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Tip: First, see if you can easily find the marriage certificate. Then, take the last place of residence and go through the index table of that village to search for the death certificate. Finding the birth certificate of siblings can help date the marriage and death dates of the parents. | Tip: First, see if you can easily find the marriage certificate. Then, take the last place of residence and go through the index table of that village to search for the death certificate. Finding the birth certificate of siblings can help date the marriage and death dates of the parents. | ||
== Research for the 17<sup>th</sup> and 18<sup>th</sup> century == | |||
During this era the civil register did not yet exist. However, the church has similar record, that is records of baptism, marriage and burials. These records can contain even fewer information. The records for marriages and burial rarely contain information about the parents. Although, the baptism and marriage records contain godparents and witnesses, which are often relatives. Given the baptism record of an ancestor, you can proceed by collecting all baptism records of their siblings. If you can only find a few sibling, then either one of the parents died young or the parents remarried, either way you can search for an other marriage of the parents. Note that people often remarried within the year. | |||
Now, suppose you have a long list of potential siblings. Next, you should look for potential matches. Find the baptism record of someone with the same name and see if people in the list show up as relatives of the potential match. | |||
As this work can be labour intensive, it is a good idea to check if anyone else has done it. A lot of this research can be found on [https://en.geneanet.org/ '''geneanet''']. Other peoples research can help you find primary sources, but do not just copy their work. | |||
== Research for the 16<sup>th</sup> century and earlier == | |||
There are no church records for this era. It might be possible to go back further by looking at notarial records, court records, orphanage records and Naturalization records, but there is no clear strategy here. | |||
== Extra tips and remarks == | |||
*Do not rush back in time. It takes time before you get used to the handwriting of older texts. If you go back to quickly, the documents will be difficult to read. | |||
*The civil registration was introduced during the French revolution, the earliest records used the calendar of the French republic, which is completely different from the Gregorian calender. | |||
*You can introduce dates from the calender of the French republic into the family tree, a translation to the Gregorian calender will be proposed as standardized date. | |||
*Not all documents are in the same language. The first names are often translated to the language of the text. | |||
*Add sources. This will take some time at first, but makes it easy to check later. | |||
[[Category:Belgium]][[Category:Belgium Research Strategies]] | [[Category:Belgium]][[Category:Belgium Research Strategies]] |
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