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Janssen/Phelan Family History

Our Belgian Heritage
Covering the families Dart, Kaye, Licoppe, and others

Belgian flag

Origin of the Darts
I am one quarter Belgian, through my grandmother Loretto Marie Dart. The name Dart has two origins. There are English Darts and French Darts. In England the name comes from the word “dart”, meaning “arrow”. It was an occupational name for a maker of arrows. There is also a Dart River in Devon, England, and the surname was used by settlers of that region. Forget all of that for now, because I’m not related to any of the English Darts. I am more concerned with the French origin of the name. The word “darde” from Old French also means arrow, and so may have served the same occupational purpose as the English version. It also seems to me, with what I know of the French language, that Dart may also be a variation of “d’Art,” in which the “d’” means “of” and the “Art” would be short for a person, place or thing. The French version of the name Dart comes in many spellings. These include Darde, Darte, Dartes, Dartt, Darth, and Darthe.

Walloon flagMap of Belgian provincesAlthough the name is French, my Darts were not. They came from French-speaking Belgium. The nation of Belgium has two official languages. The northern half of the country, called Flanders, speaks Flemish, which is similar to Dutch. The southern half of the country, called Wallonia, speaks French. People from French-speaking Belgium, like my ancestors, are known as Walloons. In the center of Belgium there are two provinces, one on top of the other. The northern one, in Flanders, is called North Brabant (Brabant Noord) or Flemish Brabant (Brabant Vlaams). The southern one, in Wallonia is called Walloon Brabant (Brabant Wallon). The capital city of Brussels sits within Flemish Brabant, and is considered its own province. Around the two Brabants is a ring of eight other provinces, four in Flanders, and four in Wallonia. The five provinces that make up Wallonia are Brabant, Hainaut, Namur, Luxembourg, and Liège. We have distant cousins in every province of Belgium, but the vast majority are located in Brabant Wallon.

In the mid-nineteenth century, a wave of Walloons emigrated to northeastern Wisconsin. The city hall of Grez-Doiceau, a town in the province of Brabant Wallon, bears a plaque commemorating this emigration. It states, “In 1853, the first 10 Walloon families left Grez-Doiceau to found a Belgian Community in Wisconsin, U.S.A.” These ten families, and the many others who followed, settled almost exclusively in Brown, Door, and Kewaunee counties. Today the Belgian heritage of this region is obvious in the names of cities and towns; for example, Namur and Brussels in Door County, and Luxemburg in Kewaunee County. Namur, WI is home to the Peninsula Belgian American Club.

For the most part, my family was centered around two small towns in Brabant Wallon, located just a few miles from each other. These two towns are Hamme-Mille and Nethen. Other towns in Brabant that are repeatedly present in my family tree are Bossut-Gottechain, Archennes, Nodebais, Céroux-Mousty, and Wavre, but Nethen and Hamme-Mille are the seat of the family for many generations. Wavre is the largest city in this area of Brabant Wallon, and if you look on most maps of Europe Wavre may be the only town mentioned above that’s big enough to actually show up on the map.

The French Connection
The oldest ancestors I have found in my genealogical research were not Belgian, but French. Nicaise Pierart Craisselot Plouvier was born in the 14th century and lived in an area that is now in the department of Nord in the north of France, near the city of Valenciennes. This is in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the northernmost region of France, which touches the western border of Belgium. Over the course of the past several centuries, this area of land has at times been a part of France, at times part of Belgium, and at times occupied by the Spanish. Nicaise’s brother, Jacquemart Plouvier, obtained through marriage in 1390 a fief of land near the town of Avesnes-sur-Helpe. Having no children, this fiefdom, known as La Motte, was handed down upon his death to his nephew, also named Jacquemart Plouvier, my great (x 16) grandfather. This fief remained in the family, passed down through generations until it was sold in 1770. Details of this fief and its history can be found in the family tree database portion of this web site, in the notes under its various owners, starting with Jacquemart Plouvier.

Another fascinating piece of history in this area revolves around a distant cousin of ours, Jacques Plouvier. In 1454, he accused Mahout Coquiel of killing his wife’s cousin and challenged him to a duel. The combat took place on 22 May 1455, at Valenciennes. The Duke of Burgundy made a special trip just to witness the duel. Unfortunately, the battle was extremely one-sided, with Plouvier not only trouncing Coquiel but essentially delivering a public torturing, complete with ear biting, eye gouging, and arm breaking. The spectacle was so brutal that the Duke was thoroughly disgusted. Although he was not able to stop the duel, due to the laws and customs of the region, upon its completion he swore to abolish the practice. Thenceforward, although other legal duels were held some time after in Valenciennes, they did not end in mortal death. A very detailed account of this duel is included in the notes for Jacques Plouvier, in my family tree database.

