FGB Booklets
CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT US WITH A DONATION ON PATREON
The French Genealogy Blog
Since 2009 - by Anne Morddel, author and BCG-certified genealogist based in France
Home Glossary Our Book FGB Booklets About Us Contact Gowns CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT US WITH A DONATION ON PATREON
Paris Genealogy
Book Review: L'Emigration française
This book is not new but we are newly discovering it, so it gets its review. We begin by not beating about the bush: it is brilliant. The contents are a collection of scholarly and very well researched and fully sourced essays on emigration from France to Algeria, Canada, and the United States. Each article covers a very specific group and era. We give here the Table of Contents, which are not easy to find on all the mentions of the book:
Le "voyage organisé" d'émigrants parisiens vers l'Algérie
L'Emigration française au Canada (1882-1929)
Les milieux d'origine de l'émigration aveyronnaise vers l'Amérique dans le dernier quart du XIXe siècle
Une émigration insolite au XIXe siècle, Les soldats des barricades en Californie (1848-1853)
Les passeports délivrés à Bordeaux pour les Etats-Unis (1816-1889)
Conscrits en Amérique. Le cas de l'arrondissement de Sarrebourg (Meurthe) 1829-1870
"Comme un oiseau sur la branche..." Emigration aux Etats-Unis et retour des Basques des Baïgori
Les voyageurs français et l'émigration française aux Etats-Unis (1870-1914)
Before jumping in with all the glee that this excites in us, we remind you that the French view history very much as a social science, science as in lots of statistics and social as in society, with never a thought of or interest in the story of history. Thus, these essays will give you a picture (with lots of charts and tables) of group behaviour but no gossipy revelation of someone's life, loves and losses that might have been discovered in the archives. Bearing that in mind, if your immigrant ancestor falls into one of the groups studied, you will receive two invaluable things: an understanding of the forces that may have influenced your ancestor to leave and, in the notes, a very good guide of where you could find the documentation about your ancestor's departure.
The two essays that we have put in blue text are concerned specifically with the poor workers of the Revolutions of 1848, discussed in the previous post. We have written about the workers' convoys to Algeria here. The essay about them in this book studies them in great detail. Pointing out that many of the workers in Paris had come from the countryside, hoping for work. The author, Yvette Katan, charts their origins. Most, it seems, came from the northern half of France. She quotes the reports of one of the doctors who accompanied the workers; he wrote that their poverty was extreme. Many had no shoes or coats. They had pawned everything they could, even their beds, in some cases. The government decree that authorized sending them had promised to each "7 to 10 hectares of land to farm, a house which the state would pay to build, free transport all the way to their new land, food for the entire family for the first three years." What starving worker would not accept such an offer?
The second essay we have marked in blue discusses those sent to California. Again, this was just after 1848. When the news of the discovery of gold in California was heard by the French authorities, they must have thought that the gods intended to smile their societal troubles away. Here was a way to get rid of even more of the Parisian malcontents and at less cost: hold lotteries, make certain that most of the winners Paris's poor, and ship them off to California. This, too, is incredibly thorough and gives a very deep understanding of these emigrants.
It does not, however, list the names of the emigrants to California, not even the lingotiers. To our knowledge, no published book gives their names. We are wondering if we should not write one ourselves. Dear Readers, do you think there could be an interest in such a list? Do let us know your thoughts.
©2019 Anne Morddel
French Genealogy
Fouché, Nicole, ed. L'Emigration française : Etude de cas, Algérie, Canada, Etats-Unis. Série Internationale no. 24. Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 1985.
Posted at 04:56 in Book and Magazine Reviews, Paris Genealogy | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: Alsace-Lorraine genealogy, BCG, culture, Dit names, family history, France, France archives, France birth records, France family genealogy, French DNA, French genealogy, French genealogy online, French genealogy records online, French genealogy resources, French genealogy word list, French Huguenots genealogy, French in California, genealogy, genealogy Alsace, genealogy Bordeaux, genealogy Lorraine, genealogy Normandy, genealogy Paris, genealogy research in France, genealogy research in Paris, genealogy Strasbourg, Huguenot genealogy, languages, learning, Morddel, professional French genealogist, professional French researcher
Interviews With the Last of the Paris Communards on RetroNews
Mostly, as French genealogy researchers, we tend to revile the Communards for having burnt the Paris town hall and destroyed hundreds of years' worth of parish and civil registrations. We tend to forget that they were the desperate poor. We tend to forget that they had endured a siege so long, so horrific and in such cold that Parisians were eating dogs, cats and rats, when they could find any still alive. We tend to forget that France had just been invaded and lost the Franco-Prussian War and was saddled with a very heavy bill to be paid to the victor.
The Communards saw themselves as freedom fighters driven by desperation, hunger and poverty to create a new order by smashing the old. Whether we agree with their ideals or not, we cannot help but sympathize with their sufferings and this may help us to understand. (Who among us has not lost judgement when forced to desperation by whatever unendurable suffering life has thrown at us?)
These memories recounted to the press by some of the last survivors of the Paris Commune are fascinating. If your ancestor were among them, it may open your eyes to more of their world.
Posted at 10:12 in Paris Genealogy | Permalink | Comments (0)
Paris Cemetery Records Online!
