March 13 1770

Nicolaus Van Eeckhoudt died in Gooik, where he had been born ca 1686. He married Maria Bellemans (Gooik 1696 - 1770).

Their son Augustinus (Gooik 1727 - Pamel 1775) married Joanna Maria Janssens (Pamel 1729 - 1790).

Augustinus and Joanna Maria had a daughter Petronella Van Eeckhoudt (Pamel 1771 - 1828), and Petronella was the mother of Maria Elisabeth Van der Sleyen (Pamel 1811 - 1860), my mother's great-grandmother and my father's great-great-grandmother. Maria Elisabeth has been named in numerous previous posts.

An interesting detail : Maria Bellemans was a daughter of Adrianus Bellemans (Gooik 1670 -1752) and Catharina (Maria) Appelmans (Gooik 1656 -1733).

When Catharina married Adrianus, she was the widow of Judocus Timmermans (Gooik 1649 - 1694). This is an exemple of the intricate web of family relations in my ancestry in Pamel, Gooik etc.

I descend from Catharina Appelmans through a son out of her first marriage : Joannes Timmermans (Gooik 1686 - Meerbeke 1769), and through a daughter out of her second marriage : Maria Bellemans. Moreover both my father and my mother descended from Maria through her granddaughter Maria Elisabeth Van der Sleyen.