Hi Catherine, no, Huguenots and Walloons are not one and the same. "Huguenots" were only called the French Protestants which were cruelly persecuted by the Catholic League in the Kingdom of France, especially after the Revocation of The Edict of Nantes in 1685. Many of them decided to flee to protestant countries in Europe, such as Germany, Switzerland, England, Scotland and Ireland or even to the British colonies, but many stayed and the "Camisards" fought in a guerilla warfare against the soldiers for many years. "Walloons" in the sense of "being Protestant from the Spanish Netherlands" (an area which more or less covered current Belgium) were called the first Protestant refugees from the Spanish Netherlands, no matter if (rarely) of Flemish or (mostly) of Walloon origin. Flemish is the Germanic part of the population who speaks the Dutch language and lives in western and norther Belgium and also in northwestern France, whereas Walloons are the Romance part of the population who speaks a French dialect and lives in southern and southeastern Belgium. Because the exodus of the Protestant Flemish and Walloons, Belgium is a catholic land. The Protestant minority in current Belgium is very small. The Spanish army persectuted the Protestants as cruelly as France did. The Flemish Protestants by majority fled bordercrossing to the free northern Calvinist Netherlands, because of the common language. The Walloons found no French speaking Protestant state in Europe, except the French part of Switzerland. So many of them came to England and the Colonies and were known as "the Walloons", the Protestant refugees from the Spanish part of the Netherlands. Also many Walloons came to German states, such as the Calvinist Palatinate in their neighborhood, but had to flee again only few years later together with the Palatinate Protestants to other German states, when France annected the Palatinate and tried to make it catholic. On the other hand, after the Thirty Years War, in 1648 and following years, many *catholic* Walloons immigrated to catholic German countries, invited by the rulers to fill up the lack population which had been decimated to its half by the long wars and by diseases. So we find many French sounding names here in Germany, some of which are of catholic origin and the majority is from Huguenots and from Protestant Walloons. Juergen / Georges ***************************** Jürgen Fritsche (Germany) - --------------------------- genealogy@ib-fritsche.de ***************************** > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Tverdov@aol.com [mailto:Tverdov@aol.com] > Gesendet am: Samstag, 12. August 2000 21:32 > An: HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE-L@rootsweb.com > Betreff: [HWE] HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS? > > Andrea, > I've been reading the digest regularly but I need to ask you to please > clarify something for me. I'm a little confused at this point. > Are Huguenots > and Walloons one and the same? or are they different in some way. > I know the > Huguenots were Protestant and from what I've read Walloons were from the > French speaking part of Belgium. But are they the same or were walloons > Catholic? > Thanks for clearing this up, > Catherine > > > ==== HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE Mailing List ==== > To access H-W-E list archives, there are two options: > Threaded Archive is at: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ > Keyword Archive at: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl > > ============================== > Search ALL of RootsWeb's mailing lists in real time. > RootsWeb's Personalized Mailing Lists: > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ >