About me

I am one of the the current Belgian American researchers.  I've been inspired by many of the prior researchers and people interested in their heritage.  

Two gentlemen from Belgium, Jean Ducat, and Marcel Lacourt, left us with good books of clues of the specific home villages of our ancestors.  They worked hand in hand with people here in Wisconsin.  One being Mary Ann Defnet, a founding member of the Bay Area Genealogical Society (BAGS).   I am continuing their good work.

I believe in source based genealogy, which is part of why I am advocating for these records to be unrestricted.  The problem with people doing transcriptions is some times they misinterpret some of the hand written records.  Other times they purposely don't transcribe them as is.  They think the "corrected" form is helpful.  My work like anyone's may have errors.  But if key source documents are shared, you can easily double check and understand the conclusions made.  Or maybe after reviewing them you'll find a different conclusion.

It's sad that the Register of Deeds offices have a collective voice via their Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association, the the researchers, citizens and taxpayer of Wisconsin effectively do not.

From what I have experienced so far, I doubt anyone actually gets much service from their elected officials, and regular citizens are not even represented unless they are the donor class, or affiliated with the groups having lobbyists.  I’d like to be proven wrong.

In my opinion the various Genealogical local group did a lot of good collective work in their early days.  Namely indexing cemeteries and in some cases transcribing indexes of vital records (Door Co example).  Sadly I have not seen any of that transcription or other types of collaborative work continuing.   

Now days these genealogical groups simply seem to focus on conferences and webinars.  The best example I can cite is the Wisconsin Genealogical Society (WGS), in their bylaws that part of their stated purpose is "To ensure that public and federal records in Wisconsin remain open and affordable for genealogical and historical research."  But the reality is there is no evidence they the have even commented on proposed law changes concerning vital records in the last 40 years.