My coat of arms

Well, let me rephrase that. It is not my coat of arms, it belongs to the family of my maternal grandmother, Antje Doelman (1892-1984). Her ancestors can be traced back a long way. If we follow a straight line for nine generations, we meet granny's ancestor Frans Cornelisse Doelman. I presume he was born around 1650. Frans was not an unimportant man. He lived in the village of Maasland near Rotterdam. It is quite possible that he was a farmer but he was also holding the position of alderman, deacon and, on behalf of the community, he was taking care of the funds destined to support the poor (armmeester). It was not unusual for people of his status to have a coat of arms*.
Whether he was the first Doelman to have this coat of arms is doubtful. There are earlier records showing a similar coat of arms. It belonged to a Cornelis Michielsz Doelman, alderman until 1566. It is unknown how Frans is related to this Cornelis.

In 1658 a farm was built in Maasland. Ever since the early 19th century this farm was known as the Doelman's farm (Doelmanshoeve). In this farm there was, and still is a stained glass window showing a Doelman coat of arms (right). There is a great resemblance to the one shown above. The farm still exists but now as a restaurant called the De Ridderhof (The Knight's Court).
In the Armorial Général, the very impressive heraldic work by J.B. Rietstap, the Doelman coat of arms is described as you can see below.

Excerpt from the Armorial Général

The full French text reads: Doelman - Hollande D'argent au lion d'azur, armé et lampassé du champ. In English that is: Doelman - Holland Of silver (white) with lions in azure (blue), armed and langued gules.
I am not sure that this description fits both coat of arms shown in this post. I am not even certain what it means...
When the last owner of the Doelman's farm died on Dec. 4, 1916, he was buried in Maasland. His name was Adrianus Doelman and he lived to be 79 years old. It is said that his coat of arms is part of his tombstone. So I better go there before weathering makes it impossible to see how it looks like. But I trust that also there the man's face at the top of the coat of arms resembles the face of a Doelman. Because that's what Granny told me. And if ever there was a truthful woman, it was Granny!

*Contrary to popular belief a coat of arms does not automatically imply nobility. But rest assured, even today it is possible to design a coat of arms for your family and have it registered. In the Netherlands registration is possible via the services of the Central Bureau of Genealogy (CBG) or the Dutch Genealogical Society (NGV).

My surname could have been...

The patronymic Meuwis
still exists in Hasselt

Voor een samenvatting in het Nederlands, zie na de Engelse tekst.
In The Netherlands the name Miebies is not regarded as, how shall I say, as being typically Dutch. Whenever I meet people for the first time the least they say is that they never heard it before. There are also people pronouncing Miebies as Miebiesch, giving it a kind of German twist. Speaking of the pronunciation of my name, I should tell English speakers that it is pronounced as Meebees. 
In an earlier post I explained what the origin of my surname is. The man I regard as the ancestor of all Dutch Miebieses came from Kuringen, also called Curingen or Curange in French. It is situated in what is now the Belgian province of Limburg. The neighboring city of Hasselt absorbed Kuringen in 1977. When Frederikus Miebies (1760-1834) came to The Hague in approx 1790 his last name was still Muwis. (When Frederikus got married in 1795 the name was written as Miebis.)

The Martyrdom of Bartholomew
by Tiepolo

In Kuringen, Hasselt and in more towns and villages in Limburg, Muwis and related names are quite common. The reason of this name being wide spread is that it is a patronymic. It is a derivation of Meeus which is short for Bartholomeus (or Bartholomew in English). 
But apart from Meeus there are many more variations. Back in 2004 I made an analysis of the number of patronymics related to Bartholomeus the disciple. I limited myself to the following sources from the State Archive in Hasselt.
Kuringen                         Hasselt
Baptism, book 81-2       book 50-8 & book 12
Marriage, book 81-4     book 9 & book 5
Death, book 81-6           book 6
I received extracts of these books from a genealogical acquaintance in Limburg (M.M.). It will be clear that using the BMD-registers all at the same time, causes double/triple records of the same person. So please keep that in mind when looking at the numbers. 