Another historically important family in this region of northern France is the Chaufforeau family. My great (x13) grandfather Pierard Caufoureau was born in 1475 in Fourmies, in the province of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. His grandson Jean Chauffoureau migrated to Belgium sometime before 1560. Once in Belgium, the Chauffoureaus (there are countless spellings of this name) mixed and mingled with the natives of Brabant Wallon and scattered their DNA all over Belgium. One notable family member is our cousin Martine Chauffoureau, who was burned as a witch in 1576. In 1956 the journal Brabantica published a detailed outline of the Chauffoureau family history, the details of which appear in the family tree database portion of this web site, under the individual members of the family.

One notable cousin of mine, descended from the Chauffoureaus, is Louis Henri Joseph Dubois (1768-1844). Twice married and the father of 21 children, a century after his death he had more than 3,000 descendants, earning him the honorary nickname of “Le Patriarche”.

I do not want to stress my French roots too much because, mathematically, the Chauffoureaus only make me about 1/9,000th French. It is worth noting, however, that some of the Chaufourreaus remained in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, so we have many cousins there. In fact, we have cousins in every department of France and in various portions of the globe, particularly in the former French colonies of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Madagascar. Among our French cousins are several Counts and Viscounts and at least 50 members of the Légion d’Honneur, an order of merit established by Napoleon that is sort of like a cross between a knighthood and America’s Congressional Medal of Honor.

It’s possible that through this French connection we may be cousins with the two American Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like us, they had ancestors from the small town of Avesnes, and I have found a few cases where a cousin of theirs married a cousin of ours. In these small villages, centuries ago, everyone was basically cousins, so I suspect we are related but I haven’t yet been able to establish a definitive blood connection. One of our cousins also married a first cousin of Charles de Gaulle, the general who led the French armed forces during World War II and served as France’s President for many years. Jean Armand Marc Philippon, at one time the commanding officer of the French Navy, who served under de Gaulle, is a cousin by marriage. Another notable French cousin by marriage, is Paul-Emile Victor, a famous polar explorer, scientist, and author. Although none of the people mentioned in this paragraph are confirmed blood relatives, it just goes to show how if you follow the wide-reaching branches of a family tree far enough, eventually you begin to touch upon some of the illustrious personages of history.

Belgian Village Life
I am not going to go into too much detail here about the early generations of my Belgian ancestors, because there are for too many of them for me to adequately summarize, and for most of them I only have names, dates, and places. To view this, you can look at the database portion of my site, to see how the chain links up through the generations. The only specific information I have about the daily lives of these ancestors is, in some cases, their occupation. By far the most common occupation listed for my Belgian ancestors is “journalier”. This is the French term for a day laborer. Women are often listed as “journalière” (day laborer) or “ménagère” (housewife). The fact that there were so many day laborers illustrates the main reason our ancestors left Belgium and came to America. Our ancestors were farmers, but most didn’t own any land, so they had to work for wages on other people’s farms. As the population was growing in Europe, there wasn’t enough farmland to go around. Since family planning did not exist in those days, parents had multiple children. When they retired or died, those parents had the choice between dividing up their land into meagre portions for each of their children, or giving it all to their eldest son and leaving the rest out of luck. Either way, the majority of the farming populace didn’t have any or enough land to support themselves, and thus were forced to work for someone else.

A few of my ancestors fared a little better in the working world. Some are listed as “cultivateur”s or farmers, implying that they did own land. Skilled trades are also common, such as carpenters, plasterers, masons, blacksmiths, or butchers. The Anciau family, distant cousins of ours, had a number of “garde forestier”s among their ranks. This would be like a game warden, managing the forests of a land-owning nobleman. Other industrious persons owned their own shops or cafes. Some are listed as merchants. A few others worked for the church in positions such as “sacristain” or sexton. A select few held positions within the local government, such as “mayeur” (mayor), “échevin” (alderman or city councilman), or “bourgmestre” (chief magistrate).

