How to read this account
This is the history of one family line: the Dewulfs of Torhout in West Flanders. It is the family of Ingrid Dewulf, the author's mother. It follows the line father to son, from a wedding at Kortemark in 1667 to the birth of Sidon Dewulf at Torhout in 1913, and it ends with Sidon's daughter Ingrid.
For more than two hundred years the family barely moved. Almost everything in this account happened within ten kilometres of the church of Sint-Pietersbanden at Torhout: at Kortemark, Handzame and Lichtervelde, villages you can walk to from the market square in an afternoon.
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 [S7] opens the record image or the source.
The line at a glance
| Couple | Married | Where they lived | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joos (Judocus) Dewulf and Maiken (Maria) Pateel | 1667 | Kortemark |
| 2 | Loonis Dewulf and Maria vande Casteele | about 1698 | Torhout |
| 3 | Adrianus Dewulf and Joanna Theresia de Vuldere | 1756 | Torhout |
| 4 | Joannes Baptiste (Jan) Dewulf and Anna Theresia De Corte | 1797 | Handzame, then Torhout |
| 5 | Carel Dewulf and Eugenia Borra | 1834 | Torhout |
| 6 | Desiré (Desiderius) Dewulf and Barbara Hillewaere | 1875 | Lichtervelde, then Torhout |
| 7 | Victor Dewulf and Flavie Muylle | about 1903 | Torhout |
| 8 | Sidon Dewulf and Godelieva Deschacht | Torhout, Brugge |
How far back the line is proven
From Sidon (born 1913) back to Adrianus Dewulf and Joanna Theresia de Vuldere, married in 1756, every link has been read on the original record. Each generation is joined to the next by a birth, baptism or marriage act that names the parents. Chapters 3 to 8 give those acts in their own words.
The step from Adrianus to his parents is very probable, but not yet proven by a single act. Adrianus was baptised in 1718 as the son of Loonis de Wulf and Maria vande Casteele, and he is the only Adrianus de Wulf baptised at Torhout between 1700 and 1760. A boy born there in 1722, long taken for a rival, turned out to be a Denolf. Five family ties between 1738 and 1768 join our Adrianus to the Loonis family. Chapter 2 sets them out.
The first couple, Joos Dewulf and Maiken Pateel of Kortemark, rests on an index and on a pattern of godparents. An estate inventory, known so far only from its index, names Louis Dewulf's parents as Joos Dewulf and Maiken Pateel. The baptisms of Loonis's children show Judocus de Wulf, Maria Pateels and Godeleva de Wulf as godparents, which is exactly what Flemish custom leads one to expect of grandparents and an aunt. Chapter 1 tells their story. It is the chapter most likely to change when the estate inventories themselves are read.
The Deschacht line
Chapter 11 follows the family of Godelieva Deschacht, Sidon's wife, from Zedelgem in 1916 back to Tielt in 1660. From Godelieva back to Emmanuel de Schacht, who died at Jabbeke in 1782, every link rests on an act that names the parents. The next two links, to Joannes Baptista de Schacht of Jabbeke and to Joannes Schacht of Wingene, rest on baptisms, ages and orphan registers (grade B). The oldest, to Joannes Schaecht and Catharina de Vos, married at Tielt in 1660, is probable but not proved (grade C).
A family tree that went wrong
A printed pedigree of Ingrid Dewulf, made in 2019, carries the line back through a baker named Josephus Jacobus Dewulf of Staden and Brugge, and from him to "about 1599". That branch is wrong. The pedigree chose a Joannes Baptiste Dewulf baptised at Torhout in 1764. But the marriage of the real Joannes Baptiste, at Handzame in 1797, names his parents as Adriaen de Wulf and Joanna de Vulder, and quotes his birth record: 28 November 1758. Chapter 4 tells how the two boys were confused.
How sure is each statement?
Every fact in this account carries one of four grades:
- A: read on the original register or civil act (or a scan of it).
- B: taken from an index, a later copy, or a transcription of the record.
- C: derived: worked out from several records, for example an age at death, or a person identified by elimination.
- D: taken only from a family tree, with no record seen.
The footnotes give the grade and the source. The full readings, in Latin, Dutch or French with a translation, are in the working files named in the list of sources.
Names
A name was written the way the clerk heard it. The family appears as de Wulf, De Wulf, Dewulf, de Wolf, Dewolf and de Wulff; this account uses Dewulf except when quoting. First names were Latinised in the parish registers and written in French or Dutch in the civil acts: the same man is Joannes Baptista at his baptism, Jean Baptiste in 1805 and Jan in 1834. One ancestor, Loonis, turns up under six different names, and chapter 2 explains why.
The living
Only the dead are described here. The account ends with the name of Ingrid Dewulf, at the family's wish; nothing else about living people is published.