The family documents are varied: the drawings, paintings, the photographs represent the iconography, but there are still the passports, the handwritten letters, decorations, the diplomas, the notarial acts, the death announcements, etc. At each generation, one estimates that 80% of the family documents are lost. Generally, those which remained represent the strong points of the life of the family. But they are not always necessarily preserved and not transmitted. Moreover, these documents tend to specialize for a given family and move away generally imperceptibly from the field of the "clan".

It follows that the families tend to preserve "their" files and forget those attached to the fratery, with the "clan". It is all the more true as with time, with the generations due to the girls, there is a change of the name and one moves away more and more from the original name. In our case, it acts of SPLINGAERD.

Today, under the effect of a vector which is Paul Splingaerd, the clan makes a rather negative report of the good knowledge of the "clan". The dispersion of the Splingaerd families all over the world, started as of before the Second World War, was accentuated with the decades and today, certain documents are not any more in possessions of all the downward families.

The goal of the section DOCUMENTS of my Web site is to concentrate the documents dispersed today in the world. Thus, all the descendants can benefit from it. That was already the case for the galleries of photographs of my site like for the " Face's galleries " (Trombinoscope).

I thus invite the downward families of Paul Splingaerd and Catherine Li to forward itself of the photographs but also of the varied documents. There are obviously obstacles with the digitalization of the documents which are average the techniques and the goodwill. The scanner and the digital camera are the principal apparatuses allowing the final conservation and the diffusion of the documents currently on paper. This type of equipment now became common and, failing to have some directly with personal provision, it seems possible to to me to find solutions either at the office, or at a knowledge. Accordingly, it becomes quasi unforgivable not to try electronic filing. The documents can then easily be offered to all, for the good of all. Remain the "goodwill".......... That implies an effort of each one which feels concerned. It is not a question "to work" for the webmaster, it acts to preserve oneself of the lapse of memory. Please note that the webmaster gives the entirety of new information which comes to him, in real time, without restriction hormi the confidentiality required by some, and all that, without hope of profit and spirit of lucre or glory. Will know that a person in my situation collects more information than those which it delivers.

As you could note it, the participation of the families is extremely unequal whereas everyone "benefits from it" and has some the pleasure including very foreigners. By aillor, I invite the families to print the documents which I present because a Web site is very fragile, it can disappear very quickly. In my case, in the event of problem, it disappears in less than one year if I do not find a transferee.

HOW TO HELP THE WEBMASTER WITH THE PROFIT OF THE FAMILIES?

In the absence of being able to provide documents, it is relatively easy to the families to give the dates and the places of the various phases of the life of a close relation. That one does not forget the localities because they often have a great significance. Thus it is interesting to know that Lucie Splingaerd was born in Suzhou in Gansu and died in Monza in Italy.