Another trend in the historical data that gives us a glimpse into the personal lives of the inhabitants of our Belgian ancestors is the number of interfamily marriages. The term “interfamily marriages” is a nice way of saying “cousins marrying each other”. Prior to the 20th century, in most countries in Europe, it was legal, though uncommon, to marry your first cousin. It was not uncommon to marry your second cousin. Beyond that, if you lived in a small village in Belgium a couple hundred years ago, where your family had resided for centuries, it would be pretty difficult to find a mate who wasn’t your third, fourth, or fifth cousin. This has a lot to do with the fact that many of our ancestors were farmers or farmhands, and probably traveled little if at all, unless they were involved in a military campaign. Once a family put down roots, they had a tendency to stay in one place for centuries. When looking over the records from Nethen and Hamme-Mille, one sees the same family names—Anciau(x), Collard, Draye, Gillard, Hottat, Kaye, Licoppe, Maricq, Maucquoy, Page, Ronsmans, Rose, Socquet—marrying each other over and over again. This was by no means a phenomenon peculiar to Belgium; it was true everywhere. Because the amount of data that’s out there concerning Belgian genealogy is so extensive and so complete, we can see this trend in action over the course of history. Once these Belgian families immigrated to America, they kept their social circles tight and continued to marry each other for a generation or two.

Our Most Famous Relation
Those of my family who grew up in northeast Wisconsin will be happy to hear that we do have one famous Belgium relative: Earl Louis Lambeau, better known as Curly Lambeau, founder and player/coach of the Green Bay Packers football team, and namesake of the Lambeau Field football stadium. He is my sixth cousin, twice removed. We share the common ancestors Antoine Baudet and Jeanne Brasseur, both born in Nethen in the mid-17th century. Curly’s grandfather, Victor Lambeau, and Jean Baptiste Rose, another cousin of ours, emigrated to America in 1873 aboard the ship “Victoria”. Both men were masons, and after hearing that men of their trade were needed in Green Bay, they left Belgium together to start a construction enterprise there. Curly was born in Green Bay 9 Apr 1898, and the rest is history. One of my favorite stops during my annual trips home to Green Bay is Curly’s Pub at Lambeau Field.

The Mystery of the Darts
The Dart family line, in our case, only goes back as far as 9 Dec 1821, 11:30 p.m. That was when my great-great grandfather Philippe Dart was discovered on the doorstep of an orphanage in Leuven, North Brabant, Belgium. The following morning he was taken before the magistrate, where his birth record was recorded as follows:

“Jeanne Marie Nysen, nurse at the hospice for found and abandoned children in this city, and a resident, aged 65 years, declares to us that: Yesterday at 11:30 at night she found, in front of the door of said hospice, rue de la Barbe No. 2, a child which she presents to us, wrapped in an old scrap of cloth. After having inspected the child, we find that he is of masculine sex, newly born, dressed in an old shirt and an old cap, underneath a new hood, having also attached to his neck a little medallion, sewn in a scrap of silk attached to a ribbon. At this time we have inserted [into the public record] the child under the surname and given name of Dart, Philippe, and ordered that he be returned to said nurse.”

There is no indication why he was given the name Dart, as neither the nurse nor the witnesses present at the preceedings bore that name. It seems to have been an arbitrary decision on the part of the magistrate. Since Philippe kept the name Dart, it seems that he was never adopted and was most likely raised in the orphanage until manhood.

While mystery shrouds the origin of the Darts, a wealth of information exists on the ancestry of Philippe’s wife. Marie Julienne Licoppe was born 27 Apr 1820 in the town of Nethen in Brabant, Belgium. She married Philippe on 24 Jan 1847 in the same town. The Licoppes can be traced back to Jean Licoppe, one of my great (x 6) grandfathers, who died in Bossut-Gottechain in 1745.

On to America
Philippe Dart and Marie Julienne Licoppe had six children: Jean Joseph, Josephine, Jean Baptiste (John B.), Marie Julienne (aka Harriet), Felicien (Felix), and Gustave August. The elder four were born in Belgium, and the younger two (Felix and Gustave) in Wisconsin. The family immigrated to America in 1855 aboard the ship “Henry Reed”, which departed from Antwerp on 23 May 1855, and landed in New York on 26 Jun 1855. The family headed directly for Green Bay, WI. Philippe filed a declaration of intention for U.S. citizenship in the Brown County Courthouse on 5 Jul 1855. The Dart family settled on a farm in the Town of Green Bay, Brown County, WI. The 1860 census lists him as Philippe Darde.

