General Notes

The Birthplace of Lilly Ancestors   About 900 years ago, the Counts of Flanders had a great Castle, and there gradually grew up around this Castle a little town,called Lillie. Count Baldwin the Fifth,   surrounded the Castle and houses with a wall and so established the town of LILLE, FRANCE, the birthplace of our ancestors.    This was in 1030 and in all the years which have followed, LILLE has ever figures prominently in the history of France. Before World War I, it was the headquarters of the First Army Corps, and befor the war, it had a population of 200,000, and had beautiful boulevards and handsome squares, and was a great manufacturing city with many railways. The Germans during the war wrought great damage of about $380,000.00 to the city. French public opinion is intensely bitter over the inhuman treatment accorded the inhabitants of Lille, especially the inhuman treatment to its women and girls.