The Revolution brought full citizenship to Jewish French on the 27th of September, 1791. Napoleon did not retract it (as he retracted the abolition of slavery) but he did issue an edict that has proved invaluable for genealogists (given above in the Bulletin des lois). With the Décret de Bayonne, issued on the 20th of July, 1808, he ordered that all Jewish people in France or immigrating permanently to France who did not have a fixed and hereditary surname be required to choose one.
These registres d'options de noms 1808 became a de facto census of the Jewish people of France (to be followed in some places by a real census a year later). The numbers are interesting. According to a list in the Archives nationales (code F19 11010) there were 46,054 Jewish people in France who chose permanent names. The majority were in the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin (with some very legible examples for the city of Mulhouse), and Moselle. In each, the head of a family, usually the husband and father, gives for each family member his or her name, date and place of birth, and the surname and forenames chosen. The registrations have the appearance and structure of any other acte d'état civil in 1808.
The originals are in the communal or the departmental archives of the region where they were first recorded. Summaries and reports on these options are in the Archives nationales. As with any such documentation, not all have survived. Those in Strasbourg were burned in the bombing during the Franco-Prussian War, for example, and those of Moselle were destroyed during the Second World War.
The excellent Cercle de Généalogie Juive offers for sale from their (bilingual!) site volumes by the late Pierre Katz, an expert on Alsatian Jewry, of extracts of the data from the registres d'options de noms for the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, Moselle, and Meurthe-et-Moselle. Most helpfully, they also have an alphabetical list on the website of all the surnames for Bas-Rhin, showing the villages where they were declared.
According to many, the registres d'options de noms 1808 are where French Jewish genealogy begins.
©2010 Anne Morddel
French Genealogy
Excellent report on the 1808 Bayonne decree. However, one small quibble. In fact, many French Jews consider that French Jewish genealogy really began with the Denombrement (Census) of 1784, which enumerated the Jews who were "tolerated" in Alsace.
When the Vichy regime sought to keep calm by stating that their interest was only in deporting Jews who had been born elsewhere, and had no family history in France, it was to the 1784 Census that most Jews turned to prove their long history in the country. Alas for them!
The 1784 Census, along with an Index done by my husband and me, is also available from the Cercle de Genealogie Juive in Paris at:
http://www.genealoj.org/New/texte/page06.php
Rosanne Leeson
From Anne: Thank you Rosanne! The 1784 census is on target as the subject of a future post.
Posted by: Rosanne Leeson | 03 November 2010 at 01:17