The census records show two other Dart families living in Brown County at this time, headed by Jean Baptiste Dart and August Joseph Dart. Given that Philippe was a foundling, it’s safe to say that these men were not biologically related to him. The census records of 1860, 1870, and 1880 show that almost all of Philippe’s neighbors were Belgian, many of them in fact his wife’s cousins from Brabant.

Marie Julienne Licoppe Dart died 4 Nov 1905 in Green Bay. Philippe survived her; his death date is unknown. Of their children, I know very little about Jean Joseph Dart. Daughter Josephine Dart married Nicholas Gille, who was also born in Nethen, Brabant, Belgium. They had eight children. Son Jean Baptiste Dart married Amelie Moreau, who was born in Michigan to Belgian parents. They moved to a farm in the Town of Scott, Brown County, and had nine children. Marie Julinenne Dart, distinguished from her mother by the nickname Henrietta or Harriet, married Philip Allen, a native Belgian whose family name was actually Hallaux. They settled in the Town of Humboldt, then moved to a farm in the Town of Preble, Brown County, WI, and had 10 children. Gustave August Dart married Clara Moureau, and they had ten kids. He farmed in the Town of Sugar Camp, Oneida County, WI, and died sometime between 1910 and 1920.

Felix and Family
The remaining child of Philippe and Marie Julienne Dart was my great-grandfather, Felicien (Felix) Dart. Felix was born in the Town of Green Bay on 24 Mar 1859. In 1877, Felix married Mary Anna Kaye. She was born 13 May 1858 in the Town of Humboldt, Brown County, WI, the daughter of Antoine Joseph Kaye and Ann Marie Poismans. Mary Anna Kaye had at least eight siblings, whose descendants are now spread out all over Brown and Kewaunee Counties in Wisconsin. Her family came from Hamme-Mille in Belgium. The earliest Kaye I have found is Jean Philippe Kaye, who was married in Hamme-Mille in 1722. The Poismans family can be traced back to the marriage of Ghislain Poismans and Adrienne Martin in Bossut, Brabant, in 1661. Mary Anna is also a direct descendant of the Chauffoureau clan, discussed earlier in this essay. Whether they were aware of it or not, husband and wife Felix Dart and Mary Anna Kaye were also sixth cousins, once removed. They shared common ancestors, Guillaume Jehulet and Sabine Geulinck, who lived in Nethen in the 17th century.

Felix Dart Mary Anna Kaye
Felicien (Felix) Dart (1859-1909)
Mary Anna Kaye (1858-1937)

Felix and Mary moved from Green Bay to De Pere, WI about 1878. Felix was a blacksmith by trade, and the 1880 census shows him practicing that occupation in De Pere. By 1900 Felix became business partners with his wife’s brother-in-law John C. Mularky. They formed the firm Dart & Mularky, a dealership in farm implements and machinery. Felix was forced to retire early from the business due to ill health, and he sold his share of the firm for $5,000. At the time of his retirement, a local newspaper noted that “The firm has built up an extensive business in farm machinery, and bears an enviable reputation among the farmers.” Felix was ill for a year before his death. He died at his home on S. Michigan St., De Pere, on 18 Feb 1909, at the age of 49. His obituary described him as “one of De Pere’s well known citizens” and “an industrious, upright citizen.” Mary Anna lived until 1937. The 1930 census shows her residing in the home of my grandparents, Carl Janssen and Loretto Dart.

Felix Dart and Mary Anna Kaye were the parents of 12 children: Flora, Sarah, Julia (Jewel), Bertha, Ida, Simeon Arthur (Sim), Geneva, George Henry, Lilimae, Philip J., Lorena, and Loretto.

