Goethals was born in Ghent (Département Escaut) on 4 June 1798 (16 Prairial of Year VI in the French Republican calendar).
He studied law at Ghent University and interned at the public prosecutor's office in Brussels.
On 4 February 1843, Goethals was seconded to the Royal Library with the task of identifying duplicate holdings in the Van Hulthem and the Ville de Bruxelles collections that could be sold or exchanged.
[1] Resistance to this mission within the Royal Library, sustained by head librarian Reiffenberg, led to his removal on 1 April 1853.
He died in Brussels on 10 May 1872, bequeathing his own collection of 1,882 manuscripts and 2,224 printed books to the Royal Library at his death.