Where there's a will there can be...secrets - Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Information on the Topic
This can be a fun theme! Maybe the will you're thinking of is a legal document. (There are certainly some intriguing finds in wills, such as my ancestor who left money to provide for the education of his daughters.) Another way to approach it would be an ancestor who was strong-willed or tenacious. Could there be an ancestor named Will?

The hardest part of anyone researching family history is when you make the jump from the country you knew ancestor was in back to where they had left from. There are so many variables which can go wrong. What helps is the documentation you might find in the country where you know the ancestor was and they give you this information. For me, that ancestor was my great grandfather Jules. However, I didn’t know where to go to look for information on Belgium because my basic knowledge was of it has a country in Europe. That’s it. Boy, was I in for some major learning. 

First, I got to know what the country is and what it looked like. Next, was the languages - Flemish and French - which shocked me. That’s not what I was expecting. I never even heard of Flemish before! However, upon going back to the census information I found they listed that language as the one spoken when Jules was growing up, so it had shocked me, but also proved I as on the right track through it all. 

Credit: US 1910 Census - You can clearly see Flemish Belgium on the first line for Jules

Next came trying to find more information in Belgium and Jules’ family in Belgium. Who were his parents? Where did they go? What did they do for a living?  Just to name a few things. Slowly Jules’ history was starting to fill in once I found Geneanet, a social media platform for family history which has a big of information of Belgium family history. I had some people there help me and they found the beginnings of the information and passed it along to me which then I took off with. 

My questions were starting to be answered slowly. Jules’ parents were Aloyse and Florentina. Jules’ was born illegitimate due to his father being drafted. I had newspaper reports a few times which stated Jules’ went back to help or visit family in Belgium. I decided to contact the local county registrar to see if she had the application for him or anything for his wife, Annie. The way I always look at it is if you don’t ask a question you will never get an answer to it, so I asked it and gave them all the information I had on their travels. 

Jules' birth entry and the entry making him legitimate on the right. Credit

Within 24 hours, I had some answers. The registrar's office of the county, who I contacted, asked me a few questions including if his father was Aloyse. This confused me but I agreed it was thinking it might have been one of the blanks Jules had filled in on the application which they were using to link my information to his. Next, what blew my mind was I received another email which had 4 attachments to it - all information on Jules, Aloyse and Annie. It was all for free which is/was almost unheard of. 

Aloyse actually came to the US, and filed, and later became, to be a US citizen. I now had this paperwork in my hand! This meant Jules’ father came to the US and is there some place. This spurred me on to do more researching for Aloyse all around the area I grew up, and was put onto his documentation. 

Alyose applying for US naturalization in 1898. Credit Orange County Register Office

It seemed like he had disappeared. Poof! I found a small child, Ella Gauquie, who had passed away in the town he was quoted to be in and around. Jules’ sister was in the same area. But where was Aloyse? 

Ella Gauquie headstone Credit: Find a Grave

Then I started to go over what information I had for Jules, including his brother who was on the same census and lived next door at one point. Then I looked again at who was in his brother’s household. There it was - Charles, head, Charles, boy of 1 1/2, and Charles, father of head aged 64 who's place of birth was Flemish Belgium. Whoaaaa!  Charles’ father was Aloyse not this other guy named Charles. And the place of birth is where Alyose is from. What the...? 

You can clearly see the 3 Charles information on the above 1910 census. Credit

Also, what confused me was there was a Charles Gauquie who was listed in a poor house, same age, with the same parents listed as I found in documents in the Belgium Archives for him. It had to be him. 

Found this for Charles Gauquie in 1916. The mother and father information listed is for Alyose's parents. Credit: Ancestry

Then I searched for Charles once again. Up came information... a census in 1900?  But married to another person - Margaret? And had a boatload of kids listed too. Next bit of documented information was a will for Charles Gauquie. I didn’t think much of it - at first. 

Charles (above) matches in Birth information, age, if you look it says Germany and above it is Belgium so someone was trying to lie. Parents information is wrong and the date of citizenship is wrong too. What's interesting is the wife and last child. Credit

I started to go through it again, writing down small things trying to understand the linking up of this to the guy I knew as Aloyse. 

What shocked me was he listed 3 children - Jules, Charles and Pharailde - all of the areas I knew they lived in and the ones listed around on the other documents above. 

Then I spied something which agreed with what others, that I talked to within the family, had been saying about Jules - that he was a nasty man in private but wanted to look good in public. Charles/Aloysius will seemed to back this up by stating, point blank, he did NOT want his son, Jules,  to get anything of his. He wanted it to all go mainly to his daughter, Pharailde, but if she wasn’t there, then it was to go to Charles. 

Part of Charles/Aloysius will which states he does not want Jules to get anything. Credit

There were many motions and others speaking to this to the courts, but it seemed the courts put more into spelling and not others words or testimony as because the person who wrote out the will spelled his daughter’s name wrong, the court decided it was null and void for everything to go to his daughter. 

One of the many pages in the probate record in 1917. Credit

As there was no documents she could show she was his true daughter, the judge wanted both his sons, Charles and Jules, to show up and state they were his sons, which is what they did. 

One of the other pages of Charles/Aloysius probate record showing children. Credit

The court's decision was to split Aloysius assets between them and leave the daughter out, was made even though his daughter took care of his burial, his assets, etc she didn’t even get a fee for that. 

I believe her brother, Charles, gave her some of his inheritance, but that’s just completely wrong. 

There was nothing more on Jules in the documents so I’m thinking he took the money and ran. No wonder why there was a break within the family! 

I still don’t know where Aloysius/Charles is buried, but I do know he was buried. I do know he spent much time around Chester, as his first wife’s sister and brother in law (the ones Aloysius' first wife was living with when she gave birth to Jules - Coletta and Joannes/John (born Jan Baptist)) lived in the area. I think Jules might have been named for him as his first name is Joannes then Jules. 

This is one of the conversations I had with someone on Geneanet regarding Jules' birth. 

Notice the yellow areas and this is what I referenced above.

I’ve researched it and John or Joannes IS buried, along with his wife Coletta, at Saint Columba Cemetery which is on the church grounds of the family church in Chester, NY. The same one I was a bridesmaid in a wedding back in 1996. One day, I’ll have to go for a walk and document these when we get back to the US. 

His headstone and entry on Find a Grave

A few years after this, I was actually contacted by someone claiming to be another cousin of mine. He was telling me about this guy named Charles and how his great grandmother, Margaret, had married him after her first husband died and had a few kids. Then the guy just disappears on her leaving her with the kids from both her first and this marriage. 

The guy who contacted me said his father didn’t know anything about there being a Gauquie connection, until he went to file for social security and found his last name was Whitman but Gauquie! He had to get his name switched after finding out about it. 

Over the years I found the articles about this and I had this cousin also come up on my DNA list so we are definitely cousins. What a shock it was. Yet, Aloysius/Charles never put any of them down in his will which saddens me. All children should be recognized by their parents no matter how crappy they were. 

If you add the above to what Jules’ wife had put into her will which I discussed in this blog post, boy Jules was some work of art!