The eldest daughter, Flora M. Dart, was born 7 Dec 1910 in Green Bay, WI. While I don’t know much about Flora, I was able to dig up quite a bit of dirt about her husband. She married Dr. George E. Thompson in Menominee, MI in 1806. Dr. Thompson was a bit of a shady character. He moved around quite a bit, and I’ve tried to piece together his life story, based on what fragments I have found. He was born in Indiana, and practiced medicine in Fort Wayne, IN and Dubuque, IA. He moved to Green Bay about 1902. Shortly before his marriage to Flora, George took a trip to Stevens Point, WI to look into the possibility of opening up a hospital there. He even went so far as to rent office space to house this hospital. He then married Flora in Menominee, MI, and married her again in Chicago. After the wedding(s), the Stevens Point Daily Journal reported that Dr. Thompson had “suddenly disappeared” and given up his plans to open a hospital in Stevens Point. In fact, George and Flora moved to Kenosha, WI in June or July of 1906, and he began practicing medicine there. In August of 1906 George was arrested by the Kenosha County Sheriff on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses. Perhaps this had something to do with the financing of his hospital project. He was ordered to appear before a judge in Green Bay. The charges didn’t stick, and he was discharged. He was immediately arrested again, however, on a charge of bigamy. Another woman had appeared, claiming to be his wife. I have found no record of whatever became of the bigamy charges, but George remained married to Flora Dart. They are shown living together on the 1910 census. Flora died on 7 Dec 1910. Ten years later the census shows Dr. George married to an Anna, with six children in the household. Some of these children are under ten years old, but some are in their upper teens. All are listed under the name Thompson. I can only assume that this is his first wife, the one who accused him (apparently truthfully) of bigamy, and that the children in the household are his. George and Anna must have gotten a divorce sometime between 1920 and 1923, because in January 1923 George was arrested in Fessenden, ND, on a charge of failure to pay alimony for support of his wife and six children. His whereabouts beyond that point are unknown to me.

Sarah Dart, the second child of Felix and Mary Anna Dart, was born 19 Mar 1880 and died 26 Aug 1880.

Julia M. Dart, also known by the name Jewel, was born 28 Feb 1881. She married Louis J. Flanigan, a native of Marquette, MI. Louis was in business with his brothers. The “Flanigan Brothers” firm was a dray and transfer service, essentially a trucking company of horse-drawn wagons. It eventually grew into motorized transport. Louis died in 1825, and Jewel Dart went to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Carl and Loretto Janssen, until her death in 1948. Louis and Jewel had no children.

Bertha C. Dart was born 18 Feb 1883. She married Arthur G. Jennings, who owned a Buick garage in New London, Outagamie County, WI. On 29 Jul 1927, Arthur committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest while Bertha was outside mowing the lawn. Bertha continued to live in New London until her death on 3 Jul 1965. They had no children.

Ida Dart was born 6 Apr 1885. She died 23 Sep 1903, at the age of 18, of tuberculosis.

Loretto Dart
Loretto Marie Dart (1901-1993)

Simeon Arthur Dart, known as Sim, was born 15 Jul 1886. Sim was a clothing salesman. He lived in Milwaukee the last 40 years of his life, and at the time of his death was employed as a buyer for the mens’ department of C. A. Chapman Company. He died in a Milwaukee Hospital on 25 Jan 1961, after a long, unspecified illness. The Dart family bible, maintained by Loretto Dart, lists three wives for Sim: Emma Terneugen, Marie A. Leddy, and Norma Berg, but to my knowledge he had no children.

Geneva Dart was born 4 Oct 1888. As a young woman she worked at a paper mill, until she married Arthur Hilgenberg in 1921. I don’t know much about Arthur, except he died 30 Jan 1958. Geneva lived until April of 1985. They had two children: Gene Arthur Hilgenberg and Jacqueline Sue Hilgenberg.

George Henry Dart was born 27 Nov 1890. As a young man he worked in a furniture store, but I don’t know anything about his career beyond the age of 30. He married Marie Virginia Engles. They moved to Kenosha, WI sometime between 1925 and 1937. They had three children who died in infancy, and then two children who survived: John Richard Dart and Robert George Dart. Robert and his wife Bernice Pileski owned Pileski & Dart Grocery Store in Kenosha until 1957. He died in 1994. John Richard Dart died in 2009. His descendants still live in Kenosha.

Lilimae Dart was born 28 May 1893. She worked in a paper mill as a young woman, until she married Egon J. Norman in 1920. They had two children, Donald Philip Norman and Mary Elizabeth Norman. Lilimae died in 1982.

Philip Jessie Dart was born 3 Feb 1895. Philip was a World War I veteran. Following the war he worked for the telephone company, starting out as a cableman helper, then moving on to bookkeeper, and becoming a manager by 1930. He married Clara Van Vonderen in 1920. They lived in Algoma, WI for at least a decade, and then moved back to De Pere. They had three children: Philip Anthony Dart, Patricia Marguerite Dart, and Carol Marie Dart. Patricia married Walter Mott, and Carol married Merlin Wilmet. Philip Jr. died in 1971, Patricia died in 2004, and I do not know if Carol is living or deceased.