Very good news, indeed, from the Archives de Paris for anyone seeking to know where in Paris an ancestor was interred. Parisian cemeteries are overcrowded, as our photograph of Montmartre above shows, making it almost impossible (however delightful the stroll on a sunny day may be) to happen by chance upon the grave one seeks. It could be impossible, due to the French habit of digging up untended graves, tossing the bones into an ossuary, and reselling the plot to someone who will take better care of it. This is how graves are supposed to be tended:
What has long been needed by family genealogists is access to the interment registers, showing all entries, even of those long ago dug up. And now you have them online, on the website of the Archives de Paris, here. There is also a clear and complete explanation of the twenty current cemeteries of Paris. Through links at the bottom of that page, you can examine the annual burial lists for each cemetery or the daily burial registers for each cemetery.
The first set helps to locate the physical grave. Clicking on répertoires annuels d'inhumation, (the annual burial lists), takes you to a search form in which you can select a cemetery to search, and supply a name and range of years to search within that cemetery (the concept is identical to the way that civil registrations are searched by arrondissement, record type, name and date range on the same website). The results are each a string of images within the alphabetical range to search. Click on the eye and start looking.
You will then see the pages of the register for that cemetery and be able to find out where your ancestor's grave is (or was).
Remember the month abbreviations!
7re - September
8re - October
9re - November
Xre - December
You want to note the exact date of burial, as that is how you will search in the second set, the registres journaliers d'inhumation, the daily burial registers. On this search screen, you will select the cemetery from the drop down menu (we chose Bagneux), then enter the date of burial, date de l'inhumation.
Remember the European style of writing dates!
The tenth of July 1892 is written 10/07/1892
As before, you will get a string of the date range in the register to search. Click on the eye to see the pages and to read along to find the correct date. On the fifth page of this particular string, the tenth of July begins:
Here, you can discover the full name of the person buried, his or her age at the time of death, and the arrondissement where he or she died (this last allowing you to find the death registration, if you could not do so before). This register also tells exactly where the grave is. The registers styles and column headings vary from year to year and from one cemetery to another but they generally give the same information. If the remains were dug up and removed you will find in the "Observations" column the word "Repris" followed by the date of that sad administrative decision.
All is not as it seems. For our test search, we checked each cemetery's annual burial list for a particular name for the year 1845. The name appeared in none. We also found that, while many of the cemeteries were operational that year, the registers that early are not available online. Then, we began to check the daily burial registers and there, in Batignolles, we found our burial. Though the annual register existed and is available online, the original indexer had missed the entry. So, try both registers, if you have a date or at least the year of death. If the register for the year is not online but the cemetery was in existence, keep checking back for new additions to the registers on the website.
Have fun with this hunt!
Posted at 12:27 in Cemeteries, Paris Genealogy, WHERE in France Was Your Ancestor From? | Permalink | Comments (7)
Tags: Alsace-Lorraine genealogy, BCG, cemeteries, cemetery, culture, Dit names, family history, France, France archives, France birth records, France family genealogy, French DNA, French genealogy, French genealogy online, French genealogy records online, French genealogy resources, French genealogy word list, French Huguenots genealogy, genealogy, genealogy Alsace, genealogy Bordeaux, genealogy Lorraine, genealogy Normandy, genealogy Paris, genealogy research in France, genealogy research in Paris, genealogy Strasbourg, Huguenot genealogy, languages, learning, Morddel, professional French genealogist, professional French researcher
They're Up! Paris Bonanza on Family Search!
No slackers on this project. Barely had we announced that the City Council of Paris had approved an agreement between FamilySearch and the Paris Archives than the project was accomplished. Really, we are rather impressed.
Recall that this concerns the roughly two million replaced parish and civil registrations (l'état civil reconstitué) of the more than eight million that were lost in the Paris Communards' incendiary rampage. (They did not only burn down the City Hall and numerous other buildings where power was centred, they placed dynamite in Notre Dame and nearly blew that up.) The period covered by these two million replacements is 1500 to 1860. (Though the fire was in 1871, register books from 1861 and later had not yet been transferred to the central registry but were still in the individual city halls of the arrondissements and so, were not burnt, except for some of the 12th arrondissement.)
The index cards have been available online for years but to see the full registrations, one had to go to the Paris Archives to view the microfilm. Now, that no longer is necessary. The presentation on FamilySearch is, to our mind, utterly baffling and with no explanation whatsoever, nor do they seem to be indexed on FamilySearch. (The negative aspect of a rushed job is a lack of planning and preparation.) Thus, one must follow exactly the procedure one had to use in the archives.
Step One: Search the index cards (fichiers alphabetiques). They are arranged first by type, e.g. baptism/birth, marriage, burial/death. Within the type, they are arranged alphabetically by surname. Within the surname, they are arranged chronologically. Thus for the birth of a Maron, you first choose births (naissances), then type in Maron and, in the results, start reading through the years. Once you have found the person you seek, note the full name and the date of birth. For example: Caroline Maron, born the 29th of September 1844.
Use the website of the Paris Archives or FamilySearch to look at the index cards. (We really do suggest that you check both, for there are some old mistakes that seem never to have been corrected.)
Step Two: Look up the microfilm number in the catalogue. These are arranged by type (again, baptism/birth, marriage, burial/death being naissances, mariages, décès), then chronologically. Find the date span that includes yours, so, births of 29th September 1844 will be on microfilm number 5Mi 1/565. The microfilm catalogues are partially on the Paris Archives website and partially on that of FamilySearch:
Baptisms/Births from 1556 to 1859 (here also you will find what could be replaced for the 12th arrondissement from 1 January 1870 to 25 May 1871)
and, for those which were not burned but which were filmed, from 1736 to 1860, arranged by old, pre-1859, arrondissement (use this concordance); Familles Parisiennes has produced a nice description of the contents of each roll here.
