On October 3, 1862, my great-great-grandfather, Francis Gaume, enlisted under the name Frank Gaume, at the age of 17, as a Private at Mansfield, Ohio, in Company “I” of the 19th Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). During this time, the state of Ohio was in a panic over the possibility that Confederate forces would soon invade. The Governor of Ohio had offered a … Continue reading The Nineteenth Ohio Speaks

Here is an excerpt from Gathering Leaves, A Brief History of Montécheroux, France: My French-speaking ancestors, who lived in eastern France and western Switzerland, were neither citizens of France nor of Switzerland until after the French Revolution. They came from the region that today is within the French department of Doubs and the modern Swiss Canton of Jura. The area is approximately midway between the … Continue reading A Brief History of Montécheroux

Recherches historiques sur la ville de Renaix, published in 1856, is a book I found at Google Books (see here). The book, written in French, provides the history of the city of Renaix (Ronse), where my father’s Belgian ancestors lived for several centuries before coming to America. Although I studied French for five years and occasionally take lessons at Rosetta Stone through access provided by … Continue reading History of the City of Renaix (Ronse)

Yesterday, I wrote about rediscovering a website called “molenechos.org” and how I located two watermills owned by one or more of my ancestors. The search engine on the website is a little tricky, but I think I figured out how to successfully search for surnames. I searched for the surname “De Backer.” (Note the space; this is how it is spelled in Belgium.) The search … Continue reading More Mills

The obituary for my great-great-grandfather Vital Eugene Louis DeBacker (1835-1918) states that he was employed as a miller by his father prior to leaving for America in 1883. Based on records I was provided years ago by fellow researchers in Belgium, the DeBacker and collateral families owned and operated wind and water mills in the region of East Flanders going back centuries. In fact, it … Continue reading The Watermills of My Mind

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had found several newspaper items regarding my great-grandfather, Dr. August DeBacker from the 1880s until he died in 1921. Most of what I found was of a mundane nature – things such as birth announcements and death notices. Tragically there were obituaries for two of August’s sons. Both died in 1906. In January of that year, their … Continue reading Animal Accidents