Distribution of M...-patronymics over a period of 300 years
Please click to enlarge

As you can see in the above table, there are some 30 variations of the name. There is a significant peak in the number of families carrying these M...-patronymics. During the 18th century most surnames have been recorded in the a.m. books. Whether this sudden popularity had a specific reason I don't know. I have been unable to trace any specific events related to the disciple Bartholomew other than the rebuilding after a fire of the not too distant Bartholomew basilica in Meerssen in 1749.
In any case my last name could easily have been Me(e)uwis, Meuwis(sen), Mievis or any other derivation of the name of the disciple. And depending on how Flemish Fredericus would have pronounced that name in The Hague and how it was subsequently understood and noted by the clergyman there, it could have been quite different from the present day name of Miebies. It also demonstrates my thesis that the combination of local speech and the lack of a hearing aid can be detrimental to one's last name :)

Samenvatting
In Nederland is Miebies nou niet bepaald een veel voorkomende naam. Vaak informeren mensen waar die naam toch vandaan komt. Men vermoedt vaak een Duitse herkomst, hetgeen in Nederland niet zo vreemd is. Ik heb al eens uitgelegd wat de herkomst van de naam is en dat die uit Kuringen bij Hasselt in Belgisch Limburg komt. Toen onze stamvader Fredericus Miebies (1760-1834) omstreeks 1790 naar Den Haag kwam, was zijn achternaam Muwis. (In zijn huwelijksakte in 1795, wordt de naam geschreven als Miebis.)
In Kuringen, Hasselt en omgeving is de naam Muwis, en soortgelijke namen, veel voorkomend. Dat is niet onlogisch omdat de naam een patroniem is en afgeleid van de apostel Bartholomeüs. Muwis is dan weer een afgeleide van (Bartholo)Meeus. Maar naast Meeus zijn er meer afgeleide namen, veel meer. In 2004 heb ik daar eens een overzichtje van gemaakt en het zijn er zeker een stuk of 30, zie de tabel hierboven. Met name in de 18e eeuw kwamen die namen veel voor. Waarom? Geen idee. Ik heb geen lokale gebeurtenissen kunnen vinden die als oorzaak aangemerkt kunnen worden. Alleen de wederopbouw van de Sint Bartholomeüsbasiliek in het enigszins nabij gelegen Meerssen zou dat kunnen zijn. Maar dat was pas in 1749.
Maar hoe je het ook wendt of keert, i.p.v. Muwis had de naam ook Me(e)uwis, Meuwis(sen), Mievis of elke andere afleiding van de naam van de discipel kunnen zijn. En afhankelijk van het simpele gegeven hoe Fredericus zijn naam in Den Haag heeft uitgesproken en hoe de geestelijke het daar heeft verstaan en opgeschreven, had onze achternaam heel anders kunnen zijn. Hetgeen maar weer eens bewijst dat de combinatie van een dialect en een ontbrekend gehoorapparaat een fnuikende invloed op iemands achternaam kan hebben :)

Photo credit:
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Hello Bandoeng

The post title is the here well known beginning of a 1929 song written by Dutch singer Willy Derby. I am not sure it is still well known today but it certainly was when present day Indonesia was a Dutch colony: the Dutch East Indies (DEI). 
The rather sentimental song is about a mother in Holland calling her dearly missed son in Bandoeng, a large city on the island of Java and over 15,000 kilometers away. In 1979/1980 Soerabaja (also situated on Java) born singer Wieteke van Dort was responsible for a revival of the song. 
In those days making a phone call was an arduous undertaking. I remember when my grandparents wanted to make a call to their daughter in the DEI, a PTT-van* with a transmitter came to their house in The Hague. It was then "flooded" with all kinds of kinds of cables, wires and phones and after hours of preparation the call came into being. I am talking around 1950 now.
This was not the first time for them to communicate with members of the family 

Meinsje Doelman in
Balikpapan (DEI)

in the DEI. My grandmother Antje de Langen-Doelman (1892-1984) had a younger brother and sister who both lived in the East Indies long before WW2. Her sister was Meinsje (Mies) Doelman (1900-1973). She was married to Jan (Bob) Wemmers (1898-1976). He was employed by oil company Shell and a.o. they lived in Balikpapan on the island of Borneo. During WW2 Jan was interned by the Japanese in one of their not so nice camps. His stay there was registered on the card below. Prior to his internment the couple lived in 22 Sawohlaan, Batavia. Later he was transported from the camp to Burma where he was forced to work on the infamous Burma -Thailand railroad. You may remember the movie called Bridge on the River Kwai a.o. starring Sir Alec Guinness and William Holden. Jan survived the railroad but if I remember well, his health was affected.

