Photo from Charles' Passport. Note his name listed as just "Price."

By the time the VAN PRICE surname ended in my ancestry, it had already been changed at least once. My great-grandmother, Mildred Vida (DEBROUX) VAN PRICE, was the last to have the surname before she married my great-grandfather. Her father, as he is listed on later documents and his headstone, was Peter VAN PRICE. Though, he wasn’t born with that name. His name when he was born was Pieter Franciscus VAN PARIJS.

For years, I didn’t have much more info on the VAN PRICE surname in my tree besides the two people listed above, and I didn’t have anything on Peter except for his name. That all changed on day when searching for information using Google. I was looking for information on the Van Price line, but I always hit a brick wall. I had happened to find something that mentioned that “Parijs” was sometimes written as “Price” in America. So, I searched for Van Parijs and ran across a Dutch Genealogy website, Zeeuwen Gezocht [Zeeland Archives]. It turns out that the VAN PARIJS family is from the Zeeland area of the Netherlands and this website was a treasure trove of information. From there I found information going back many generations. I know that “Van Parijs” roughly translates into “of Paris” in French, so I’m wondering if this family came from France, since I have traced them back into Belgium.

From the archive website  I found Peter’s parents, Charles Ludovicus VAN PARIJS and Johanna Maria KREBBEKX. Then Charles’ father was found as Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, then Phillipus Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, and finally Joannis VAN PARIJS. This is as far back as I’ve been able to find, though I haven’t dug in and done much research in a few years. By this time, the VAN PARIJS family was located in the East Flanders, Belgium area.

Charles Van Price was born in the early 1800s and came to U.S. in 1874. He traveled to Dousman, Wisconsin in Waukesha County. He worked for Mr. Dousman, later moved to Little Chute, Wisconsin, then to Phlox, Wisconsin in 1887. While staying with his daughter, Effie, in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1922, he went grocery shopping for her and was never seen again. After investigating, it was assumed that he returned to Holland from Milwaukee. He sold his land earlier, and was now one of the wealthiest men in that part of the state. His daughter found he had withdrawn all his savings (a very sizeable amount) and probably left for Europe. They traced him to Antwerp, Belgium — then all trace was gone. He was never heard from again.

I tried to find any sort of trace of him in Belgium. Maybe he’s listed on a death record or a cemetery listing, but I never found anything. I was re-adding all of Charles’ census record information into my family tree, since I never actually put in the exact source info in the past, when I ran across a listing for a “Charles O. Price” in the Applications for US Passports database that closely matched him on Ancestry.

There were actually two applications listed which looked to be a year apart, but they match pretty closely. The first one says that he was born on June 6th, 1844 in Isendick, Holland. The information I have is July 6th, 1846 in IJzendijke, Netherlands (Holland) which is almost a match. It also says he lived most of his life in Phlox, Langlade Co., Wisconsin which is the area where Charles and his family did live. He mentions in the application that he is planning to go to the Netherlands to “visit my brothers” and that he will return in 3 months traveling on the boat, Finland, from New York on August 5th, 1922.

What is odd is that there is a second application right after the first one for a Charles O. Price born on June 6th, 1844 in Izendag, Holland. This one lists Charles’ father as Jacob Price. That matches with me as I have his father as (his original name) Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS. This one also notes that he lived in the Little Schute[sic] & Antigo, Wisconsin area which is also near Phlox. It also notes that he owns a previous passport which was obtained on July 24th, 1922 (the previously mentioned application.) Now, this application says that he intends to “visit my brother” in the Netherlands and stay for one year leaving from the port of New York. This one does not list a ship or a date. It almost seems like he didn’t actually go in 1922, or maybe that he went for 3 months and then went back in 1923 when this second application was made. Obviously, according to stories, never came back after that one.

There are a few notable and even oddly humorous things on these applications. The first thing is that when describing Charles’ physical appearance, under “Nose” it says “Quite Large.” Also, how on both documents the birth places are completely different (at least in spelling), the immigration dates don’t match, and the living locations aren’t exactly the same. On both documents he uses a witness that has known Charles for awhile. H.A. Friedman swears that Charles is a good dude and that he should get a passport. In the first document in 1922, H.A. says that he, a “native” American, has known Charles for 15 years. In the second application in 1923, H.A. says that he, now a “naturalized” American, says that he has known Charles for 20 years. Great Scott! Has Charles invented the flux capacitor?

Though, one wonderful thing about this document is that the applicant is required to attach a photo of themselves. The first document’s photo is not very good, but the second one is much clearer and it is the first time that I’ve seen Charles. I’m not sure if my grandmother has ever seen a photo of her great-grandfather, so I’d love to show this to her.

