There are 8 French Genealogy tutorials and other research help available here; Dates, Phrases, French Handwriting, Baptism, Birth, Marriage, Death/Burial,. There are addition tutorials on navigating particular websites: Navigating the French Archives, navigating the State Archives of Belgium, navigating census records, and navigating the 1800s of France and Belgium, and the early military records at “Memoires de Hommes” 1680 – 1815…and a lot more.
Please proceed to each tutorial in the order as it is given. Remember, you are on a path to read, understand, and extract only the pertinent data from records, and know enough to network and navigate through the French websites. Please don’t rush, take your time, take one sample at a time, digest it, before moving onto the next one.
A few things you need to know about researching your ancestry in France and Belgium.
- Always check the Indexes in the archive record first. They usually start at 1793, though you can sometimes find indexes for earlier years in certain towns.
- Navigate to the online archives of the department you’re researching. Depending on how that department is laid out, you should be able to find ‘en ligne archives’, or a page that tells you to choose between civil registers, recensements (census) or Registres matricules. In this exercise, you’ll click on Civil actes (actes de registres). It should bring up a page where you can search through the communes. It will either be a drop down box when you click on the commune form or there will be a little box next to the Commune space. Click on that and you should see alphabetical letters along the top of the page, with names of towns underneath, click on the ‘letter’ that begins with your town, then scroll down to that name and click. You will now see years available for that town. Look for “TD” (that is the index) The Index will be divided by years, actes de (of) naissance/ne’s (birth), mariages (marriage) and deces (death). Click on your years and you can start looking.
- Maiden names are always used for married women
- Adding an “e” at the end of words means it is in feminine form. example né (masculine) for women, née (feminine) for women
- When in doubt of sex of child, look at these; né/le/un are masculine, neé/la/une feminine, in describing the baby’s birth, sex and name
- During Revolution: The ancien régime dissolved, and the Republic of France created departments labeled with numbers, with regions; Belgium has provinces and regions;,
- People from France are usually called “The French People”
- French Belgians are called Walloons (Wallons)
- Southern Belgium is the French speaking part known as Wallonia
I’ve provided flash lists on common words found and used in French records to print out and study. You’ll need to refer to when examining records. There are free online lessons, French language programs, and workbooks, new and used, available at Amazon.com to help you on your way. You will have to learn some French words and phrases if you want to communicate with fellow French genealogists and when you’re visiting French genealogy sites, (though the online translations have improved)
Here is a an introduction in French, I use from familysearch.org (with some improvisions) when I’m connecting with French and Belgian archivists and genealogy groups:
Je suis une l’americain, Je n’ecris pas bien le français,. Je suis désolé (or just désolé). Puis-je écire en anglais?
Translates to:
I am an American. I do not write French well. I am sorry, Can I write in English?
With today’s updated online translation tools you could add:
‘traduction en ligne” ( online translation)
Do not become frustrated. As in all things, it takes time, study and practice to get where you want to be. If I can learn to do it, so can you!
Now, onward to Tutorial 1 – Dates –>
