A journey through landscapes and lineage — where family history met the vast American West.

In 2008 we boarded our flight in Brussels with a familiar sense of anticipation. We were not just travelling across the Atlantic — we were travelling into living chapters of our own family story.

Our first stop was Denver, Colorado, where we were warmly welcomed by David and Sharon Ehler. Sharon descends from William Van Landschoot, who settled in Moline, Illinois in 1851. Standing together in Colorado, so far from Belgium and yet bound by a shared name and history, I felt once again how migration reshapes geography but never erases origin.

From Denver we continued to Colorado Springs to meet relatives descending from Michael Van Landschoot, grandson of Phillip, who had established himself in Munising, Michigan in 1906. Listening to their family stories — stories of work, endurance, and adaptation — I was reminded how every line in a genealogy chart represents courage at some decisive moment.

Leaving the circle of family for a while, we turned toward Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. Seeing the monumental faces carved into the granite was impressive, almost overwhelming. Yet what moved me most was the awareness that our own ancestors, though uncarved in stone, had shaped lives and futures just as profoundly within their own sphere.

Through Cody, Wyoming we travelled onward into Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone was simply unforgettable. The geysers erupted with raw force, the air smelled of sulphur and pine, and wildlife moved freely through vast valleys. Standing there, I felt small in the best possible way — aware of time measured not in centuries, but in millennia.

Our road carried us further south through Pocatello, Idaho, the “Potato State,” and onward to Salt Lake City, Utah. There we received a private guided tour inside the cathedral. One detail touched me deeply: the magnificent organ had been built with the expertise of Belgian organ specialists. Even here, thousands of miles from home, a Belgian note resonated — literally and symbolically.

We then visited Mesa Verde, Colorado, where the ancient cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans cling to the rock faces. It was humbling to stand before a civilization that flourished centuries before European settlers arrived. At the Four Corners, where four states meet, we paused — aware that journeys, like maps, are defined by crossings and intersections.

After completing this wide western loop, we returned to Denver before travelling east to Rockford, Illinois.

In Rockford we met Bob Landschoot, descendant of four brothers who had settled around 1890 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. We also met descendants of Camil Van Landschoot, who emigrated in 1906. These were not formal genealogical meetings; they were warm conversations around tables, shared laughter, comparisons of old photographs, and quiet recognition of shared roots.

What made the 2008 journey special was the combination of scale and intimacy. From the immensity of Yellowstone to the warmth of family homes, from presidential monuments to immigrant stories, everything seemed connected. Across mountains and plains, one truth became clear to me: family history is not only preserved in archives — it lives in people, in voices, in embraces.

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The archives give us structure, but it is these meetings that give the family its soul.