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The Genealogical Society of Flemish Americans (GSFA) and The Leon Buyse Memorial Library
Leon Buyse was a dedicated historian and a meticulous researcher. He wrote a column for the Gazette van Detroit as well as writing special articles that he had done extensive research for. Mr Buyse kept scrapbooks of his work and other articles of interest; including obituaries and clippings from all over the United States and Belgium.
Mr Buyse belonged to several of the local clubs and kept records for all of them even when he was not holding an elected office.
In 1977 when the GSFA needed a new location for their meetings Leon Buyse generously offered his own home to the group. They continued to meet there until he moved into the Father Taillieu Residence in. He was granted the use of a room across the hall from the Gazette van Detroit to store all of his of his books, papers, clippings, records and research. The GSFA was a benefactor of all his hard work upon his death in 1982. Since that time we have had many generous donations of books and materials and the library has evolved from a small private library to the large Library and Resource Center it is today.
In the last two years we have had a major push to rid ourselves of our backlog and file every piece of information waiting to be processed.
We needed more space and Msgr. DeCneudt came to the rescue by allowing us to reorganize the room attached to ours that his belongings were stored in. We were able to rearrange his books and give him a comfortable space while allowing us to expand and make room for two special lighted tables generously donated by the Gazette van Detroit.
The special tables have made a profound difference in the identifying of negatives for our photo file. We have been able to match up newspaper articles, photos and negatives. These have been indexed on an excel sheet and they have been safely enclosed in acid free containers to stop the deterioration. They are available for viewing at any time.
Our family section has had hundreds of new family trees added and we have a new section devoted to books published by Belgian communities; these include yearbooks, centennial books, and multifamily history books.
The articles for the surname files have been sorted and condensed to a more manageable project with hundreds of articles already processed.
We have taken the Engagement and Wedding announcements and placed them into their own file. The newsprint copies have been replaced and we are presently matching them to a photo and negative in the photo file.
In the Death section we have quite a large selection of published death cards and cemetery books and we have filed thousands of new obituaries and funeral cards.
We also have several newspapers on microfilm for years 1916-1930.
All of the reference material has been divided into groups according to Province, this makes it easier for all researchers. Most of our material is from East and West Flanders.
We put all of our holdings on a CD this spring and sent them out to other libraries in hopes that more people would visit us when they were in the neighborhood.