Marriages from 1568 to 1859
and, for those marriages and divorces which were not burned but which were filmed, from 1736 to 1860, arranged by old, pre-1859, arrondissement (use this concordance); Familles Parisiennes has produced a nice description of the contents of each roll here.
Burials/Deaths from 1630 to 1859
Further Baptisms/Births and Marriages and Burials/Deaths from 1500 to 1859
Step Three: On FamilySearch, find the correct microfilm and start looking for your document. They are filmed chronologically, then by surname so, in our example, we read along to the 29th of September 1844 and then through the birth registrations arranged alphabetically by surname to Maron, Caroline. The links to the microfilm on FamilySearch are below, but now it gets annoying as some fool at FamilySearch decided to alter the system in the middle and give the titles of the rolls as dates rather than the Paris microfilm numbers (as any archivist or librarian will know, it is NOT a good idea to make partial changes to an established system) :
Baptisms/Births from 1556 to 1859,
microfilm rolls numbered 5Mi 1/1 to /1085
and rolls numbered 5Mi6/1 to 103
Marriages from 1568 to 1859, microfilm rolls numbered 5Mi 1/2000 to /2340 (the last roll contains some corrections, so be sure to check it)
Burials/Deaths from 1630 to 1859, microfilm rolls numbered 5Mi 1/1100 to /1576
For all those which were not burnt but which were filmed, from 1736 to 1860 (the V6 series of microfilms):
microfilm rolls numbered V6E/1 to /15
microfilm rolls numbered V6E/16 to /23/no 8
microfilm rolls numbered V6E/23/no 9 to V6E/29
No, it is not a breeze, but it certainly easier than booking a voyage to the Paris Archives, superb though they may be.
Posted at 17:04 in Paris Genealogy, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (5)
Tags: culture, family history, Family Search, France, French genealogy, genealogy, languages, learning, Paris, Paris genealogy, Parisian genealogy
Win a Prize for Your Genealogy Write-Up
We have had the pleasure of reading many of the excellent family histories written by you, Dear Readers. Some of them have been so good that we urge you to submit them for the top genealogy literary prize in France, the 2018 PRIX FLOUCAUD DE LA PÉNARDILLE - Dr DU CHALARD. Entry requirements are that:
The work be in French
It be your first work of genealogical or family history writing
It's length be at least one hundred pages, of which at least seventy pages must be of the body of the work
It must contain at least one genealogical tree
The value of the prize is 1500€. Is there anything nearly as large in the Anglophone genealogical world, we wonder?
Judgement criteria are based upon:
The quality of reference works and sources
The quality, placement, use and relevance of illustrations
The quality of the genealogical tree or trees
The correctness and completeness of any heraldic emblems (a common stumbling block for many in the Americas, but not of you, Dear Readers!)
The precision of the name index
The competition is open to all. To enter:
Send two typed or printed copies of your manuscript or publication, by post (one copy will be for the judges and one for the library of La France Généalogique)
Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for acknowledgement of receipt (you can buy French stamps online and print them at home here.)
You must agree, if you win, to the publication of a chapter on the sponsor's website
The deadline is the 18th of March 2018.
The postal address is: 12 rue Vivienne, Lot 3, 75002 Paris
The e-mail address is: contact@cegf.org
We urge you to give it a shot!
La France Généalogique is the sponsor of this prize so we thought we would give an update on their website, which is dismal in design but useful as to content. Please read our earlier post on the website, for not much has changed in the last seven years. The website where there is much to help you with your research is called Numéric.
Those sections that we find have been improved or new are:
Courses and talks offered
Much more assistance and help via the question and answer service
Links to what they have shared with FamilySearch
A members' service helping with palaeography
A list of agnatic (male line) names in their database, with a list of all names of spouses linked to each agnatic name. Very useful.
A members' service to look up and copy parish and civil registrations in the Archives de Paris.
So, if you have ancestors who lived in Paris, we strongly suggest that you join to take advantage of their excellent genealogical help. If any of you is an expert website designer in France, you might like to offer your services.
2017 Anne Morddel
Exciting News About Parisian Genealogy
Very exciting news has been announced by the City Council of Paris yesterday. After deliberating the proposal, the mayor has signed the approval of a project for FamilySearch to digitise the very weary microfilm of the "reconstituted" parish and civil registrations of pre-1860 Paris.
As dedicated readers of this blog will know, the Paris archives, along with quite a lot more, were torched by the Paris Communards in 1871. (Read that story here.) Something between five and eight million records, dating as far back as the 16th century, were destroyed. If your ancestors were from Paris and lived there any time from 1515-1860, their records – in some 5,000 bound registers - were destroyed.
Immediately after the fire, a group of researchers was formed and given the job of finding ways to recreate the information. They worked for 25 years. Copying parish and religious records, they managed to make a nearly complete reconstruction of the information for the years from 1802 to 1860. Working backward, it became much more difficult to find alternatives to copy. Roughly, 2.7 million registrations, or actes, were copied, in this breakdown:
1802-1860 2.4 million actes
1600-1699 5000 actes
1550-1599 5 actes
In the middle of war, 1941, the Paris archives began another reconstitution effort to find all available information on all Paris citizens since the Middle Ages not all ready found by the first reconstitution. This brought 200,000 mentions of people, mostly from lawsuits and other judicial records. As people who went to court tended to be those with money, these records preserve the identities of the wealthy and noble more than of everyday folk.
