My ancestors emigrated from Belgium about 1857 and settled in Wisconsin, USA. I haven't been able to trace their emigration or birthplace in Belgium. I don't know if they were married before leaving Belgium or met and married in the US. The only information I have are their names and birth dates.

Ferdinand Huybrecht, birth 7 Apr 1835; Theressia Maria Van Loo (or Looy) birth 8 Apr 1843. My mother was told that Theressia was Flemish. The US Census records indicate their language as Flemish. In the 1870 Census Ferdinand's mother, Anna, was with them so she emigrated also.

The family lived in the Green Bay area for many years, many still do.

I am completely stuck at this point and hope someone can help me make some progress. Thank you, Elizabeth

I have been conducting research in the Brabant area of Belgium for several years now, and both names are very common in the area near Huldenberg and Overijse. In addition, large numbers of Belgians from that area emmigrated to Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I do not have many inviduals with either name in the lines I am researching.

You may want to try and look up the families in the book by Les and Jean Rentmeester, "The Flemish in Wisconsin". It is long out of print, but may tell you something about them. Check for an interlibrary loan.

As far as if your ancesters were married before they came over, my guess would be not. In the early to mid 1800's it was common for most men and women to wait until their late 20's or early 30's to get married. While not everyone followed this pattern, the majority did. I would look into the early marriage records for Wisconsin to find their record.

Best of luck,

Tom

Thank you, Tom. I will look into obtaining the book you mentioned. Since I posted this I found out they were indeed married in Wisconsin

Elizabeth,

I made it to the local FHC yesterday, but was not having much success with my own work, so I looked for Ferdinand Huybrecht and Theresia Maria VanLoo on the tapes I had.

I found no births for a Ferdinand Huybrecht between 1830 and 1850 in any of the following towns:
Huldenberg, Ottenburg, Duysburg, Loonbeek, Sint-Agatha-Rode, Tervuren, Vossem, Nethen and Korbeek-Dijle. The tape I have for Neerijse is incomplete and the birth records end at 1842.

I found one Maria Theresia VanLoo birth in that same time period for the aforementioned towns.

Maria Theresia VanLoo was born on April 5, 1844 in Loonbeek, to Joannes Baptista VanLoo (age 29) and Elisabeth Gilis (age 21)

I also managed to get access to a copy of the Flemish in Wisconsin. They actually had a listing for Ferdinand Huybrechts and Theresa Van Loo. It states the following:

Ferdinand Huybrechts (b. Apr 1844) came to the U.S. with his mother, Anna (b. 1802), in 1856. He married Theresa Van Leoo (b. 1844). Their children were: Philomene (b. 1862); peter (b. 1865) married Nancy Schultz and lived in Kunsh; Charles (b. 1868 d. 1891); Rose (b. Mar. 1887); Mamie (b. Aug 1886); and, josephine (b. Feb 1889).

Not sure if you have all this information already or not. Also, the date given there is off 10 years for the birthdate you have for Ferdinand. It is known that the Flemish of Brabant has errors, so take this with a bit of caution.

One last note. The reference to Charles who died in 1891. He died on January 27, 1891 in Green Bay. I obtained this information some time ago when I was transcribing and translating the Flemish language newspaper "De Volkstem", printed in De Pere, WI. I have the information on my website at:

http://www.geocities.com/sylvan1206/

when you arrive there, select the Volksstem translations. The translated death notice is listed in Years 1 and 3.

Best regards,

Tom

Thank you so very much. I had some of this information, but you have provided so much more, especially the birth place for Theresa. I truly appreciate your help!

Elizabeth

Elizabeth,

I don't have all the information on your family you do, but I would would be cautious about pinning the data I provided for Theresia on the birth of the woman in Loonbeek. VanLoo is not a common name, but there are numerous families scattered throught the country with that name. I would just use the data with some scepticism until you can further verify additional information.

Best of luck with your research.

Tom