Obtaining Belgian pre-1796 information Thanks to Napoleon, a lot of registration regarding births, baptisms, deaths, marriages, etc started to happen in Belgium from 1796 on. This helped me get to a point where I know all names (and often years of death) in my paternal lines up onto the father of my paternal (great-)*grandfather who died in 1740. Where can I go on from here though? I seem to have run into a brick wall because I am unable to find any earlier information.

Well, the Belgian archives have a website, search.arch.be

You'll have to make a free account. When done and logged in, on the front page, you can choose between "state registers" (1796 - 1910), or the parrish registers (+- 16xx - 1796)

Then you'll have to pick a province, community,... and search for your ancester.