Japanese camp registration of Jan Wemmers

The brother, Cornelis Doelman (1895-1983), lived in Batavia (currently Jakarta), capital of the DEI. He was a supervisor of poly technical educational institutions in the East Indies. His Belgium born wife Lea Eulalia Hortensia Libert (1896-1983) was with him ever since they moved there after their marriage in 1921.
During the very early stages of WW2 it was possible to send letters from Holland to the DEI. I have one written by Pieter Doelman (1864-1942). He was the father of Antje, Cornelis and Meinsje. At the time he lived in Antje's house on 18 Mispelstraat, The Hague. On May 30, 1940 he wrote about the surrender of Holland and Belgium and about the bombing of Rotterdam ("26,000 houses destroyed"). Also about a relative who was killed in action during the German invasion.  
But apparently the possibility to communicate by mail was stopped a few months

Red Cross message form

later. That is no surprise as obviously the Germans did not allow any connections by air nor by ship. However, there was still the Red Cross. They provided a kind of Short Message Service avant la lettre. There was a maximum of 25 words. On this form Cornelis informs his father in Holland that the DEI family is okay. The date is Oct. 17, 1940. At the time Cornelis is living in 31 Sawohlaan, Batavia, the same street where his sister Meinsje and her husband lived or had been living. The back of this form was used for the return message. The reply was dated Jan. 7, 1941 suggesting a transportation time for these forms of more than 75 days.
Today we live in a world of almost instant communication possibilities anywhere. We have our mobile/cell phones enabling us to call, to WhatsApp, to ping, to SMS and what have you. And in case you are out of reach of 3G and even 4G networks, there is always the satellite phone. For youngsters such as our grandchildren it may be good to know that it wasn't always like this. People wrote letters that took a month or more to reach their destination. People did not have phones in their homes, one had to go to the Post Office to place a call to a neighboring city. International calls? Call the international operator please; they would return the call when the connection was made. All these changes came about in the course of the last 60, 70 years. But it is good to realize that the world wasn't always as near and as small as it is today.

*PTT is short for Post, Telephone and Telegraph, the governmental provider of all these services.

Sepia Saturday - Goodbye

Dear Sepians:

Are we looking at a press conference here? Maybe so. In any case it provides me with an obvious reason to tell you why I no longer contribute to the weekly SS fun.  To cut a long story short, I feel it consumes too much of my time. Writing my piece is one thing, visiting and commenting on the blogs of an increasing number of participants is another. And I loved doing that, paying all these visits. It is great to see how bloggers from all over the world interpret the weekly themes put together by a very enthusiastic team. But the fact remains that I have too little time left to do the other things I like to do as well. There is this pile of  books I have to read and there is my other hobby genealogy* requiring my attention. I also wanted to start a new blog  related to Dutch language matters. (That materialized in the meantime.) In order to avoid that some of my family members believe that I am glued to my pc, I decided to make an end to my my SS addiction. A few weeks ago I informed Marilyn of this. But I feel I owe you a little explanation as well. 
Therefor, I like to thank you for reading my blog and for all your comments. And of course I am very grateful to Alan, Kate and Marilyn for all their efforts to make Sepia Saturday the success it is!

Peter
PS Nothing will stop me from making the occasional visit so don't be surprised if you see my name pop up here or there.

* Genealogy is the art of hanging dead people in a tree.

Dad's drawing

My father and mother

My father Johannes Cornelis Miebies (1914-1945) had a certain talent for drawing. I believe he made many sketches but hardly any of those has been saved. Fortunately we still have a number of his pen drawings. For that purpose he used India ink also known as Chinese ink. (In Dutch it is called 'East Indian ink'; this refers to the former Dutch East Indies.)
Together with my mother he visited the German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber on July 26, 1939. There they bought a number of picture postcards. Later he used some of those as an example for his pen drawings. I am glad my mother loved keeping all those travel memorabilia. It is nice to still have those and it enables us to compare the postcards with my father's drawings. So you'll find those below. Also a third illustration which is a Google view of the situation now. 

Klingentor, Rothenburg o/d Tauber
on a 1939 postcard

Drawing by J.C. Miebies

Signature and year of drawing

A recent view found on Google

I wrote two more posts about these drawings. They are Tekeningen and Tekeningen (2). Never mind the Dutch, the drawings speak for themselves :)

An American Moor in Leiden

Voor een Nederlandse tekst, zie na de Engelse tekst.

Suriname

In the Dutch version of the transcendent Wikipedia I happened to see a lemma about a coffee plantation in the Dutch colony of Suriname* in the 18th century. The text mentioned the name of a slave who was said to have been baptized in Leiden** here in The Netherlands. That made me curious. A black man in Leiden in those days must have been quite exceptional. So I wondered whether I could find a trace of him in the Regional Archives of the city of Leiden. In another source I read that his owner, one Matheus Sigismundus Pallak,  was a follower of the Lutheran faith. So that gave me some direction and soon I found the baptism certificate below***.

1. Please click to enlarge

The transcription reads as follows:

13 April [1760]

Is opentlijk in de Kerk gedoopt een Americaansche Moor, zijnde een Lijfeigene

Van Den Wel Ed. Heer Sigismundis Pallak, oud Raad van Politie, Criminee

le mitsgaders Civile Justitie der Colonie van Surinaame, rivieren en Districten

van dien, welke Moor bij den H. Doop genaamt is: Christiaan. De getuijge

was De Wel Ed. Heer Sigismundis Pallak doch wegens absentie in Deszelfs

plaats: Johan Theobald Feilken en Johan Philip Kaping.

April      {Coenraad Warms Hendrik Coenraad. {Hendrik Brand.

13          { Pieternel Wassenburg

And the English translation is:

April 13 [1760]

An American Moor has been publicly baptized in the Church, he being a slave

owned by the Noble Lord Sigismundis Pallak, former Councillor of Police, Crimi-

nal and Civil Justice of the Colony of Surinam, rivers and Districts

belonging thereto, during the Holy Baptism said Moor has been named: Christiaan. The witness

was the Noble Lord Sigismundis Pallak however due to absence in His

Place: Johan Theobald Feilken and Johan Philip Kaping.

April      {Coenraad Warms Hendrik Coenraad. {Hendrik Brand.

13          { Pieternel Wassenburg

In the deed the slave Christiaan is identified as a Moor. This term may need a little explanation. Today Moors are generally regarded as the islamic population of medieval Spain. Their origin was in Northern Africa. However, it is likely that Europeans in the 18th century and earlier used that name also for West Africans from Mali and Niger. Knowing that Christiaan got here in the entourage of a white European from Suriname, we can safely presume he was a black man with African roots. Suriname in those days was a well known destination for black slaves from Africa. Both the English and the Dutch played an important role in the slave trade. However, also the adjective 'American' was used. That is a bit puzzling. I am not sure what the term meant in those days. Did it refer to the present USA or maybe to any other country on the American continent? I don't know. In any case it suggests that his origin was outside Suriname.

Mr. Pallak, who was of German descent, lived in Suriname between 1744 and 1758. Apart from being part of government institutions there, he also owned several plantations. One of them was Maasstroom. That estate was close to Lust tot Rust (Want for Calmness) owned by Wigbold Crommelin, at one time the colony's Governor General. I mention this plantation's name because Christiaan came to live in Mr. Pallak's country seat in Zoeterwoude near Leiden. And that villa was also named Lust tot Rust which may be an indication of the nature of their relationship. You see both plantations mentioned on the map above in the blue frame.

2. The deed of death of Christiaan Catiou, Jan. 11, 1816

With Christiaan now being a member of the Lutheran Church it is plausible that his death has been recorded in a Lutheran church register as well. Sofar I have been unable to uncover that, if it exists to begin with! However, after 1812 the church registers ceased to exist in favor of local government record keeping. And there I found the registration of the death of one Christiaan Catiou. Could he be the slave Christiaan? Well, all I can say is that it is possible but that is about all. There are some pro's and some con's for this hypothesis.

To start with the cons:

The surname Catiou already existed in Leiden during the 17th century;

The surname Catiou could very well be a French (Huguenot) name;

Many Huguenots lived in Leiden;

There is not a single direct link with Sigimundus Pallak.

But there are some pro's too:

When Christaan dies on Jan. 11, 1816, he is 73 years old. That puts his age during his baptism at approx 17 years old, not an impossible age for a slave to accompany his master;

He died in Zoeterwoude, the village where Pallak's villa was located;

In the deed it says that he lived at the address 235 Hooge Rhijndijk. The villa Lust tot Rust was situated at or near that location;

The surname Catiou is not a Dutch surname; could there be a connection with French Guyana, the country adjacent to Suriname?

I leave the conclusion up to you but whether the two Christiaans are one and the same person is uncertain at best. A further investigation Holland's largest database of historic newspapers did not result in anything useful. And that is a pity because the black Christiaan must have drawn a lot of attention in those days, both in Leiden/Zoeterwoude and in the Lutheran Church. But no matter what, my aim was to pay some attention to an extraordinary deed in the Leiden Archives.

*The Dutch effectively obtained Suriname from the English when they swapped it for New Amsterdam/New York during the Breda Peace Treaty negotiations in 1667...

**Leiden was also the city where the Pilgrim Fathers resided during the 1609-1620 period.

***Click on <Inzien register> [ image 286

Nederlandse samenvatting

Van hot naar her springend in Wikipedia, liep ik tegen een hoofdstuk aan over een koffieplantage in het Suriname van de 18e eeuw. Daarin was sprake van een slaaf genaamd Christiaan die met zijn meester Mattheus Sigismundis Pallak naar Leiden kwam om daar gedoopt te worden. Ergens anders had ik gelezen dat de heer Pallak het Lutherse geloof aanhing. Ik vroeg mij af of die doop nog in het Regionaal Archief Leiden was terug te vinden. En dat bleek inderdaad het geval, zie afb. 1. De doop heeft plaatsgevonden op 13-4-1760 in de Lutherse Kerk aldaar. De tekst van de doopakte staat onder de afbeelding.

In de akte wordt genoemd dat Christiaan een "Amerikaansche Moor" is, een wat raadselachtige term. Immers, Moren waren Noord-Afrikaanse Arabieren die in de middeleeuwen Spanje bezetten. Daarnaast was het in de 18e eeuw niet ongebruikelijk om inwoners van Mali en Niger met de term "Moren" aan te duiden. Dus het is zeer wel mogelijk dat we het hier over een slaaf hebben, in de doopakte staat "lijfeigene", van Afrikaanse afkomst. De vraag blijft dan waar het "Amerikaansche" betrekking op heeft. Is hij elders op het Amerikaanse continent geweest voordat hij naar Suriname kwam? Of was het een bestaande uitdrukking waarmee elke neger werd aangeduid?

De van Duitse afkomst zijnde Sigismundis Pallak was, naast overheidsfunctionaris, ook plantage-eigenaar, o.a. van de plantage Maasstroom. Niet ver daar vandaan (zie het kaartje waarin beide plantages blauw omkaderd zijn) lag de plantage Lust tot Rust van Wigbold Crommelin, op zeker moment Gouverneur-Generaal van Suriname. Waarschijnlijk niet geheel toevallig had Pallak's buitenplaats in Zoeterwoude de zelfde naam.

Omdat Christiaan dooplid van de Lutherse Kerk was geworden, vroeg ik mij of ook zijn overlijden te vinden zou zijn. Maar die akte heb ik in de DTB-registers niet kunnen vinden, als die akte überhaupt al bestaat. Voor de zekerheid heb ik ook gekeken in de vanaf 1812 ingevoerde Burgerlijke Stand. En daar kwam ik een akte van overlijden tegen van ene Christiaan Catiou, iemand met een niet erg Nederlandse achternaam (zie afb. 2). Zou hij "mijn" Christiaan kunnen zijn? Dat zou kunnen, maar meer is er niet van te zeggen. Er zijn argumenten vóór en tegen te vinden.