For a while now, it has been possible to search online the index cards to these reconstituted registers on the website of the Paris Archives, as in this example:
However, it is not possible to see the actual document without going to the Paris Archives and looking at the microfilm. These microfilm rolls, we assure you, are getting exceedingly tattered and the images murky, as you can see:
So, this news is exciting in that the images on the microfilm will be preserved for longer via digitising and they will be accessible online on both the FamilySearch website and the website of the Paris Archives. A boon for those researching Parisian ancestors. (Now, this must be something of a black eye for Filae, who are very keen to expand their offerings, and for Geneanet, who host the images of hundreds of Parisian court records. We suspect that the former will work out an indexing deal with the Paris Archives.) Sadly, we have no idea when this will take place but it is terrific news!
Posted at 13:56 in Current Affairs, Paris Genealogy | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: culture, family history, France, French genealogy, genealogy, languages, learning, Paris, Paris Archives, Paris genealogy
New Uploads to Help Find an Orphaned Heir in Paris
The symbiotic partnership that exists between Geneanet and Familles Parisiennes continues to bring good things for anyone researching Parisian ancestors. The latest contribution, almost all made by a single person, one Monique Drouhin, who must be a dynamo as well as remarkable, consists of images of very early nineteenth century court records from the Parisian justice of the peace courts, including guardianship records.
There are a few key facts you must know before tackling these new delights:
The courts of the Justice of the Peace in France were set up in 1790 and lasted until 1958. They were established to be a local court where people could take their family disputes and small cases, something of a small claims court and family court combined. With these courts, poorer people did not have to travel great distances and stay at inns in order to prosecute their claims. There was one justice of the peace court for each canton. In Paris, there was one for each arrondissement or borough.
Paris now has twenty arrondissements but in 1790 and until 1860, there were twelve, and their boundaries were completely different from what they are today. The Paris Archives give an excellent concordance for the old and new arrondissements. This will be needed if you wish to find the correct court used by your ancestors. If you have their address, you can find the current arrondissement for that road and then with the concordance, the old arrondissement number. (Most Paris streets and their history now have a page on Wikipedia and the current arrondissement is given there. This is easier than Google maps for this purpose.)
Geneanet has improved enormously since we last disparaged it here, many years ago. The nasty advertisements are gone, the searches are much, much better and it really has the best collection of family trees in France now. (So good are they that Clément Becle, a young cardiologist who writes a very interesting family history blog has written a long post about why he has moved his data and tree from Heredis Online to Geneanet.) Geneanet is not free and charges a fee for just about everything EXCEPT for the images uploaded by Projet Familles Parisiennes. Thus, the uploads that are the subject of this post are free to view.
While Projet Familles Parisiennes has an alphabetical index of all family names that appear in the thousands of pages uploaded, not all pages have been indexed. Thus, documents concerning the name you are researching may be available but you will not know it as they are not yet indexed. If you know an address or a related name, however, you might have some luck.
This group of documents are most easily accessed -- until they will be fully indexed -- via the page of links on Geneawiki. There, the documents are arranged firstly by the old arrondissement numbers and then by the new ones, in chronological order. The date range of what has been filmed so far is 1791 through 1813, but is different for each arrondissement.
These come from a deep and not easy to understand part of the Paris Archives and are a wonderful addition to Paris resources online. Do let us know if you have some success!
To learn more about researching Parisian ancestors, see our booklet on the subject.
Posted at 17:24 in Collages by The FGB, Paris Genealogy | Permalink | Comments (2)
Subscribe to the FGB
Websites of the Departmental Archives
Capital: Bourg-en-Bresse. Archives Numériques Départementales de l'Ain. Online: parish registers, civil registers, censuses. Wonderfully they also have put up the Tables de Succession, (lists of those who died and whether or not they left a will) and the Matricules, (military recruitment documents) for some communes. Being added in stages are the all-important notarial document registers.
Capital: Laon. On a very nice site that works well: parish and civil registrations, land records and maps, and many images of historical and genealogical value. There is a nice section on genealogy to help one get started. Additionally, it is possible via a different search page to see all documentation relating to a particular commune.
Capital : Moulins The parish and civil registrations for over 300 communes are now online and free. One must click an agreement form before access is allowed. Nice site.
Capital: Digne-les-Bains Online: parish and civil registers, annual indices, ten-year indices, censuses, land records.
Capital: Gap. Online: parish and civil registers through 1916, marriage banns, ten-year indices. Incredibly helpful people when contacted by e-mail; they really go out of their way to help further one's research.
Capital: Nice. Parish and civil registrations from the 16th century to 1914.
Capital: Privas. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, land records, Protestant registrations, military registers, and censuses from 1791 to 1911!!!
Capital: Charleville-Mézières. Online: the ten-year indices with a list of all communes, land records, parish registers and civil registers from the 16th century to 1890. Military conscription lists from 1867 to 1921, with a new index that can be searched by the conscript's name.
