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The NOE family from the Meetjesland in East-Flanders, Belgium

Epilogue

Let's now compare the different branches and look at a few figures.  First let us make this clear: we use for our comparisons only the families whose members have all gone:  if a one of the children is still alive we don't use them here in our tables.  This means that most of the figures we use come from the period of the 17th to the first half of the 20th Century.

Branches A and D died out after about 2 centuries and they are in our statistics a big exception.  More than once we will not use them i.a. because their small numbers would make our figures less representative.

The great majority of descendents that we found remained true to their region.  Few abandoned the Meetjesland and even fewer chose the anonymity of the big city.

Yet, in the 19th Century so many country people went to the city in search of work.  Several descendents of the D Branch did in fact just that and they went to work on the railways.  But the majority of the descendents the A, C and D Branches remained in their region in spite of the limited job opportunities and in spite of their big families.

The average number of children per family was 6.  In Branch A it was only 4.  In Branches B and D it was between 6 and 7.  And in Branch C there were between 7 and 8 children per family.  Out of a total of 59 married couples only 4 were childless.

Number of children   Branch A Branch B Branch C Branch D Totals
Sons 5 112 39 16 172
Daughters 8 111 35 21 175
           
Total 13 223 74 37 347
Average per household   4.3 6.5 7.4 6.3 6

The number of stillborn children was 1.4% or 5 out of 352 births.  Fifty babies died before their first birthday.  Another 35 died before their 6th birthday and yet another 32 never became adults: they died before they reached the age of 25.

For 34 descendents we found only the date of birth, not the date of their demise.  Some of those surely died before the came of age (in the old days 25 years).  One hundred and forty children didn't make into adulthood.  That is 40% !  But in the cities that figure was much higher especially in the great years of crisis when 1 child in 4 died before its first birthday.

Infant mortality

Branch A Branch B Branch C Branch D  Total %
Total number of children  13 227 74 38 352  
Still born  0 4 0 1 5 1.4
Died in first year  1 37 11 7 56  15.6
Died between 1 and 6  2 25 9 2 38 10.8
Died between 6 and 25  0 18 12 2 32 9.1
Date of death unknown  1 26 3 4 34 9.7

We know all about the civil registration of 178 adults.  Twenty five of those never married: that's almost 1 in 7.  The C Branch "excels" here with more than 1 in 4 adults who didn't marry.  On top of that (or perhaps thanks to that ?) they also reached a higher average age.  The were very few unmarried adults in the B Branch: only 1 in 14 or 15.

  Married vs. unmarried  A B C D  Total
Number of marrieds       7   101   28  17   153
Number of unmarried       2     7   11    5     25
% unmarried     22     6.5   28.2  22.7     14

Celibacy in Flanders was a phenomenon of frequent occurrence during the 2nd half of the 18th Century and in the 19th Century, especially amongst the men.  Before the second half of the 18th Century less than 10% of the adults didn't marry.  At the end of the 18th Century it was 18% for the men and 15% for the women while in the middle of the 19th Century it was as high as 25%.  Nowadays it is about 7 to 8 %.

We don't know about the stillborn babies but of the other 347 there were 172 boys and 175 girls.  42% of the boys got married and 44% of the girls.  The average wedding age for the girls was much higher in the A and D Branch (which died out) than in the B and C Branches.

The average age of the first time brides in the B Branch was low: 22.6 years for a total of 39 weddings.

Average ages at  
first weddings

A B C D Total
daughters    32 (3)  22.6 (39)  25   (9)  29 (10)  24.5 (61)
matriarchs    27 (3)  26.5 (27)  27   (9)  29   (2)  27    (41)
patriarchs    34 (4)  26    (33)  28 (10)  36   (6)  28    (53)

In the table above we call those who carried on the line patriarchs and matriarchs.

The wedding age was in the lower social classes generally a few years lower: they behaved more freely and were less influenced by economic motives in the choice of their partners since they had less to loose.  Especially among the farmers, the bourgeoisie and propertied families there were more marriages of convenience.

The children of the better off farmers (see Branches C and D) staid longer with their parents: that meant they needed fewer (paid) workmen.  The children of day labourers, textile workers and craftsmen (see Branch B) often went to work elsewhere: the young men as footmen or men servants and the girls served as maids in bourgeois families or in the city.

And yet motives such as survival perhaps played a more important role than educational considerations even among the lower classes.  In the 19th century there was the well known French proverb: "Qui se marie par amour, a bonnes nuits et mauvais jours" (Those who marry for love have good nights and bad days.)

The industrialisation was followed by new ideas about the education and treatment of children.  Medical science found a relationship between absent working mothers and infant mortality and the myth of motherhood was born.  A friendlier atmosphere for children would also bring changes in the relationship between man and woman.  And there grew something like love and tenderness between spouses.  The small houses with their kitchen, cellar, one bedroom and loft where privacy was almost non existant were replaced little by little with bigger houses where husband and wife sought safety and intimacy.

But this business of marrying for love created a new and unexpected problem: how to stay married.  Marriages also get more opportunities to fail for instance because they can last longer.  One hundred years ago the average age was 35 and this has more than doubled now.

The average age of first marriages in the Noë family was not so bad.  Even if a quarter of these marriages had ended because of the death of a partner our ancestors staid together for 23 years on average.