Tegen pleit:

De naam 'Catiou' bestond al in het 17e eeuwse Leiden;

Het zou best een Franse (hugenoten) naam kunnen zijn en er woonden vele hugenoten in Leiden;

Ik heb geen directe connectie met zijn eigenaar gevonden.

De voors zijn:

Wanneer Christiaan overlijdt op 11-1-1816 op 73-jarige leeftijd. Ten tijde van zijn doop was hij dus ca. 17 jaar, geen vreemde leeftijd om Pallak te vergezellen op zijn reis hier naar toe;

Hij is overleden in Zoeterwoude, de plaats waar ook het buiten van Pallak stond;

In de overlijdensakte staat dat Christaan woonde op het adres Hooge Rhijndijk 235. Op of in de nabijheid van dat adres stond ook het buitenhuis Lust tot Rust;

"Catiou" is een Frans aandoende achternaam, Zou er een connectie met Frans Guyana kunnen zijn?

Afijn, of het hier één en dezelfde persoon betreft, blijft duister. Ook een onderzoekje in kranten uit die tijd, heeft niets opgeleverd. Jammer, want de zwarte Christiaan moet toch in die tijd een bijzonderheid zijn geweest, zowel in Leiden/Zoeterwoude als in de Lutherse Kerk. Hoe dan ook, mijn bedoeling was om wat aandacht te schenken aan een toch wel bijzondere doopakte in het Leidens regionaal archief.

Image credits:

Plantation map: Het geheugen van Nederland

#1: Regionaal Archief Leiden, Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken Leiden, 1575-1811 (1859), nummer toegang 1004, inventarisnummer 1004, afb. 286;

#2: Regionaal Archief Leiden, Gemeentebestuur van Zoeterwoude, nummer toegang 500B, inventarisnummer 1058, afb. 91.

Update 12 sept. 2026

In 'gen.', het kwartaalblad uitgegeven door het CBG, staat in het nummer van september 2026 een artikel getiteld 'De doop als bescherming' van Paul de Jong. Het gaat over slaafgemaakten die met hun eigenaar meekwamen naar Nederland en zich hier lieten dopen. Er wordt verwezen naar een inventarisatie van alle tot op heden gevonden dopelingen van kleur, bijna 300. Zij zijn te vinden op een kaart die steeds wordt aangepast met de nieuwste vondsten: https://vergetendopen.nl/dopenkaart/. Ik hoopte de in dit blog genoemde Christiaan aan de inventaris te kunnen toevoegen, maar men had hem al gevonden. Mocht u geïnteresseerd zijn in dit onderwerp, klik op de link!

DTB/BMD register Kuringen (B)

St. Gertrudis
Kuringen (B)

For a summary in English please see after the Dutch text.
De man die ik beschouw als de stamvader van het Nederlandse geslacht Miebies, Fredericus Miebis, is afkomstig uit het Belgische Kuringen. Het ligt in Belgisch Limburg en is nu deel van  Hasselt. Hij is daar gedoopt als kind van mijn oudgrootvader* Joannis Muwis en Anna Gertrudis van Ardinnen. Dit echtpaar trouwde daar in de kerk van de Sint Gertrudis-parochie op 15 februari 1757. Die kerk staat er nog. De historie ervan gaat terug tot in de 15e eeuw. In de periode betrekkelijk kort na het huwelijk, heeft de kerk zijn huidige vorm gekregen. Dat was in de periode 1777-1790. 

