Belgian ancestry - where to start?

[stevecleary]

GGG-grandparents were born in Belgium 1836 and 1840/41, came to live in Manchester between 1868 and 1881. Spoke Dutch (Flemish) to my great-grandmother.
1881 Details for ggg-grandmother below.

Helena Smith 40, wife of John Smith, b Belgium
RG11/3988/69 p 25 5 Irwell Court Manchester


I cannot find a reference in 1871 census, nor marriage records, so a couple of initial questions arise.

1. Where could I source records on when and how they came to the UK, bearing in mind that their original surname was probably not Smith.
2. Is there a good site for Belgian ancestry?

Steve Cleary

[jorose]

There isn't as much online for Belgium as some places, and what there is tends to be regional so it helps to know where they're from.  Also, given the "Smith" (could be "Smit"/"De Smit"?), it would help a lot to be able to track down Helena's maiden name, perhaps via one of their children's birth certificates.

I see that in 1881 they have two children, both b. Manchester - have you been able to track them in later censuses?
Are the children consistently listed as b. Manchester?
Are the adults ever listed in any census as "foreign subject", "british subject", "naturalised british subject", or similar?
Do you have marriage certificates for the children? (if so, did they marry CoE, Catholic, other?)
Do they change first names/have middle names on any record?

Given the space between the kids it seems possible that either the older one is from another relationship or that there were other children who died young?

http://arch.arch.be/index.php?lang=fr_BE has a small amount of data online but I didn't see anything for your lot.
If you can find out where in Belgium they were from the familysearch site does have some belgium bmd images (not full coverage of the country, would need to know an exact location to search).

[Carlak76]

I tried this site http://www.vvfdeinze.be , it's in dutch I think, but it was the only site I could find sonething about my grat- great grandparents. Hope it may help you.

[Billyblue]

If they spoke Flemish, that at least narrows the region down to the north part of Belgium, doesn't it?

Dawn M

[stevecleary]

Thanks for all the help so far. I managed to find a marriage record (Manchester, 1887) for my great-great grandparent's in which the surname is given as SCHMIDT. To my reckoning, that would make a Jan Schmidt (presumably?) and a Helena marrying in Belgium prior to coming to Manchester. Jan was listed in a census as a cabinet maker - makes me wonder why he didn't stay in Belgium? Still it's progress at least.

Steve Cleary