Joseph Amerlinck

Amerlinck was born in Ghent on 22 May 1862.^[1] After graduating from the School of Civil Engineering of Ghent University, in 1888 he set off for the Congo Free State,^[2] to assess the feasibility of building a railway line from Lukungu to Leopoldville.^[3] He later worked in Chile, where he briefly taught at the University of Santiago,^[4] and for about a decade in Guatemala, as director of a railway.^[1] Around 1905 he moved to Mexico, where his descendants became the family Amerlinck y Zirión.^[5] He died on 5 February 1915.^[1]