St. Gertrudis
altar 1763

In de kerk is ook nog een altaar aanwezig dat dateert van 1763. Het geeft mij altijd toch wel een apart gevoel wanneer je je realiseert dat je verre voorouders dat zelfde altaar gezien en misschien wel aangeraakt hebben. Dat kan niet gezegd worden van de recent aangebrachte glasramen. Omdat ik een liefhebber van glas ben, en ik al twee keer eerder over glasramen (van de kathedraal te Blois) geblogd heb, helemaal onderaan een detail van één van de fraaie ramen van de St. Gertudiskerk.
Naast het altaar is er nog iets waardevols uit de kerk bewaard gebleven. Dat zijn de zogenoemde DTB-registers**. Daarin noteerde de pastoor de levenden, de doden en de verbintenissen. Al in 1995 heb ik die registers in het Rijksarchief in Hasselt in kunnen zien. Als ik me goed herinner waren dat de originelen! Hieronder het huwelijks register van 1757. Op 15 februari staat daar het huwelijk van mijn oudgrootvader genoteerd. 

The marriage of Joannis Muwis (~1713-†1795) and Anna Gertrudis 
van Ardinnen (~1733-†1782) on February 15, 1757

De Latijnse tekst in het register luidt als volgt:

Die 15 febrij facto uno banno, cum dispensa-
tione in duobus in Domino juncti suns
matrimonio joannes Muwis et Anna ger-
trudis van Ardinnen honeste personae
testibus Arnoldo Schepers, Laurentio Muwis
et pluribus alijs.

Mijn vertaling daarvan is:

Op [de dag] 15 februari [1757] zijn na één aankondiging, met dispensa-
tie van een tweede in de Heer verbonden
in het huwelijk Joannes Muwis en Anna Ger-
trudis van Ardinnen met eerzame personen
als getuigen Arnoldo Schepers, Laurentio Muwis
en meer anderen.

Zo ziet de voorloper van de burgerlijke stand er dus uit. Allemaal nauwgezet genoteerd door de pastoor van de Sint Gertrudis-parochie. Dat de Muwissen in Kuringen het Rooms Katholieke geloof aanhingen, wekt geen verbazing. Wel kan ik vaststellen dat dat geloof, na de komst van Fredericus Muwis/Miebis naar Den Haag, verdwenen is en op z'n best heeft plaats gemaakt voor protestantse stromingen.
Wat de relatie van getuige Arnoldo Schepers tot het bruidspaar is, weet ik niet. Hij zal wel de bruidsgetuige geweest zijn want Laurentio Muwis (~1737-†1813) was de jongere broer van Joannes. Een klein voorbehoud, bij de doop van deze Laurentio fungeerde ene Laurentius Mevis als peter. Dus die kan het ook geweest zijn maar van hem weet ik verder niets. De namen Muwis en Mevis werden doorelkaar gebruikt.

Summary of the Dutch text above
My early ancestors came from the village of Kuringen in Belgium. I am talking about the 18th century here. In those days probably the only church in the village was the RC Saint Gertrudis church. The history of this church goes back to the 15th century. On February 15, 1757 one of my ancestors got married there. "Shortly after", during the period between 1777 and 1790, the church was rebuilt. And that is still its present shape. Today's church altar goes back to 1763. So Joannes Muwis and Anna Gertrudis van Ardinnen, my 4th great grandparents, must have been aware of this altar. Maybe they even touched it. Funny thought! Pictures of both church and altar are shown above. Below is a photo of a part of a modern stained glass window which you can see in the church today.
Of course it is nice that the church is still here. But it is even nicer that the BMD-registers** have been saved as well. So we can see how the priest recorded their marriage on that 15th of February. In those days the clergy used Latin when writing a deed. The transcription of the marriage deed is shown underneath the picture above.
My translation is as follows:

On [this day] February 15 [1757] after a single announcement, with dispensa-
tion of a second one in the Lord connected 
in marriage Joannis Muwis and Anna Ger-
trudis van Ardinnen with honest people
as witnesses Arnoldo Schepers and Laurentio Muwis
and more others.

When I visited the Belgian Government Archives in Hasselt (B) in 1995, the archivist there was kind enough to show me the originals of the register with all the deeds in it. And I think that is quite special!

Part of a modern stained glass window
in the Kuringen St. Gertrudis church

* Een oudgrootvader gaat 7 generaties terug.
** Doop-, Trouw- en Begraafregisters/Birth, Marriage and Death registers

Photo credits (3)
St. Gertrudis ex Kerknet.be