He began to think a lot about this, enough so that he finally promised himself that he would do research on his genealogy. He wondered what would have happened to the information if all of his relatives had died before he had the chance to "interview" them. That made him wonder and worry at the same time.

René's mother, Edy Bodoux-Oertel (b. 1913) had documented (long-hand) all known data on family members. She told me that her cousin, William Robert Oertel (b. 1923) of Enschede, The Netherlands, was trying to make a family tree.

William or Willie --as he is called-- had collected a substantial amount of information on his own. The information includes names, dates and noted events. René contacted his uncle and used the latter's database as a start for his own. Another uncle, Victor Hugo Huitink (1901-1990) also had some documented information, which he gave to René's mother. He used this information as well. However for the Bodoux side of the family, René had to start from scratch.

René knew from military papers that a Richard Fortuné Bodoux was born in 1847 in Lille, France. When René's brother Paul visited the northern part of France on a vacation, he helped look for information as well to determine if this former soldier was an ancestor.

Not to their expectation, the local telephone books only showed a small number of Bodouxes, but none were relatives. Determined to uncover the mystery of their ancestors, Paul wrote to another Bodoux, Madame Mercedes Bodoux.

Adriana Henriëtte OERTEL ("Prul") 1918 - 1953. Photo taken in Malang,1940

To their surprise, she also happened to be very interested in genealogy, and had been looking for similar information in the archives in Lille herself. From her research, she found out an important fact: that René's grandfather was probably a bigamist. In the end, it appeared that she was not related, but she provided some key connections in the Bodoux line.

They knew they were still missing the earlier connection -- the one to the French Bodouxes. To their surprise, the "French connection" was found by coincidence when an acquaintance of Paul Bodoux (b. 1942), a Mr. Delforterie, who had been director of the Central Bureau of Genealogy in the Hague, was casually asked for the information after a lecture in France on genealogical lines among France, The Netherlands and Indonesia.

Mr. Delforterie made further contacts and the lost group of French relatives was finally restructured. Information on parts of the French line was provided by Jean-Jacques Taillez, who is a direct descendant of Blanche Marthe Bodoux, a daughter of Richard Fortuné Bodoux. Finally, the connection was properly linked.

Most of this research was conducted in The Netherlands. In addition to collecting documentation from relatives, the Algemeen Rijks Archief (National Archive) in Den Haag was the official starting point.

Here one can find all pertinent documentation of government officials and military personnel. René went there several times, but it seemed difficult to obtain the appropriate data. Despite the promise of some good genealogical connections, the research would have been too extensive.

René's father, Leon Edouard Bodoux (1896-1981)

Next, René went to the Central Bureau of Genealogy in the Hague, where they keep all the Dutch genealogical and family information. It is there that he discovered the most important information needed.

He asked to receive information on all family names of those who died in Holland from 1939 to 1993. The output was 100 data sheets with all the information required to conduct an appropriate research. These were also the Civil Service records of deceased Dutch. From here, Réne could jump from one card to another and recorded important descriptions. It was, however, rather strange that some data points did not match up properly.

René attributes the discrepancies to reconstructed records, since the originals were likely destroyed during World War II. Dates, names and birthplaces were slightly different from the correct information. Thanks to her crystal clear memory, Edy Bodoux-Oertel, René's mother, checked on the data and made the necessary corrections. She was indeed invaluable for the project.Besides looking for Bodoux in The Netherlands and France, René also requested information from Germany on the Oertel family. It was a hard study, since the name is very common there. Although he did obtain a copy of his great grandfather's birth certificate, further information was scarce.

The concluding step in this search was obtaining data from the Stichting Indisch Familie Archief (SIFA). (then in Den Haag, now in Amersfoort). René suggests anyone of Indonesian descent with European connections might want to visit their web site to review their services.

There is an introduction page in English, and one can locate a folder on more than 15,000 Dutch- Indonesian families. This is indeed a treasure trove for genealogists, as it provides plenty of information, photos, maps and papers on their search subjects.

From the rbodoux web site he established in 1997 to dedicate himself to genealogical studies, a net surfer might find a Bodoux, Oertel and de la Motte family trees which show interracial marriages. There is Dutch, French, Danish, German, and Indonesian blood in the line. Visit Indonesia Today for more information on Indonesia, a beautiful tropical land nicknamed the "Jewel on the Equator."

After years of piecing together his family tree, this is what René was able to ascertain:

René's father was born in 1896 and was the son of a French colonial soldier. His grandfather enlisted in the Dutch Colonial Army (K.N.I.L.) and was shipped off to Indonesia , then a vast and rich colony of the Netherlands.

While on the duty, he married an Indonesian woman from Banjarmasin (on the Isle of Kalimantan, formerly known as Borneo Island) and they had four children. Réne's father was one of them.

The grandfather from his mother's side was a German from Bavaria, and he was also a member of K.N.I.L. Through interracial marriages, his children's blood is a mix of Indonesian, German and Dutch (Frisian). Baby René was born in 1948 in Indonesia and moved to the Netherlands when he was four weeks old.

At that time, Indonesia had already declared its independence -- on August 17, 1945. In 1994 and 1997, after many years absent, René and his wife returned to his birthplace in Rantepao (Tanah Toraja or Land of Toraja) on the Isle of Sulawesi.

You'll find an exotic and eye-catching picture at the top in one page of René's web site, that of a keris --an Indonesian dagger—which is mystically believed to be able to protect its master from bodily harm. This pictured keris is one of his collection, which consists of several pieces, all considered family heirlooms. Most of them are centuries old and well crafted. René's love for cameras and photography contributed to the well-documented collection.

To date, his website has not resulted in as many familial contacts as he had hoped for. Until now, he has had only a few phone calls from relatives who heard that their genealogy was on the Internet.

Despite the small number of relatives who contacted him, he received many inquiries from people –mostly from the U.S. and Europe-- who wrote to admire his thorough and accurate interracial family tree, which was made with FamilyTreemaker (version 3.4 © Brřderbund) and was based on the NGS Quarterly style.

Rene and daughter Sonja

René Bodoux lives happily in The Netherlands with beloved wife Willy and two daughters: Sonja and Manon. He can be contacted at www.publishnet.nl/~rbodoux or through e-mail at rbodoux@publishnet.nl .

This story was written by Jennie Siat-Bevlyadi, a writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. To date, she has published 40 articles and she welcomes correspondence on new inspirational thoughts and ideas to include in her next writing projects. She can be contacted at jenniesb@hotmail.com.