Hi to the list, In response to the post today (13 Aug) from Jose <mei@communique.net> re: his surnames COUSIN & OUDART 1840+, Namur, Belgium, I hope that my previous post -- re: Walloons, historical vs. modern -- clears up some things for Jose because his Walloons appear to fall into the "modern" category. There was a post or two this month which mentioned Namur but this was in connection with reformed churches in Flanders in 1600-1700's. However, I must commend Jose for his persistence -- he has posted three times about his surnames this month! Jose, you're probably disappointed that there has been no response but it isn't that folks aren't interested or don't want to help. They simply do not have any answers to the questions you are asking. May I make some suggestions? Hopefuly, they will lead you down a path to results. For example, please try a mailing list which focuses on Belgian research and post some queries there. Three lists that I know of are BELGIUM-ROOTS, GEN-BENELUX, and GENBNL-L. To find out about these lists and how to join, go to John Fuller's site, Genealogy Resources on the Internet, which is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/internet.html. Click on Mailing Lists, then on Countries Other than USA, then click on Belgium. The other countries you mentioned are El Salvador and Nicaragua. There is a mailing list for both these countries called CENTAM-L. You can find it via John Fuller's web site, as above, clicking on either El Salvador or Nicaragua. Also, please try a search engine such as www.alltheweb.com to see if anything comes up. And don't forget the search engine which is totally genealogy-based at www.genealogyportal.com to see if there is anything there. By the way, the surname OUDART has come up on the list before, although probably not in a context that will help Jose. It was in a long list of surnames posted on 20 Apr in a message from Chris <christroy75@hotmail.com with subject line: Walloon Society of Sweden. OUDART (AUDART) was apparently one of the Walloon names of persons immigrating to Sweden. Last, I do have some further remarks re: accessing European church and migration records -- Jose had mentioned that he lives in Louisiana, US and did not have such access. This is an important topic that I have been thinking of posting about for a while now. However, seeing as this message is long enough already, I'll save those remarks for another post. Yes, I am trying to be briefer in my messages -- a losing battle. Hope you all forgive me. I'm just not a person who is short of words! Hope this has helped. Andrea