Capital: Foix. Finally! Online: Parish and civil registrations from 1551 to 1892, with ten-year indices up to 1902, and military conscription lists from 1884 to 1918.
Capital: Troyes. Online: ten-year indices, post cards of various towns and villages, land records, parish and civil registrations from 1552 to 1915, military enlistment records, probate indices (tables des successions), census returns from 1820 to 1931. Additionally, the Fichier Chandon has about 8000 names and biographical notes on families of the region. Works in Progress: 1) a collaborative index to the names on the census returns; 2) a surname index to the registrations -- now pushing 600,000 names.
Capital: Carcassonne. Online: parish and civil registrations from 1547 to 1872 and some ten-year indices. Just up: military conscription lists.
Capital: Rodez. Online: parish and civil registrations from the 16th to the end of the 19th century. There is a plan afoot to put notarial records -- not just indices -- online gratis. NEW: military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1921.
Capital: Marseille. Online: parish and civil registers, land records, censuses from 1836-1931, old post cards, military recruitment registers from 1872 to 1912. Probably the worst AD website of them all.
Capital: Caen. Online: parish and civil records and the ten-year indices and annual indices. Also some interesting pictures of the Normandy invasion.
Capital: Aurillac. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, censuses, alphabetic indices to military recruitment lists and the lists as well, photographs, and notarial records and Holocaust records that relate to Cantal. In 2010, the website won a prize for the way it is possible for users to index collaboratively the civil registrations.
Capital: Angoulême. Online: census records for 1842 to 1872, land records, teachers' notebooks, church inventories, old post cards of local towns, villages and sites. Parish and civil registrations are now online. At long last, the charge has been dropped and the site is now free to use.
Capital: La Rochelle. Online: parish, Protestant and civil registers, post cards, photographs of the Second World War, notarial records and entry lists (répertoires), military recruitment lists from 1859 to 1921, admiralty records, employment contracts for those sent to America (engagés) from 1606 to 1758, and quite a lot more.
Capital: Bourges. As with many, but not all, you must create an account. This will gain you access to parish and civil registrations, censuses, maps, military enlistment registers and indices to them. They have embarked on a big collaborative indexing project.
Capital: Tulle. Online: ten-year indices from 1802 to 1902, parish and civil registrations for all communes from their beginnings to 1902, EXCEPT for Brive-la-Gaillarde (see their own website: http://archives.brive.fr), census returns from 1906 to 1936, military recruitment lists, alphabetic death and will registrations to 1940, maps.
Capital: Ajaccio. All new! Online: Parish and civil registrations from 1548 to 1914, probate tables, land records and census returns. Very nice.
Capital: Bastia. Online: Maps, civil registrations from 1793 to 1902.
Capital: Dijon. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, censuses 1800 to 1936, indices to the military recruitment lists and the lists themselves from 1867 to 1921, court and judicial records, administrative records,maps, tables to notarial records, succession tables. NEW AND FABULOUS: scans of 170 registers of notarial records dating from 1310 to 1475!
Capital: Saint-Brieuc. Online: land records, parish and civil registrations, census records to 1906, will indices, post cards, posters, photograph collections, military recruitment lists from 1867 to 1909, scans of old newspapers, répertoires (chronological indices) to notarial records.
Capital: Guéret. New website! Online: Parish and civil registrations, maps, posters from the Second World War, census returns, military recruitment lists, and -- very nice -- alphabetic indices to inheritances.
Capital: Périgueux. New website! Online: historic maps, ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations, census returns through 1896, military conscription lists from 1887 through 1921.
Capital: Besançon. Online: Ten-year indices. Rumours that the censuses will soon be online. DREADFUL search facility. NEW! Civil and parish registrations begin to appear.
Capital: Valence. Online: parish registers, ten-year indices, civil registers up to 1852, with some up to 1916, notarial archives, land records, military recruitment lists from 1865 to 1921, census returns from 1790 to 1911; also many finding aids. NEW: Protestant registers with indices!
Capital: Évreux. Online: parish and civil registers, military recruitment lists, censuses, old postcards.
Capital: Chartres. Online: Parish and civil registers, military conscription lists, censuses, probate lists, land registry records, electoral rolls, church plans.
Capital: Quimper. Online: Maps, parish and civil registrations census returns, military recruitment lists from 1860-1913. Parish registrations from 1772 to 1909 have been indexed on FamilySearch. NEW: local maps with place names in Breton.
Capital: Nîmes. At last! Gard has its own website, previously having relied heavily upon TéléArchives at Brozer.fr which have the municipal archives of Nîmes and a large number of archives for Gard. On Gard's own website at the moment there are only the military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1915. Still, a fine beginning!
Capital: Toulouse. Online: Land records, parish and civil registers, military recruitment lists, marriage contracts from Toulouse from 1501 to 1739, censuses, insinuations from 1693 to 1790. The site is maddening in that images cannot be adjusted; there is no possibility to zoom in or out. The 1872 and 1886 census returns for Toulouse are being indexed by FamilySearch. Updates are ongoing and the site is improving.
Capital: Auch. Online: Finding aids, historic maps, military conscription lists and census returns. Parish and civil registrations are not expected to be online before late 2015.
Capital: Bordeaux. Online: Transcriptions of some parish registers, parish and civil registers and ten-year indices, maps, passport applications from 1800 to 1889, military recruitment lists from 1867 to 1921, register of deeds, wills, etc., 182 registers of the Admiralty of Guyenne, crew and passenger lists of departing vessels from 1683 to 1778. Click on GAEL to search. While there are some civil registrations for Bordeaux, most are on the website of the Bordeaux municipal archives.