Lorena Marion Dart was born 3 Aug 1899. She died 16 Dec 1900.

Loretto Marie Dart was born 23 Jun 1901. She was my grandmother. Her name is often misspelled in documents and articles as Loretta, but it was in fact Loretto with an “o”. Amongst her grandchildren she was known as Tetta. Loretto lived in De Pere, WI all her life. She graduated from De Pere High School. As a young woman, she worked at George Vander Zanden Jewelry Store, before marrying my grandfather Carl W. Janssen on 14 Apr 1925. She was a member of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, the De Pere Catholic Women’s Club, and the American Legion Auxiliary. For over 30 years she was the pianist for the De Pere Rotary Club. Tetta died 25 Sep 1933. Carl and Loretto had two children, ten grandchildren, and 17 grandchildren and step-grandchildren. To find out more about Carl Janssen and the rest of the Janssens, see my page on our Dutch Heritage.

Dart family 1965
Dart siblings, 1965 (left to right): Philip Dart, Geneva Dart Hilgenberg, Lilimae Dart Norman, Loretto Dart Janssen, George Dart

 

Belgian Cousins Everywhere
One thing’s for certain: we have a lot of Belgian cousins out there, on at least three continents that I know of. In addition to North America and Europe, we have Belgian relatives in Africa. A few of our cousins lived and worked in the Congo, formerly a Belgian colony. As I mentioned previously we also have many Belgian and French cousins who relocated to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Madagascar, some marrying native-born citizens of those countries.

One interesting piece of history involves a branch of our Belgian cousins that settled in Louisiana. Jean Philippe Detiège (1777-1828) and Marie Josèphe Lambeau (a great great great aunt of Curly Lambeau of the Green Bay Packers fame) were born and died in Belgium, but at least four of their sons emigrated to the United States, arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1840s. They settled in St. Martinville, St. Martin Parish, LA, where many of their descendants remain today. Nicolas Detiège married Roséline Dartès, who was a slave. Their two children were also born slaves. Upon his death, 21 Jul 1843, Nicolas asked his brother Noël to purchase Roséline and their two children, thus freeing them. The son of Nicolas and Roséline, Nicolas Émile Detiège, went on to fight in the Civil War as a First Lieutenant in the Union Army’s 73rd Colored Infantry. After the war he had a successful political career, serving as Sheriff of St. Martin Parish and also in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Another fascinating character from this Louisiana branch of the family was my fourth cousin, thrice removed, Hippolyte Cervais Martinet, who was of 1/4 black descent and listed as a mulato on the 1880 census. Hippolyte undertook the audacious task of walking around the world. Departing Seattle, Washington on 18 Apr 1920, he arrived in New York on 15 Aug 1920. On Oct 1920 he boarded the SS Finland as a crewman. The ship took him to Southhampton, England. He then took a ferry from London to Antwerp, Belgium. His travels took him through Belgium, France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Albania, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, and China. In some places he was arrested, and in others he was treated like a king. Unfortunately he was unable to complete his circuit around the world, as he died in Yunnan, China of an illness, possibly yellow fever.

I have had the opportunity to communicate with a few of my Belgian cousins over the course of my research. Michael Kaye is a fifth cousin of mine, born in America but descended from the Kayes of Hamme-Mille. He is the source to go to for all things Kaye. Nancy Maurer Verkist is a fourth cousin, living in Washington state. The Verkist family are descendants of the Kayes who settled in Bellingham, WA. Michel Mordant is a fifth cousin, born in Belgium and living there today. He is a descendant of Jean Baptiste Gastuche and Marie Josèphe Hottat, my great (x 4) grandparents. Michel has quite an extensive genealogical web site which was very helpful to my research. We have many more cousins living in Belgium who are genealogists with informative web sites and extensive genealogical databases posted online. While I won’t mention them all here, if you navigate through the database portion of my site, you will find them all cited under the source numbers after each individual’s name. My thanks go out to all of them.

I have not included any footnotes within these historical essays. For information on my sources look up the names of individuals in my genealogical database (links below). All source information is listed there.

Contents * Index * Surnames * Contact
Karl Janssen • www.karljanssen.com • kjanssen@ku.edu
Last updated 3 Oct 2012