Finding online French records, Part 2: Navigating French departmental archives

Once you have found the webpage for the appropriate departmental or municipal archives (see here), the next step is to find the relevant information on the website.  To do this you should know a few basic phrases.  The first thing you want to find is the location of the online resources. The key phrases are archives en ligne "online archives" and archives numérisées "digitized archives", even just the terms en ligne "online" or numérisé(es) "digitized" might point you in the right direction.

Let's take a look at the Departmental Archives for Calvados in Normandy (here).  On the right side of the webpage you will find the following box:

You will want to click on the second item down "Les archives numérisées en ligne".  This will take you to a page that lists their online collections.  There are two sets of resources.  The resources of most interest to genealogists are in orange and unfortunately you must pay in order to access them ("Nos consultations payantes").  The three collections that require payment are:

• REGISTRES PAROISSIAUX ET D'ETAT CIVIL - Parish registers from the 16th century including baptism, marriage and burial records up to 1792 and civil registers since 1792  with birth, marriage and death records
• CADASTRE NAPOLEONIEN - Land maps first instituted by Napoleon
• LISTE NOMINATIVES - Censuses

These are three of the most common types of collections available on departmental archives websites.  The census, here "listes nominatives", will also sometimes be referred to as "recensements de population".  In some departments, these collections are free, but for Calvados a small payment is required. The rates (here) range from 2€ for two days to 200€ for a whole year.  Even if the collections are free, you may still need to register to use a departmental archives website.

Next, click the "consulter" button for "registres paroissiaux et d'état civil", probably the most important collection for genealogists.

 Now, let's take a look at the search form.

The first heading is "Vous connaissez le lieu?", "Do you know the place?".  In the first box you enter the commune you want to search for records in.  If you don't know what a commune is check this post. Under that box is a pull-down menu that will let you search by all the parishes and institutions in that commune.  For a large city you will have many choices, while a small commune may have only one parish.

Under the second heading you can search for a commune in an alphabetical list by clicking on the link in green.

Under the third heading, we can limit our search by date. You can put a single year in the box marked "Exacte" or a range starting with "Début" and ending with "Fin".

Finally, we have the heading "types d'actes", "types of records".  Here are the key terms:

• Baptême - Baptism
• Mariage - Marriage
• Sépulture - Burial
• Naissance - Birth
• Décès - Death
• Table décennale - (an index for civil records covering a ten year period)

When you are ready to search, make sure you hit "OK", not "ANNULER" which will clear the search box. Even if you have haven't paid yet, you can search and see what records they have; you just won't be able to view the images.  Play around and get a feel for the materials they have.  You can also try navigating other departmental archives with your new arsenal of words and phrases.

If you are still struggling you can use Google Translate, you simply need to enter the URL.  One limitation is that it will only translate regular text, not text in images. 

Finding online French records

Many French records are available online.  You will usually find records at the departmental level. For a description of French administrative divisions, please consult this earlier post.  Many records like civil records, parish registers, and censuses are kept at the departmental archives.  Fortunately, many of these records have been digitized and are free and easily accessible. Lists of archive websites can be found on the following sites:

• ArchivesGenWeb on FranceGenWeb - A list of departmental archives with a listing of the online content.  The list is not necessarily up-to-date or complete, and the page is in French.
• Online Departmental Archives on GeneaNet - A similar list of departmental archives with similar information in English.

Each department is separate and may have a very different set of records available online, from very extensive offerings to none at all. If your ancestors lived in a city, records may be available through a municipal archive as is the case with the city of Nantes (see earlier post).

Next time, I'll present some key words that you will need to navigate the websites of French archives.

The little bits, spelling and alphabetization

Not all parts of a name are created equally. Many names include function words like articles and prepositions. For English speakers, this type of formation is somewhat unfamiliar; English names don't include the definite article the or the prepositions of. However, in other languages, surnames that include these words are very common.