I still don’t know what happened to Charles after he arrived in Belgium or the Netherlands, but at least this does prove that he planned to go back. Maybe it makes more work. Oh well, isn’t that how Genealogy works? The two documents are shown below. Click for larger copies. The first half of the first page and last half of the end page are from other individuals, so please ignore them.

March 17

1960 – Died – Angeline R (ZALEWSKI) PIERZCHALSKI – Also known as Amelia, she was my great-great-aunt on my father’s side. She was born 6 Jul 1887 in Poland (noted as German Poland.)

March 18

1678 – Married – Francois CHEVREFILS and Marie LAUNY – Francois and Marie are my 9th-great-grandparents on my mother’s side. They were married in St. Ours, Richelieu, Quebec. I am related to them through their son Louis CHEVREFILS-BELISLE.

March 19

1788 – Born – Marie-Francoise GRANGIER – Marie-Francoise is my 5th-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born in Menoux, Département de Haute-Saône (Franche-Comté), France and married Pierre-Jean QUINET in 1811 in the same location. They finally immigrated to Fredonia, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin where they lived for the rest of their lives.

1728 – Died – Helena WAGEMANS – Helena is my 9th-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born 8 Oct 1651 in Kuringen, Belgium. She married Nicolaes van CRAYBECK in 1646 and passed away in Kuringen, Belgium.

Click for larger image

This is one of the newest photos I was able to scan. I finally got some photos from my mother’s side and this one was a good one since it has 3 generations back starting from my grandparents. This was taken in 1948 on my grandparent’s wedding day.

The names from left to right: my gg-grandather Peter VAN PRICE (Van Parijs), my great-grandmother Mildred (VAN PRICE) DEBROUX, my gg-grandmother Minnie (MUHM) VAN PRICE, my grandmother Marjorie (DEBROUX) THIELKE, my grandfather LeRoy THIELKE, my great-grandfather Leon DEBROUX, my gg-grandmother Augusta (LUEDTKE) LAST, and my great-grandmother Madora (LAST) THIELKE.

Most Wanted Faces

Been searching for almost ten years to find any relatives (parents/siblings) for Frank J ZALEWSKI, so that I can trace my line to other ZALEWSKI lines. Right now, it’s a little family island.

Peter THIELKE information back into Germany. THIELKE is a somewhat popular name there, so hoping to connect to other researchers.

Peter FIRMENICH family information. Records inidicate they lived in Granville, Milwaukee Co., Wisconsin, which is only a few miles from here. Wondering if some of them are buried close by or where they lived. Can’t find info in the early 1800s census.

Another culture that helped shape Wisconsin into what it is today is the Dutch culture. I may throw in some Belgian stuff, also, since my family crosses into both and the history also crosses into both. My maternal grandmother’s ancestors were mostly Dutch and Belgian (though she’s the “mixed bag” in my tree, bringing in French, French-Canadian, Belgian, Dutch, German, and some others.)

This group seemed to congregate in the east central part of the state, up near Green Bay and Appleton, Wisconsin, which we call the Fox River Valley. You can tell this by the city, place, and family names in that area. Names like Holland and Vandenbroek and a lot of family names that start with “Van.”

Between 1840 and 1890, Wisconsin was a major center of Dutch immigration. Father Theodore Johannes Van den Brock was an early promoter of Dutch Catholic immigration to Wisconsin and beginning in 1848, he helped to bring 40,000 Catholic Dutch to Wisconsin. Most Dutch immigrants to the Fox River Valley followed the Erie Canal-Great Lakes route, landing in Green Bay where many chose to remain. Later Dutch settlements in Wisconsin were generally small agricultural communities. – WisconsinHistory.org

One of my families that came into that area was the Van Parijs family. Somewhere along the line, they changed their name to Van Price (which caused me some trouble, as I posted about earlier.) They settled in the Shawano County area (pronounced like Shaw-no.)

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is DeBroux (Dah-broo), which is, from my research, from Belgium. They liked to hack the spelling of this surname up in the census. I found it listed by such spellings as DeBrue and Gebroux (but some of these are probably based on the transcriptions.)

The DeBroux family came from Belgium in the late 1800s and settled in Langlade County, which was a popular area for these two cultures. An interesting fact about my DeBroux ancestors that came to Wisconsin is that their names are somewhat unique and I thought that this might help me find information on them. His name is Desire DeBroux and her name was Desiree (unknown surname.) Unfortunately, this is not the case, but it was worth a shot.

Here are some good Dutch/Belgian links for Wisconsin and elsehwhere:

• Trace Your Dutch Roots
• Dutch in Wisconsin
• Zeeland Archives – Great database where I found a lot of info on my families. Only really covers the Zeeland, Netherlands area.

Photo © Jenny Rollo