Record Atlas
7 eras · 1187–2026 · 117 places

Tournai and the Franco-Belgian border (Hainaut and West Flanders)

Tournai, Mouscron, Ieper, Péruwelz, Halluin, Chimay. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1187–1521 Tournai: French crown enclave in Flanders Geneanet

Tournai came under the French crown as a seigneurie in 1187 and its bishopric was the religious capital of Flanders. Henry VIII held it from 1513 until it returned to France in 1519, the only Belgian city England ever ruled. The dates given for this ring are those of Tournai.
1521–1668 Habsburg Netherlands Rijksarchief / Archives de l'État · FamilySearch

Charles V added Tournai to his Low Countries holdings in 1521 and the Duke of Parma took it after a long siege in 1581. Louis XIV besieged it in 1667.
1668–1713 Louis XIV's France Geneanet · FamilySearch

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Tournai to France in 1668. Marlborough besieged it in 1709 and the Treaty of Utrecht passed it to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1713.
1713–1794 Austrian Netherlands Rijksarchief / Archives de l'État · FamilySearch

France besieged and retook the city in 1745; the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by France in 1794.
1794–1815 French annexation: department of Jemmapes Rijksarchief / Archives de l'État · Geneanet · FamilySearch

Tournai became part of the department of Jemmapes.
1815–1830 United Kingdom of the Netherlands Rijksarchief / Archives de l'État · FamilySearch

Tournai was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1815.
1830–2026 Belgium Rijksarchief / Archives de l'État · Geneanet · FamilySearch

Tournai became part of independent Belgium in 1830 and was badly damaged in 1940.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1187–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

117 places on this ground

59 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

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