Introduction
On December 7th 1295 in the Westflamish Brûges (now Belgium) lived a woman
who has been written in the chronicles as Ave Slinx. Except that she lived in Brûges
and was not exactly rich -- we know here name from a taxcharter in which she was assessed
for only three pennies -- we know nothing about her. Yet, there still are some reasons to
assume that this Aafje Slings is the oldest-known member of a family which lives on until now,
more then 700 years...
The origine of the name Slings (in the charters also spelled as Slinx, Slincx, Slincks,
Slinckx, Slinkx of Slinks) is not quite clear. The medieval Dutch dictionary mentions two meanings.
Both of them were already used in the 14th century. The first one is neutral: left;
the second one has a negative meaning: wrong or cunning. The last one
lives on in the Dutch expression slinkse streken (cunning tricks). However, it's a
fact that none of the estimated 25 generations which separate us from the Flamish Ave
has taken the opportunity to get rid of this name. You can read their story on the
following pages:
These page's are based on the -- yet running --
research of Gert Slings from Papendrecht (Holland)
and Hubert Slings from Steenwijk (Holland) and
revised till 24 maart 1997. This frameless version will not be updated anymore!!!
They show the best results in Netscape from v2.0 with a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.
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