Capital: Montpellier. Online: Military recruitment registers, parish and civil registers, censuses, land records, notarial records, post cards, maps, municipal meeting minutes. NEW: Copies of the Land Registry records, showing transfers of ownership -- the Table des hypothèques -- are now online.
Capital: Rennes. Online: Land records, parish and civil registrations for most but not quite yet all locations. For Rennes see the Archives municipales de Rennes.
Capital: Châteauroux. Online: Finding aids, maps, parish and civil registrations to 1902, ten-year indices, census returns to 1901. NEW: Complete military recruitment records from 1859 to 1921.
Capital: Tours. Online: Parish registers, ten-year indices, land records, old post cards and records of wills filed, military conscription lists. NEW: Land registers for Chinon, Loches and Tours from 1800 to 1955.
Capital: Grenoble. Much improved! Online: Ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations to 1892, census returns to 1906, military conscription lists from 1856 to 1921, scans of WWI family records, treasury records from the 13th to the 15th centuries.
Capital: Lons-le-Saunier. Excellent progress! Online: maps, postcards, historic photographs, parish and civil registrations from the 16th century through 1892, ten-year indices from 1802-1932, marriage banns and dispensation requests from the 18th century, military conscription lists from 1867-1921, registers of notarial records from 1694-1791, census returns from 1800 to 1911. This has to be one of the most helpful archives in the country.
Capital: Mont-de-Marsan. Lots of problems with this site, and many efforts to repair them, finally leading to a new site. Online: Parish and civil registrations, military recruitment lists, maps, town meeting minute books.
Capital: Blois. Online: parish and civil registrations, census returns, indices to military recruitment lists, maps.
Capital: Saint-Étienne. Online: Ten-year indices, parish and civil registers from 1469 to 1909. Census returns from 1810 to 1911, maps, 1906 inventories of church properties, postcards, military recruitment lists from 1865 to 1921, newspapers from 1873.
Capital: Le Puy-en-Velay. Online: Nice website which has parish and civil registrations, ten-year indices to same, military conscription lists, census returns, registers of notarial records. There is much, much more here than can be listed, so explore this site.
Capital: Nantes. Online: Parish registers, civil registers, censuses, land records, maps, old post cards, notarial records, military enlistment registers, WITH a surname index to them! Do not waste your time contacting by post or e-mail, as they brusquely refuse to be of any help at all.
Capital: Orléans. Online: Civil registrations from 1833 to 1902 are gradually being put online. About one third of all communes have been added. However, there are some that will never be online, for they were destroyed during the Second World War. Many communes have their own websites with their parish and civil registrations found online there. Nice new website, much improved!
Capital: Cahors. Online: Parish and civil registrations to 1902, including clerk's copies, census records, succession tables, military registers. This site has had some trouble but seems to be working properly as of November 2012.
Capital: Agen. Much improved! Online now: civil registrations of the 19th century, census returns, many maps and land records, photographs, old post cards, unique funds of local history and customs, and the recordings of the accounts of some Spanish refugees.
Capital: Mende. An all new website! Online: the parish and civil registers from the 17th century to 1902, photographs, maps, post cards, town histories, insinuations. Unusually, the municipal archives of the capitol city are at the same site. Nice little bit of cooperation, that.
Capital: Angers. Online: Parish and civil registrations, land records, ten-year indices. NEW! Military recruitment lists, cahiers de doléances and more.
Capital: Saint-Lô. Online: Historic maps, parish and civil registrations and ten-year indices, military conscription lists. Click on moteur de recherche, then on état civil. There is a nifty little video explaining how to use the search engine. Paris registrations from 1533 to 1906 for some towns have been indexed on FamilySearch.
Capital: Châlons-en-Champagne. New! Online: parish and civil registrations, maps, censuses, and land records. NEW! Military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1896.
Capital: Chaumont. Online: finding aids and land records are online. Gradually being added are: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, and notarial records. Here, one can also read the interesting "Notes généalogiques du Baron de l'Horme".
Capital: Laval. Online: parish and civil registers from the 16th century to 1882, ten-year indices, a data base created by volunteers of the details from the marriages of the 19th century, military registers, census lists from 1836 to 1906, land records, transcriptions of marginal notes from the parish registers. Mayenne is acknowledged as the gold standard of departmental archives online.
Capital: Nancy. Online: parish and civil registers up to 1882, land records, military recruitment lists from 1887-1921, census returns from 1872 to 1936, probate indices from 1849 to 1945, and letters patent from 1473-1508. As the archives are relocating, all is pretty chaotic, including the website.
Capital: Bar-le-Duc. Nice new website design! Online: Parish and civil registers, military conscription lists, census returns, land registry maps, old newspapers, illuminated manuscripts!
Capital: Vannes. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, military conscription lists from 1867 to 1921, maps, photos, 19th century local newspapers.
Capital: Metz. Redesigned site! Online: parish registrations, tables to civil registrations, photographs, maps, military recruitment lists. Work is underway to get the civil registrations online.
Capital: Nevers. Online: finding aids, list of communes, old post cards, cahiers de doléances, pregnancy declarations, censuses, military conscription lists (recently updated to include the soldiers of WWI), parish registrations and civil registrations are completed.
