How to read this account
This is the history of one family line: the Deschachts, who lived for two and a half centuries in the villages between Tielt and Brugge in West Flanders. It is the family of Godelieva Deschacht, the author's great-grandmother, the wife of Sidon Dewulf whose own family is told in The Dewulfs of Torhout. It follows the line father to son, from a wedding at Tielt in 1660 to Godelieva's birth at Zedelgem in 1916.
The name moved with the family, and so did its spelling. The clerks wrote Schaeck, Schaecht, Schaeght and Schacht at Tielt, de Schacht at Wingene and Jabbeke, De Schaght and De Schaghe at Zerkegem. Only in the nineteenth century did it settle into Deschacht, which is the spelling used here except in quotations.
Throughout the account, the men of the direct line are marked in bold green with a ◆: click the name to see that person's page. A date or a small number in square brackets such as [S3] opens the record image or the source.
The line at a glance
| Couple | Married | Where they lived | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joannes Schaecht and Catharina de Vos | 1660 | Tielt |
| 2 | Joannes Deschacht and Maria van Dierendonck | 1692 | Wingene |
| 3 | Joannes Baptista Deschacht and Cornelia Scharle | 1729 | Jabbeke |
| 4 | Emmanuel Deschacht and Joanna Mestdagh | 1759 | Jabbeke |
| 5 | Bernardus Jacobus Deschacht and Helena Kerckhove | 1794 | Zerkegem |
| 6 | Pieter Deschacht and Anna Theresia Vanmoortel | 1830 | Zerkegem, then Bekegem |
| 7 | Fredericus Deschacht and Ludovica Meulemeester | 1870 | Bekegem |
| 8 | August Deschacht and Paraïlde Allemeersch | about 1910 | Bekegem, then Zedelgem |
How far back the line is proven
From Godelieva (born 1916) back to Bernardus Jacobus Deschacht, baptised at Jabbeke in 1769, every link has been read on the original record: a birth, baptism, marriage or death act that names the parents. The two links above that - Bernardus's father Emmanuel to Joannes Baptista, and Joannes Baptista to Joannes and Maria van Dierendonck - rest on the registers plus elimination and the orphan records, and are grade B: very probable, but no single act states them outright. The oldest link, from the Joannes who married in 1692 back to Joannes Schaecht and Catharina de Vos of Tielt, is grade C: probable, not proved. Chapter 9 sets out exactly what each link rests on and what would settle the open ones.
Every fact in this account carries a grade:
- A - read from the original register image or scan;
- B - from an index, transcription or published abstract, the original not yet seen;
- C - worked out from other records (ages, godparents, patterns of names);
- D - family-tree data only, no record seen.
Nothing here rests on another family tree unless the grade says so. Where this account contradicts the trees on the internet - and at Tielt it does - the records are quoted so you can judge for yourself.
Living people
Only the dead are described. Godelieva Deschacht (1916-2004) is the last person of the line with her own story here; the living appear, by name only, in the epilogue of chapter 8, exactly as in the two companion books.