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From:
Subject: Re: Goethals
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:39:30 EDT

Greetings Fred: Thank you for your inquiry.

This is the Goethals Dynasty written by Jan van de Putte of Middelburg,
Zeeland, NL.

I will send the crest as an attachment to a separate email.

I would like to urge that you Subscribe to Goethals-L list serv and share
with us some of the family ancestry information you may have.

Peter Leibert, La Mirada, California.


TheGoethals - Dynasty The Goethals-dynasty
starts with Honorius, who was born somewhere about the year 855. Honorius
was a senator under the regime of Pope John VIII ( 872-882 ) and he was a
captain of a "cohorte" (roman unit of 100 man). As such he fought against
the Scaracens, a fanatic muslim group who invaded Italie in the region of
Apulie. At one day one of the Scaracens tried to chop the head of Honorius
off with his sword, but thanks to an iron neck-band, he did not succeed.
From that day Honorius was called "Bonnicolli", in which Bonni means "Good"
and Colli means "Neck". His grand-son, Pietro I Bonnicolli, (927 - 980)
moved in the year 965 to Flanders (Belgium), where he became a knight at the
court of Count Arnold II of Flanders and gained the title of "Ambachtsheer"
(Lord of amanor) of "De Mude" (A piece of property) near Gent. The
great-great grandson of Pietro I, Gerem I, was the first to translate his
name Bonnicolli into flamisch, Goethals. ( Bonni is "goet" and colli is "hals
) Gerem I , (1078 - 1158), went in 1096 on cruisade to Jerusalem with his
master, Count Robert II of Flanders . All through the years the
Goethals-dynastiy (from now on referred to as the "mainbranche") produced men
of honour; knights; clergyman; scientists etc. They where buried in marble
tombs in well-known churches in Belgium. (Doornik; Kortrijk, Gent etc. They
therefore have a more or less well documented genealogy . Sometimes one of
the boys married the odd housemaid or sired a girl in the village and became
the shame of the family. They produced the more humble branches of the
Goethals-family. By way of speaking of course !! Because documentation in
those days was very poor, it is nowadays very hard to trace them beyond the
mid-17 th centurie. Today there are as many Goethals´s in Belgium as there
are stars in the sky. Some of them came over to Holland, especially
Zeeuws-Vlaanderenand; a very few emigrated to the USA .


Middelburg , 1-6-2001 Jan van de Putte .


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