Capital: Lille. Online: Ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations, military recruitment lists, land records, 1906 census. If you are researching people from the capital, check the website of the Archives municipales de Lille at archives.lille.fr
Capital: Beauvais. Online: old post cards, parish maps, parish and civil registers, censuses, military registers. It is necessary to register with the site; this is free.
Capital: Alençon. Online: parish and civil registers to 1902, ten-year indices.
Capital: Arras. Online: Lots of advice, plus ten-year indices to parish and civil registrations up to 1912, census records from 1820 to 1886, military recruitment records through 1921, land records.
Capital: Clermont-Ferrand. Online: All parish and civil records, a wonderful collection of land registry files, images of clerical seals and finding aids, census returns, maps, military conscription lists from 1859 through 1921. Nice new website.
Capital: Pau. Now online: land records, finding aids, parish and civil registrations, Jewish registers, some notarial records, military recruitment lists from 1878 to 1921.
(65) Haute-Pyrénées
Capital: Tarbes. Online: Cahiers de doléances, census returns, military recruitment lists, maps, affidavits. The city of Tarbes has put up its parish and civil registers from 1611 to 1909 on www.archives.tarbes.fr. NEW: Parish registers from 1620 to 1792. Soon to enable collaborative indexing. Civil registrations from 1792 to 1915 are expected to be online in January of 2017.
Capital: Perpignan. Online : finding aids, civil registrations, military conscription lists through 1921 with alphabetic indices through 1935, census returns.
Capital: Strasbourg. Online: parish and civil registrations, and census records, now up to 1912. Also a very interesting discussion of an early 19th century manuscript of a history of Jewish people in Alsace, by Jacob Meyer.
Capital: Colmar. Nice new website. Online: the heraldic devices for each commune, a list of those who died in the two World Wars, a list of all of the mairies (town halls), civil registrations from 1793 to 1892, ten-year indices and lists of Jewish names, and the census of 1866.
Capital: Lyon. Online: Censuses from 1836, parish and civil registrations from 1527, military recruitment registers, maps, indices to notarial records, a very large collection on orphans. Collaborative indexing of both registrations and censuses is making this site incredibly useful. Rhône is the first department to allow the images of their ten-year indices and of their parish and civil registrations to appear on www.genealogie.com, though why you would pay there when you can get it free here is a mystery. For researching your ancestors from Lyon, see also http://www.archives-lyon.fr/archives/
Capital: Vesoul. Online: Land records, census records, civil and parish registrations, conscription registers, bureaux de succession registers. Exceedingly helpful staff. Ten-year indices for many communes can be found on the website of the local genealogy group, Serv@nc'nautes : www.servancnaute.fr
Capital: Mâcon. Online: land records, ten-year indices, parish and civil registers to 1902, censuses from 1836 to 1901, cahiers de doléances, succession tables, post cards, and a nice facility to see all that is available for each town. NEW: Indices to notarial records from 1790 to 1958.
Capital: Le Mans. Online: land records, parish and civil records from 1515 to 1892, military conscription registers from 1878 to 1922, manuscripts from private collections, a spoken dictionary (very cool!) census records from 1906 to 1936 (earlier census returns were destroyed), property records, historic maps, and town council minute books from 1787.
Capital: Chambéry. Online : maps, some ten-year indices, census records from the 16th to 20th centuries, parish and civil registers from 1501 to 1793 and from 1815 to 1860. Also: some old newspapers, indices to maps, posters, etc.
Capital: Annecy. Online: NEW! Parish and civil registrations, censuses and military conscriptions from 1860 to 1940, and maps.
Online: index cards to the surviving and reconstructed parish and civil registers to 1860 (the microfilm of these "reconstituted" parish and civil registrations prior to 1860 are on FamilySearch. Patience required.), birth registrations from 1860 to 1912, marriage registrations from 1860 to 1940, death registrations from 1860 to 1986, military recruitment registers from 1875-1909; lists of the first names of children accepted into care from 1742-1909, ten-year indices for the civil registrations from 1860 to 1984. Beautiful website. NEW! Interment lists for Paris cemeteries.
Capital: Rouen. Parish and civil registrations up to 1912 and in some cases up to 1935. Promised soon are maps. Passenger lists of French ships sailing from Le Havre are now online.
Capital: Melun. Online: Censuses, ten-year indices up to 1916, notarial records, parish and civil registrations, marriage banns, military conscription lists, World War One photographs.
(78) Yvelines and the old Seine et Oise
Capital: Versailles. Online: ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations to 1912 (to 1937 for some towns), military recruitment lists, censuses, land records, cahiers de doléances, community monographs (histories), remarkable indices to 114 towns in the arrondissement of Versailles civil registrations covering the years from 1843 to 1912 . Indices to notarial records dating from 1575 to 1899.NEW! Land ownership records -- matrices cadastrales.
Capital: Niort. Online: parish and civil registers, land records and census records. Nice, clean site. NEW: military conscription registers are now online.
Capital: Amiens. Online: old post cards, seals, parish and civil registrations, censuses, historic maps, local histories, seals, photographs of WWI, and.....(drum roll) a user's guide in English. Just up: military conscription lists.
Capital: Albi. Online: some parish registers, civil registers, ten-year indices, land records. It is necessary to register to use the site.
Capital: Montauban. Online: Ten-year indices, civil and parish registrations dating back to 1590; military recruitment lists, with alphabetic indices for some years.
