sylvia Deruyter (m 1875 in Klerken) had eight daughters in a row followed by one son in a period of 14 years.

Children born outside of marriage could be “legitimized” by the father acknowledging paternity at the time of marriage.  I have noted such cases in a footnote.  Franciscus Xaver Hogie (1775-1848) acknowledged paternity of eight children born between 1797 and 1818 at his marriage to Anna Theresa Coussaert in 1836!

Augustin Dewilde and Joanna Lehouter (m 1760 in Zarren) had 13 children.  JeanVandamme and Maria Denecker (m 1785 in Woumen) had 16 children.  Jean Baptiste Beauprez (1741-1808) had 23 children with three wives.  Laurent Albert Hosten (d 1796) had 18 children with two wives.

Infant mortality was very high.  Louis Jacob Deman and Virginie Amery (m 1856 in Klerken) had six of their eleven children die before the age of one.  Only two survived to adulthood.

People often remarried shortly after the death of a spouse, sometimes to the spouse’s sibling.  Francis Vercamer (1798-1879) was married six times, marrying in less than 11 months after the death of one wife.  Francis Gregor Vanbiervliet (1822-1908) was married five times with each succeeding marriage following quickly after the death of his last wife, one less than three months afterward.  Cyril Vanoverscheldt (b 1874) married his second wife less than eight months after the death of his first.

The oldest person in the file is Catharina Coleta Hoet who lived to 99 (1808-1908).  Louis Leopold Lenoir lived to 94 (1776-1855).

Alida Maria Decloedt (1891-1909) died less than eight months after her marriage.  Eugenie Vanoverberghe (1850-1875) died ten months after her marriage.

There is one set of triplets in the database, born to Leonard Leopold Vermeersch and Rosa Clara Vermeersch (m 1823 in Klerken); they died shortly after birth.

Leopold Beauprez and August Beauprez were born nine months and one day apart in 1859 in Klerken.

Michael Kelly

Ottawa, Canada