Names that begin with function words create a number of difficulties for genealogists due to their often inconsistent treatment. There are three main issues you have to consider.

One or more words? There is a lot of variation in terms of whether the parts remain separate or are written as a single word. The preposition van "of" is characteristic of many Dutch names, including the 8th president of the United States, Martin Van Buren. It originally indicated the place of origin of the bearer of the surname and in Dutch it is left uncapitalized, Vincent van Gogh, literally Vincent of Gogh. In contrast, the Vanderbilt family, a prominent American family of Dutch origin, treats the name as a single word instead of van der Bilt "of de Bilt". You may also find in some cases a compromise where the name is written as a single word, but with internal capitalization, like VanBuren.

Disappearing words. The second issue is that from generation to generation or even record to record the function word may disappear and then reappear. For example, on the marriage record of my 6th great grandfather, Jean Baptiste Blais, his mother is listed as "marie marguerite roi":


However, on her own marriage record from June 13, 1726 in Saint-Vallier, Quebec, she is listed as "margueritte Le Roy":


Both records are available as a part of the Drouin Collection on ancestry.com.

Alphabetization. The final issue is how these words are alphabetized. You will find rules for alphabetization if you consult the MLA style guide or the Chicago Manual of Style, but don't expect these rules to be consistently followed. Be prepared to consider all options. This has been of special relevance to my research into my ancestors in Brittany.

In Lower Brittany names with a definite article are everywhere. My great grandmother, who was born in Nantes, had ancestry split between Lower and Upper Brittany. Her mother's ancestors were all from Lower Brittany, while her father's ancestors were from Upper Brittany. The division between the two parts of Brittany is partially linguistic. In Lower Brittany, Breton, a Celtic language, dominated, while, in Upper Brittany, Gallo and French, Romance languages, were the norm.

This linguistic divide is also reflected in the naming practices. I have 14 different surnames with the definite article Le among my ancestors in Lower Brittany, including Le Bourhis, Le Hiaric, Le Joudec and Le Bacquer. In contrast, I have yet to encounter such a name among my ancestors in Upper Brittany. In indexes from Lower Brittany, such as those from the commune of Plouguernével where many of my ancestors lived, names with an article are typically alphabetized by disregarding the article. For example, the name Le Bourhis is listed under "B" and is written as "Bourhis (le)". However, in indexes in Nantes where many in the family later migrated, the name Le Bourhis is found alphabetized by the letter "L" and is simply listed as "Le Bourhis". This does make some sense. In Plouguernével, because of how common names with the article are, it makes more sense to disregard it to avoid half the names being in the "L" section, but in Nantes where it is less common, this is less important.

In my own records, I generally take these names as a whole and just list the surname as "Le Bourhis". I think this is simpler and less confusing.

Beyond French 101: It's all relatives

What you need to know depends on what you are using a language for. Fortunately, what you need to know to read a record is often much less than you would need in other contexts, like having conversation. Even if you can't read every word, you can still get a lot out of records. The key for making effective use of records is knowing the right structures and vocabulary.

Not surprisingly one of the most important vocabulary domains for a genealogist is the terminology used to describe different relatives, what linguists call "kinship terms". If you took a language class in school, you probably know the basic terms for the members of a nuclear family, such as "father", "mother", "son", "daughter", "brother" and "sister". You may even know a few others like "grandmother", "grandfather", "uncle" and "aunt". These are all essential terms and, if you are new to a language, This is the place to start.

Take the following excerpt from the marriage record from Québec City of my 9th great grandfather, Guillaume Paradis, which is available on ancestry.com in the Drouin Collection:

Guillaume Paradis fils de Pierre Paradis et Barbe Guion ses pere et mere
Guillaume Paradis son of Pierre Paradis and Barbe Guion his father and mother

In just a few words, you encounter three basic kinship terms fils "son", père "father" and mère "mother" in a somewhat redundant, but very common, formulation. Don't worry too much about the accent marks; they are not that common in handwritten documents.

