belgian anyone?

[Boris Barowski]

yes I do

any idea from which area/city they came from ?
Mommaerts isn't that rare here

go to http://www.familienaam.be/ and type "mommaerts" in the bottom left field

 

[orb]

Welcome Chriske, I love my Browning 270 bolt action. It has beautiful engraving.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Boris,

I don't know where they came from. I was always told we were Walloon, which would be southern Belgium. Right?

Dave

 

[Boris Barowski]

the walloon region is the southern, french speaking region indeed.
That last name is more a northern, flemish name though

 

[Pilot]

Welcome! I lived in Brussels for a while for work and dated a very nice Dutch girl there. La Grande Place is wonderful! Oh, yeah I own and FN/Browning Hi Power which is one of my favorite pistols.

 

[matt87]

Surely Pilot, if it's an FN, it's a Grand Puissance ;-)

 

[Pilot]

Surely Pilot, if it's an FN, it's a Grand Puissance ;-)

Ha! Very true it is a GP-35, but wears the Browning branding which are of course all made by FN.

 

[fdgroote]

Hi Boris, Chris and other Belgians, another Belgian joining THR

 

[Nowhere Man]

Boris,

My Belgian ancestory comes from my father's side of the family. My great- grandfather, Victor Mommaerts and a nephew of his came over together. They settled in eastern Wisconsin. One in Green Bay, the other in De Pere.

Legend has it, the two had saved for years to pay for the boat trip. They lost it all gambling a few nights before they were suppose to leave. They were still able to come to America by working on the ship.

I spoke with my father this morning. He's 78 years old now. He told me as a child he was told to tell people he was walloon. The flemish were "lower class" people and you didn't want anyone to know you were flemish.

He also remembers his father telling people he was dutch Belgian. Looks like I may need to speak with other relatives to find out what the truth might be.

My grandmother was also Belgian. Her name was Euclide.

Dave

 

[Nowhere Man]

Another name that's mixed into the family gene pool is Derenne.


Dave

 

[fdgroote]

I spoke with my father this morning. He's 78 years old now. He told me as a child he was told to tell people he was walloon. The flemish were "lower class" people and you didn't want anyone to know you were flemish.

He also remembers his father telling people he was dutch Belgian. Looks like I may need to speak with other relatives to find out what the truth might be.

Before WWII, Wallo(o)nia (south, native French) was the industrial hart of Belgium (coalmines, steel, ...). In Flanders (north, native Dutch), the (would be) upper-class indeed spoke French, even if their ancestors were native Flemish. Dutch (better: Flemish dialects) was for lower class people who only were usefull for cheap labour. Civilised people spoke French, no French = not civilised. Government, higher education, the army ... all had French speaking chefs, officers, ... even if you didn't understand a word of it.

After WWII, the commanding heights in the economy switched sides and most of GNP is nowadays generated by the North. The linguistic discord is still a hot political subject today, especially in the areas where both languages live next to each other (around Brussels).

 

[Boris Barowski]

If you want to see a part of belgium (Bruges), you could go see the movie "In Bruges".

It only shows the historic centre of one of our oldest cities, but it's nice

and most of it is actually filmed there