Capital: Toulon. Online: land records, census returns, parish and civil registrations, ten-year indices, medieval notarial records, architectural records, cahiers de doléances, records about the liberation of Var during WWII, finding aids, a "genealogy database", an index to military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1921 and transcriptions of more than a million pages from the register of land sales. Constantly being updated.
Capital: Avignon. Online: parish and civil registrations, ten-year indices, finding aids, maps census records from 1836 to 1906.
Capital: La-Roche-sur-Yon. Online: parish and civil registers, censuses, notarial records, land records, old post cards, faire parts, notarial minutes and délibérations municipales, the World War I soldiers from the Vendée. Sadly, these archives have suffered two floods in 2016; the website explains the consequences in great detail. NEW: a database of 13,700 names of members of religious houses from the 18th century to 1903.
Capital: Poitiers. Online: parish and civil registers (now up to 1912), land records, the military registrations from 1867-1908, census lists (collaborative indexing in progress), tables of inheritance and probate records. Interesting: A collection of notes on cards made during the 1950s extracting further information on Protestants, abandoned children and more. NEW: notarial records!
Capital: Limoges. Online: Maps, finding aids, parish and civil registrations from 1737 to 1912, photographs, a medieval manuscript from Limoges, military recruitment lists from 1878 to 1921, inventories of parish properties from 1905. NEW: census returns from 1836.
Capital: Épinal. Parish registers from 1526, civil registers to 1905, ten-year indices, censuses for the years from 1886 to 1906. NEW: military recruitment lists, land records from 1807 to 1913, and town histories (monographs des communes).
Capital: Auxerre. Online: parish and civil registers. Census records, and now military lists from 1867 through the First World War.
Capital: Belfort. A very nice site with plenty online: parish and civil registrations, censuses, military registrations, and historic maps. Additionally, local archivists have created an excellent site of indexed data from the parish and civil registrations. It is a bilingual site: http://lisa90.org
Capital: Évry. Online: Parish and civil registers, censuses, historic maps, and 184 village and town histories written for the 1900 Paris Expo, as well as indices to notaires' minutes.
Capital: Nanterre. Online: maps (also for the old department of Seine from 1930 and for Seine-et-Oise from 1960); ten-year indices to the civil registrations through 1932 (but for one town); census records from 1891 to 1911, civil registrations for all towns from 1793 to 1918.
Capital: Bobigny. Much improved! Online: parish and civil registrations from 1523 to 1922, census returns from 1821 to 1936, electoral lists from 1839 to 1939, lots of postcards and photos. Plus, a very intelligent addition: links to municipal archives websites and to others that will be useful.
Capital: Créteil. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, historic maps, finding aids, census records from 1795 (!) to 1906. Nice, easy site to use. Wonderfully interested, knowledgeable and helpful staff.
Capital: Cergy-Pontoise. Online: Parish registrations from the 16th century to 1792, civil registrations from 1793-1900, ten-year indices, and census returns from 1817 to 1975, indices to probate records of Argenteuil from the 17th century to 1914, old newspapers.
Capital: Basse-Terre. NEW! Online: Civil registrations and military conscription lists. Site still under construction but very nice.
Capital: Fort-de-France. This is actually the website of BNPM - The Banque Numérique des Patrimoines Martiniquais. Online: the actes d'individualité of freed slaves, 1848-1851, military conscription lists from 1889 to 1921. NEW: many, many new registers concerning the slave populations from 1770 to 1899.
Capital: Cayenne. Online: finding aids only. Preparation to put parish and civil registrations online is under way. There is an excellent list of links to other research resources.
Capital: Saint-Denis. Online: no records are online, but there is a nice new site for the archives.
Badges of Honour
We Are Among Feedspot's Top 100 Genealogy Blogs!
Find Us On Cyndi's List!
Chefs-d'oeuvres by Our Dear Readers
The Boleat Family 1560-1912
Research by Marc Boleat on the origins of two brothers who moved from Brittany to Jersey in the 1870s, and their descendants. It will be of particular interest to anyone researching relatives in Jersey with a French origin.
The Forgotten Jews of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
This is getting rave reviews for it thorough and detailed research.
The Forgotten Basque Benedictines of Sacred Heart Abbey
A two-part article in EuskoNews. Very informative!
Récits et Souvenirs
The mémoires of Henri Soudée and of his parents. Soldiers, Communards, and immigrants to Martinique and the United States, their tales are fascinatingly gathered by our Dear Reader, Françoise Becker.
Bloga Collectanea
GeneaBlogie
The Research Journal
GeneProvence
Geneablog.org
Gen Briand
A La French Genealogy - Researching Your Ancestors From France, Belgium and French Canada
Alsace-Lorraine Genealogy
Book and Magazine Reviews
Collages by The FGB
Congrès national de Généalogie
Departmental Archives
Document Examples
FGB Free Clinic Case Studies
First Empire
French DNA
French Jewish Genealogy
Genealogy Travel and Toursim
History Plain & Simple
Methodolgy
Municipal and Communal Archives
Notaires and Notarial Records
Protestants & Huguenots
Swiss Genealogy
WHERE in France Was Your Ancestor From?
A Note On Searches
If a search brings you to a blank page, that post has been published in one of our booklets, (shown in the right-hand column) and is available for purchase.
The French Genealogy Blog •