17,200 Belges devenus Américains

While talking with some members of the Peninsula Belgian American Club in during Belgian Days in July, I was made aware of the following book:

Lacourt, M. (2001). 17,200 Belges devenus Américains. Wavre [Belgium]: Cercle historique et archéologique de Wavre et de la région.

Marcel Lacourt has made an effort to compile information for every Belgian immigrant documented to be in the US between 1620 and 1920. Included among the data Lacourt provides (where data was available): immigrant's place and date of birth, port and date of departure, port and date of arrival, and town or county of residence in the US. Lacourt has also tried to link spouses and children together, though I find the conventions he used for this a bit hard to follow.

The book is written in French, but one doesn't need to be proficient in French to understand the basic data.

The price of the book is 59,00€. In addition, the cost will be about 30,00€ for shipping. All in all, plan to spend a minimum of $135.00 given the current conversion rate, the cost of shipping, and the various fees you may encounter at your bank and post office.

Here is the website: http://chawavre.org/emigrati.php .
Here is their contact form: http://chawavre.org/email.php .

Unfortunately, at the time I contacted CHAW, they had no means to accept credit card payments from the US or payment via Internet. Working out a means to conduct the transaction was the most difficult part of obtaining this publication.



NOTE: Yellow highlighting is not in the book. I used Photoshop to highlight the PIERREs.