Marguerite -Therese de Savoye, b4 PROG1 - Flandres Project Invite

Dear Sharon
As far as I know, Ghent, Flandres is in Belguim. Was it different in the 1600's ?
Groete van Mosselbaai

The history of Flandres is rather difficult to understand. Flandres, or parts of it, being under Roman , Austrian , Spanish, French rule (and a few others whom I'm not quite sure where they fit in)
It seems to me that they became part of Belgium after the 80 yr War in 1648. Would that place the Huguenots under French or Belgian rule?

Hi Robert - I'm trying to work back to the situation at the time of the Huguenots - & the French site documents are suggesting Gent and Ath? were in Flandres France at the time. eg http://huguenots-france.org/france/refuge/afrique_sud/embarques.htm
Also the SA Huguenot Heritage site: http://www.huguenot.co.za/heritage/places-of-origin/#

I'm not an expert on this area of historical geography, so if you think it's worthwhile us all investigating, I'm game :-)

Belgium has always been predominantly Catholic. I am however not aware that the protestants were ever prosecuted there. Were they? The answer must be 'yes' if so many Huguenots originated from Flandres

Robert Sydney Blake is correct, Flandre as a French province of the « Ancien Régime » is nothing but simple. A few points:

La Flandre, or at least some enclaves of it, were drawn under French control only starting from 1659. And then, cities were being exchanges back and forth between the French and the Low-Countries, England, Luxembourg, Spain and Austria.

After the 1789 Révolution, La Flandre stopped being a "Province". (Indeed, the entire French province system was dismantled at the Révolution.)

Therefore, and if the scope of your project is actually "French Huguenot « Province of Origin - Flandre »", then La Flandre, as a French Province, existed only from 1659 to 1789.

Please note that when indicating the "province" of Flandre in this context, « Flandre » is singular (i.e. the name is without ending "s". I applied the correction to the project.

I have also connected the project to this related one:

https://www.geni.com/projects/Flandre-province-France/38438

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Sharon Doubell, what a fabulous initiative your "French Huguenot Provinces of Origin" series of project is. Absolutely bravo. I will love contributing where I can.

I wrote a long story about the history of Flandres. Somehow it dissapeared - my computer contols me and he probably decided I wrote a lot of nonsense!
I think the gist of the story was that there was a lot of reliligious prosecution in Flandres and lots of protestants fled to Holland, England and Scotland. This ended at the end of the 80yr war in 1648. After 1648 there was still a lot of emmigration to Holland, but now for economic reasons.
What concerns me, 1648 is before the Huguenots came to the Cape.
Dr George English from the University of St Andrews (whose article I quoted), states that the religious refugees from Flandres were NOT Huguenots - the came from France
I am going to try and get prof Christo Viljoens opinion about this
Groete van Mosselbaai

I would love to see your story about history of Flandres. Did you save it in Geni at one point in time? If so, perhaps there is a way to recover it from a backup or page history. It would be a shame to have lost it permanently.

In 1648,I think that the territories of Flandres were under Spain control.They were acquired by the French via the 1659 « Traité des Pyrénées ».

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_Pyr%C3%A9n%C3%A9es

I'd really like to understand better the Huguenots situation there in those days.

Hi guys. Very interesting. Thankyou. I've been a bit under pressure from work deadlines so will only be able to actually engage tomorrow. Looking forward to thinking about it properly :-)

Shew. Your long story about Flandre (thanks for changing, Morel) would definitely have saved me sitting puzzling through indistinct maps Robert :-)

To start with, let me say that what I'm looking to fill in on a profile's Birth Place is the historically accurate place names from the time
EXCEPT for the Country field - where I try to fill in the present country, so that research apps on geni can locate the profile on a map.

So, in those terms, your heads up is very timely Robert, thankyou: Gent is in modern Belguim, not France.

So, were Gent, Nazareth & Nederbrakel ever in Flandres?

IF not, what do we list them under?
The Spanish Netherlands? The United Provinces?

These cities changed control many times between countries and duchies from the mid 1600s until early 1800s. What can we do? If we try to be too precise, we will fall into a rabbit hole. Yet, at the same time, we want a country name that is meaningful for genealogy purpose.

