Some brick walls just seem insurmountable, no matter how many different ways you choose to attack it. My great grandmother Mary Clemence Defruytier Van Houtte has been one of those just out of reach. The request for her death certificate turned up what I may be able to rely on as her father’s name, Bruno. Pictures and a letter found in old boxes let me know that she still had relatives in Europe when she was living. Family legend has it that she was raised in an orphanage when her parents died. Other than that I am at a complete stand still.
A person claiming to be related had contacted me to tell me that we were related but hasn’t responded with any information on the family tree. So I decided to try yet another angle. I joined geneanet.org. It seems that there are many people on there that do not belong to ancestry.com that have family trees mainly in Europe. It cost me about 60 dollars American to join with all of the services. Getting use to the site is another thing in itself. It is not set up like ancestry and many of the documents and family trees are not in English. Google translate and I have become best friends.
I sent an email to someone that had the greatest number of entries for the Defruytier name. I am hoping that they can, at the very least, point me in any direction for more information on my line. The Defruytier line is just one of three different family names that I am hoping I will be able to get more information on by joining geneanet.org.