Duration of first marriages   Branch
A
Branch
B
Branch
C
Branch
D
 Total
Number of marriages   4     31    10    4 49
Average duration   30.5 20.5 28.5 20 23

That was a fairly high average.  Yet, more than half the children had lost one or both parents before their 20th birthday.  Let's compare that with the statistics of today: in Belgium 15 to 18% of all marriages come to an end before the children are all adults.  A third of these is due to the death of one of the parents and two thirds are divorces.  One hundred years ago in our Noë family 13 marriages out of 49 or 26.5% ended prematurely but that was exclusively due to the death of one of the partners.

Our ancestors didn't marry someone of their own age either.  The husband was on average 5 years older than his wife.  But in those cases where the wife was older than her husband there too we see a difference of 5 years on average.  We have complete data about the marriages of 40 male ancestors. Of those 40 only three men married women whose difference of age was less than a year.  In 14 cases the husband was between 1 and 15 years younger than his wife.  But in three quarters of the cases the wife was younger than her husband.

The difference in ages was more pronounced for second marriages.  Widowers remarried two to three times more than widows and in 70 % of the cases they remarried young ladies while the widows usually remarried with widowers.  Almost all widowers who were less than 40 years old remarried.  Less than half of the widowers over 40 remarried.  Approximately 80 % of the widows below age 40 found another husband but none above 40 did.  The latter group more easily went to live in with one of the children while widowers didn't give up their freedom so easily.  More often not they remarried soon after the disappearance of their partner; often after 2 to 3 months, in 30 % of the cases within 6 months and three quarters of those who remarried had done so within a year after the disappearance of the spouse.  Widowers with children generally remarried sooner and quite often their new bride came from a lower class.

A quarter of the male Noë's married more than once.  And a sixth of the female Noë's remarried.

Number of weddings
of
        A   B  C  D  Total
male Noë's 1 4 25 7 4 40
  2 - 4 1 3 8
  3 - 5 2 - 7
female Noë's 1 2 34 9 8 53
  2 1 6 - 2 9
  3 1 1 - - 2

Our ancestors—no doubt the strongest of all the Noë's who saw the light of day—reached the fairly great age of just over sixty.  But also the batchelors and the married women reached 60 on average.

And the average age of all Noë's together, children as well as adults, was 33 years.  With its greatest number of descendents the B Branch appears to be the weakest in this category.  The more individuals one can count the more one approaches the average.  Or in the "good" old days: the more children the higher the infant mortality.

Age reached A B C D Total
Male ancestors 65 58     65 63 60.5
Female ancestors 77 61.5 66 61 64   
Not married 47 54     67 65 61   
Married daughters   58 58.5 63 65 61   
Children and
adults
 46 (13)  29 (165)  37 (65)  42 (33)  33 (276)

The good old days ?  A sigh proclaims dissatisfaction with the present and perhaps also worry for the future.  If you have read this work, or if you have perhaps just read about your own branch of the family then you know better.  Our history books are full of glowing tales about the rich and the famous.  Let's be honest and humble: all of this our Noë family or those related to them are the sons of farmers, craftsmen and labourers.

But these little people ("cleyne luyden") also made history.  Even if in their poverty, illness, exploitation and early death they barely merit a mention in the official history books.

There was a time for "ora et labora" (Pray and work).  Times have changed.  As always in times of prosperity the first half of the proverb has been forgotten while science and technology made light of the second part.

So, the good old days ?  What of it ?  If our great-grand-parents could come back and see the luxury so many of us live in for so many years they would surely believe we lead the life of noblemen, something the great majority of them knew nothing of.



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Adrianus (B IIIa)
Agnes Margarita
Amelie, fa Ferdinand
Antonius Franciscus (B Va2)
Arthur Aloysius (B VIIId1)
August (C VIIb)
August (C VIIIa)
August, fs Francies (B VIIb)
Bernardus Aloysius (B VIIIe)
Carolus Ludovicus
Dominicus (B VIIId2)
Edward (B VIIIa)
Emiel (C VIIIc)
Emiel Stefaan (B IXa)
Ferdinand (B VIc)
Ferdinand (B VIIc)
Francies (B VIIb)
Franciscus Marianus (A V)
Franciscus Antonius (B Va4)
Franciscus (C V)
Franciscus (D II)
Ivo Franciscus (C VIIa)
Georgius, fs Matthias (B IIb)
Hendrik (D I)
Henri (C VIIIb)
Henricus (D III)
Jacobus, fs Ferdinand (B VIc)
Jacobus Bernardus (B Vb)
Jan (A I)
Jan (A II)
Joannes (B IIIc)
Joannes (C II)
Joannes (C III)
Joannes Franciscus (A IV)
Joannes (B VIIe)
Josephina Benedicta
Judocus (B II)
Judocus (B IVb)
Jacobus (C IV)
Judocus (C V2)
Livinusfs Hendrik
Louisa Coleta
Martina Emiel (B IXa)
Martinus (B Va3)
Martinus, fs Adrianus
Matthias (B I)
Matthias (B IIb)
Petrus (A III)
Petrus (B IIIb)
Petrus (B IVa)
Petrus (B VIIa)
Petrus (B VIId)
Petrus (C I)
Petrus (D IV)
Petrus Emmanuel (B Va1)
Petrus Joannes (B VIa)
Petrus Joannes (C VI)
Petrus (B VIb)
Rosalie fa Petrus (B VIId)
Vincentius