The 1766 Belgium Census Introduction

 

Yes, there are early online census records of Belgium! This 1766 Belgium census of what is now called the (French community) Wallonia region. This census documents are called the ‘recensement or population registres’ Early, but not lacking in information! You can find family members and professions. I have found several different branches of my families in towns of Marche, Torgny. Jemeppes Saint Mary, and Limes in the province of Luxembourg

Browse the 1766 Census records of the Provinces of:

• Luxembourg
• Namur

Unfortunately, these records are difficult to read. They are either to light or too dark. But they are still readable.

You can find these 1766 census images at FamilySearch. You will see a mass of towns with the parishes they were associated with under of what was called ‘decanat’. Each ‘decanat’ was governed by certain factions of church officials of the Catholic Church. This list you will see contains mostly of what is now called ‘the Province of Luxembourg” and Province of Leige. Though, there are numerous towns from the Province of Namur. The remaining towns are located in present day Flanders region of Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Because of the church divisions of the time, you will find towns from different provinces or countries in the same ‘decanat’ of what is now Province of Luxembourg, and most probably in the province of Leige. (hence the nightmare) I was all excitement when I found the towns my ancestors lived in. After this experience, I wanted to make it easier for others searching desperately but drowning in a system that is very confusing and time-consuming (hence this labor of love).

Province of Luxembourg

Now, the only census of the Province of Luxembourg that is available for viewing is the 1766 Belgium ‘dénombrement’ That census has been available to browse through at FamilySearch.org for some time, but it has not yet been indexed, or provided in a way that you can easily search through.  I have written an alphabetical list of towns of p/Luxembourg and p/Namur and directly linked them to their corresponding images hosted at FamilySearch.org. The parish towns include the names of villages, hamlets, estates, farmhouses, chateaux, religious houses and tiny obscure villages. For now, those two provinces are available. I’m hoping some time down the road, I can work on the Province of Leige

  As with all recorded documents, mistakes and oddities were made by the census takers. There are 2 towns with the same name in the same province but are attached to two different parishes. Villages in one province could be attached to parishes in another Province. One example is Saint Hubert in P/Luxembourg. In this village , it is recorded as under the parish of Saint Gilles which is in P/Liege. Then, towns and dwelling places were filled with splitting headache spelling errors. Town names were altered, completely changed, or combined with another town to make a new one.

. You’ll need to sign in to at FamilySearch or create a free account with them in order to view the images.

This is what you could find from the 1766 census.