The Waterstokerij on Pendrechtstraat.
A.M. Waterschoot on the glass. Hot water for a neighbourhood. Family photographs, a surviving corner and a return decades later.
FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS · LOCATION DOCUMENTED · 29 / 29A UNDER REVIEWFAMILY TIDE · WATERSCHOOT · VAN DAELE · FAMILY TREE & ARCHIVE
A NEW LIFE · 13 APRIL 1952 · BELGIUMThey were leaving
They were leaving
for Canada.
A handwritten board. Four people. One unidentified face. A family photograph turns an immigration date into a mystery we can walk into.
EARLIEST DATE ON RECORD · START AT THE FAR EDGE
1589
Before Rotterdam. Before Canada. Before the border looked the way it does now.
Joannes Waterschoot, born 28 October 1589 in Waasmunster, is the earliest currently defensible dated Waterschoot lead in the working archive. The bridge into later generations is still being reconstructed record by record, so this is a doorway into the investigation as much as the family tree.
PROVISIONAL EARLY LINE · LEADING CLUES VISIBLEBEGIN IN 1589 AND TRAVEL FORWARD →
The magazine makes you care that they did.
Family Tide is the living Waterschoot–Van Daele family tree and archive. Stories, photographs, places and mysteries lead the way; evidence is always close when you want it.
WANT THE OLD-SCHOOL VIEW?Explore the complete family tree →Search · zoom · follow branches · move between generationsOPEN ANY DOORStories, mysteries,
Stories, mysteries,
places & lives.
No obvious beginning.
A genealogy website vanished. The family did not.
John Joseph van Waterschoot spent years tracing this family before Family Tide existed. His lost website is becoming a map back to his work.
WAYBACK ARCHIVE · FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE · RECOVERY IN PROGRESSThe road to Charlemagne.
Not a royal claim. An investigation from both ends of a thousand-year gap.
HISTORICAL ARTWORK · UNPROVEN CHAINThe saint in the family?
Idesbald, Van der Gracht, and a story old enough to have become tradition before anyone asked for receipts.
HISTORICAL TRADITION · GENEALOGICAL GAP VISIBLEDON'T START WITH A NAME
Start with a clue.
A family can be entered through almost anything: a date, a storefront, an unknown face, a surname, a vanished website, even a question nobody has answered yet.
4grandparent gateways
—people waiting to be explored
—artifacts, clues & evidence
∞rabbit holes still opening
OR START WITH FAMILY
Four families. Countless rabbit holes.
Start with one of the four grandparent gateways. Every profile can lead to another person, place, photograph, mystery or century.
Show me the evidence.
The story comes first, but the receipts are always there: family photographs, civil acts, parish pages, handwriting, memorial cards, maps and records.
ORIGINAL RECORDSFAMILY PHOTOGRAPHSSIGNATURESGRAVE MARKERSLETTERS & CARDSMAPS & PLACES
EVERY PERSON IS A DOORWAY
People
Find someone. See how they connect to you. Then enter their world.
MYSTERIES · JOURNEYS · REAL LIVES
Stories
Follow the clues. Every ending opens another door.
THE RECEIPTS
Evidence
Photographs, documents, records and honest placeholders for artifacts we know exist but have not yet recovered.