The basic kinship terms in French include:

père father
mère mother
fils son
fille daughter
frère brother
sœur sister
grand-père grandfather
grand-mère grandmother
oncle uncle
tante aunt

Going further: In-laws
While these terms are essential to your genealogical research, you will encounter other relations in your research that may be of great help. These include cousins, nephews, nieces and in-laws, who may be listed as sponsors or witnesses on different records. '

One of the more useful terms I have found in dealing with civil records in France is beau-frère "brother-in-law". On the civil marriage record of my fourth great grandparents, Louis Charles Le Bourhis and Marie Anne Le Bacquer, a brother-in-law is listed:

En présence de Michel Le Corre âgé de vingt sept ans, profession de cultivateur à Plouguernével départment des Côtes du Nord qui déclaré être beau frere du contractant
In (the) presence of Michel Le Corre aged 27, profession of farmer in Plouguernével department of Côtes du Nord who declared (himself) to be the brother-in-law of the contractant

The reason that this particular relationship is very useful is because many indexes to marriage records are listed only by the groom. This particular record allowed me to search a table décennale, an index to French civil records which covers a ten year period, and find the marriage record for Louis Charles' sister, Margueritte Le Bourhis, in the online archives for the department of Côtes d'Armor. This is one good way of finding records for your ancestors' female relatives.

The word beau-frère also illustrates the way words for in-laws are formed in French. All you need to do is add beau before the appropriate kinship term. You may already know this word which means "beautiful". For women you need to use the feminine form belle. There are also plural forms for both masculine (beaux) and feminine (belles). Now, if you already know the basic terms, you can add six more:

beau-père father-in-law (pl. beaux-pères)
belle-mère mother-in-law (pl. belles-mères)
beau-fils son-in-law (pl. beaux-fils)
belle-fille daughter-in-law (pl. belles-filles)
beau-frère brother-in-law (pl. beaux-frères)
belle-soeur sister-in-law (pl. belles-soeur)

Exploring your linguistic heritage #2: Embracing complexity

It is important when we think about our ancestors that we don't make too many assumptions based on our modern situation. Many Americans live in a very monolingual world. We speak and write almost exclusively in English and every thing that documents our time here is written in English.

However, this is a peculiarly modern situation. Before the 19th and 20th centuries, most people lived in large multilingual empires. In the British Isles today, Celtic languages like Gaelic, Cornish and Welsh have been relegated to often shrinking communities at the peripheries, but if you were to go back to Shakespeare's time you would find large areas where languages other than English dominated. For example, as late as the 1890's Scottish Gaelic was the majority language throughout the Scottish highlands.¹

Be prepared for a degree of complexity that may be quite strange to us today. Many of our ancestors would have encountered many different languages in their lives. Records may have been produced in several different languages. It is very common for church and synagogue records in the same place to be in one language and government records to be in another. Throughout the world, Catholic church records were commonly kept in Latin. For my Schoendorf line in Saarland, I have church records in Latin and civil records in German and French. A single area may have changed hands, sometimes several times, and each time with a change in the language of administration. If your ancestors lived near a border, don't be surprised to find that the languages of the records changes from time to time.

To make things more complicated, your ancestors may not have even known the languages that these records where in. In some cases, they may have spoken a dialect very different from the standard form used in writing or they may have spoken a completely unrelated language. In other cases, your ancestors may have been comfortable in more than one language, switching from one to the other depending on the situation or need. The situation may even have changed across generations.

As always, be careful what you assume. Just because your ancestors were from France doesn't mean they spoke French. They may have spoken a language like Basque, Breton, German or Flemish. Conversely, just because they are from a region where one of these languages was spoken doesn't mean they didn't speak French. You have to weigh the available evidence carefully.

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1. Kenneth MacKinnon. "Scottish Gaelic Today: Social History and Contemporary Status," in The Celtic Languages, ed. Martin J. Ball (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 491-535.