For profiles born before 1789, and given that your series of project is about "French Huguenot Provinces of Origin", I would say, let's use "State/Province" as "Flandre" and "Country" as "France". This would be in line with the spirit of your project and historically, it wouldn't be totally inaccurate. We could try harder to find more precision, but ultimately, it would probably become counterproductive quickly.

Food for thoughts.

I agree with Mario. In the end if we do not use consistency with the naming, then it becomes counter-productive. I know there are a separate thread for which names to use, but I am a stout believer of sacrificing slightly on accuracy. The additional benefit is that in a summary database of origins, over many centuries, people from the same origin will be grouped together.

Historical accuracy is important in a project that is historical by nature. I think it's possible to identify if they were ever part of Flandre or not. I can easily put them in a seperate subproject, if not. It's likely I will need one for Zeeland anyway. The question is trying to identify if its an historical possibility from the time that they were part of Flandre.

I will leave the Country on their Birth field as I've always done - as the modern country. That doesn't affect the project, though.

I've renamed the project: 'Flandre & adjacent' .

Beste Sydney,
Die vraag oor wie ‘n Hugenoot is, is ‘n ingewikkelde een en het nie ‘n kort antwoord nie. Ek het dit probeer aanspreek in ‘n lang artikel in deel 1 van die Viljoen Familieregister.
Daar was in die 17de eeu nie ‘n land soos Frankryk nie. (Ook nie lande soos België of Duitsland nie). Dit was prinsdomme wat los van mekaar gestaan het. Die grense van die hedendaagse Frankryk is eers twee eeue later getrek.
Dit is nonsens om te sê dat net mense wat binne die grense van die (huidige) Frankryk gebore is of gewoon het, as Hugenote kwalifiseer. Die term word gebruik vir Protestante wat hoofsaaklik Franssprekend was. So bv is die Malans afkomstig vanaf Merindol, wat in die moderne Italië geleë is, en 17 ander Hugenote wat met die georganiseerde trek van 1688/89 na die Kaap van Goeie Hoop gereis het, afkomstig van omgewings wat in die moderne België (Vlaandere) gewoon het. Na sommiges van hulle word as Wallone verwys, ander is Hugenote.
Ons weet nie hoekom Francois Villion na die Kaap gereis het nie. Hy was egter nie die enigste Hugenoot at voor die georganiseerde migrasie van 1688/89 na die Kaap gekom het nie; die Du Toit broers het ook voor die tyd aangekom, en lank na die georgansieerde migrasie het nog vele Hugenote na die Kaap gereis, tot vroeg in die 18de eeu (bv die Blignauts en Giliomees in die 1720’s). Ook hoekom Francois Villion waarskynlik na die Kaap gereis het, skryf ek in die Viljoen Familieregister.
Ek kan vir Pierre Viljoen goed onthoud!
Vriendelike groete
Christo Viljoen



From: Blake [mailto:ritablakemail@gmail.com]
Sent: 01 Desember 2016 12:33 PM
To: hcv@sun.ac.za
Subject: Flandre en die Hugenote

<ritabla

Thanks for the update Robert Sydney Blake. So Christo has answered this question of yours: "Dr George English from the University of St Andrews (whose article I quoted), states that the religious refugees from Flandres were NOT Huguenots - the came from France"
As Christo says, there were definitely Huguenots from Flandre.
The linguistic boundaries are interesting and confusing eg French Huguenots from the south are quite likely to have spoken a dialect from the Languedoc, rather than 'French'. From the north, many would have spoken Flemish as well as 'French". I thinks it's this permeability that creates confusion.

I have often wondered why there are no scholarly articles on the obvious fact that Afrikaans is Flemish - not a new language created in SA; but the logical response to the French being prevented from schooling their children in French in the Cape. Those Huguenot children who were able to speak Flemish (because of proximity, forced emigration, and the everyday necessities of doing business in the North East of France) would have spoken it in school in the Cape, and it must have 'caught on' from there.

There are SA Progenitors who come from this region who were not Huguenots, but they're not included in the Huguenot projects. Joost Bevernagie is the only one whose name is Flemish and Botha says is a Huguenot, but Bucher wonders if he was. I've included him because he is obviously closely associated with the other Huguenots.

On this: "What concerns me, 1648 is before the Huguenots came to the Cape." Belgium doesn't exist at the time at all - but your point pertains because I'm using Belgium and France in the Country Fields as the modern Countries - so apps can locate them when assigning which of our ancestors come from where.