Have you ever been to Belgium? If so, did you visit your ancestors' towns?
I went to Brugge a few years ago, to do some research in the provincial archive there. While I was there I visited Moerkerke, the farming village where my Coppens ancestors lived until 200 years ago. There were no buildings left from their time (even the village church was from the 19th century), but the surroundings of the village probably had not changed much.