The Bureaucratic Morass: Navigating French Records

The French Revolution brought us two things, a way of organizing the state and a word for describing it, "bureaucracy". Of course, government has always taken place at different levels. Some terms used to this day, like "county", are rooted in feudalism. Literally, a "county" is the domain of a count. Other terms for places are related to the organization of the church, for example, "parish" in Louisiana. Modern states have also added many other terms to an already complex vocabulary for the various divisions of the state.

For a genealogist, the many different levels of government can present difficulties. These words are in a sense untranslatable. The meaning of a term cannot be understood without reference to the particularities of the organization of a country. For an American, the term "state" has a significance which it will not have for other speakers of English. Thus when approaching a new country, it is important not only to translate the names of the various units of organization but understand the system on its own terms.

Making your way in France
The different levels of organization in post-Revolution France present their own particular difficulties for genealogists. The largest unit is the "région". The names of the regions will probably be the most familiar to you. They include "Alsace", "Aquitaine", "Brittany" and other famous names. If you have a family tradition concerning where your family is from in France, the names of the regions may provide important clues. However, you need to be careful because the names of regions may not always correspond to the more traditional use of these terms. The city of Nantes was traditionally a part of Brittany, but now belongs to the Pays de la Loire region.

The next level down is the "départment". This is the second most important level for genealogists. Departments maintain their own archives, many of which can be easily accessed online. In my own research, I have extensively used the websites for Côtes-d'Armor and Morbihan in Brittany and Loire-Atlantique in Pays de la Loire.

Below the department level are the "arrondissement" and the "canton". You can usually just ignore these levels.

Finally, you come to the "commune". The commune is the most important level for genealogists. This is the level at which most records are collected. So, if you are looking for a marriage, death or birth record, you will need to figure out the commune name.

So, to recap, you need to identify both the commune and department in which your ancestor lived. The department will tell you where you need to look for an archive with the correct records. Once, you have found the right place, you will need to find the records for the commune. Only knowing the birthdate and birthplace of my great-grandmother, I have been able to trace back her ancestry to before the French Revolution across three departments.

Online French Records - Nantes

Thanks to my discovery of online records in France, I have had a couple of very productive months of genealogy. The branch that had long been the one that I knew least about has grown substantially over the last several weeks and continues to do so. This is the branch of my great grandmother who I wrote about in an earlier post. She was born in Nantes, France.

Many French records are kept in the departmental archives. France is divided into 100 departments. The department is one of the most important administrative divisions. If you are looking for records, you will have to figure out what department your ancestors lived in. Nantes is in the department of Loire-Atlantique (formerly Loire-Inférieure). The departmental archives have an extensive collection of online records, including Parish records of baptism, marriage and burial from the 1500s to 1792 and civil records of birth, marriage and death from 1792 to the beginning of the 20th century. In order to do effective research you will also have to find out the commune that your ancestors lived in. The commune is the smallest administrative unit and the most important for tracking down the records.

My great grandmother was born in the commune of Nantes in the department of Loire-Atlantique. However, in this case, the commune records are not kept in the departmental archives like the rest of the communes of this department. Nantes, the largest city, has its own municipal archives with the same types of records in addition to a number of other online collections of records, pictures, maps and photographs. Several indexes are provided for locating records. You should start with the table décennale which provides a ten-year indexes for records. For my great grandmother, my search for her birth record would start with the table décennale of births (naissances) for 1893-1902. On page 212, you will find the entry for Suzanne Jeanne Gardahaut. This entry will point you to record #343 in the register for the 6th canton in the city of Nantes for the year 1900. With this information I can begin my search of the appropriate register and find the birth record. In this same set of records, you will also find the birth record for my uncle Léon Eugène Gardahaut (pictured above). However, because he was born before my great great grandparents married, he is listed under his mother's surname, Le Bourhis.

Once you have found a record, it will often give information that will help in finding other records. For someone who has done genealogy mainly in the US, you will probably be pleasantly surprised by how informative the records are.