As mentioned previously, there are a number of genealogy associations dedicated to tracking down those from the region of Savoie. Special mention needs to be given to the Centre Généalogique Savoyard de Paris et de la Région Parisienne (CGSPRP). This group has done an amazing amount of indexing of parish and civil registrations, and of liaising with other genealogy organisations working in Savoie. On their website, quite a lot of this is available to members.
One of their masterpieces is a book entitled Recueil de Mariages des Savoyards Dans les 20 Arrondissements de Paris, 1860-1892, produced under the auspices of one René Leger, back in the early days of computing from the look of the pages. No matter, it is really quite a phenomenal product of substantial labour. Someone went through all of the civil registrations of Paris for the second half of the nineteenth century and fished out the name of every Savoyard. The data is presented twice: alphabetically and chronologically (click on the images to enlarge them).
For those who lost track of their Savoyard ancestors somewhere in Paris, this is a tremendous help. We came across the book in the library of the Archives départementales of Paris and it is surely available in other libraries. The CGSPRP also have a number of lists of surnames from various villages, which can be downloaded at no cost. For those with Savoyards ancestors, this group would be most helpful with research. Recommended with gusto.
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An additional resource is this handy guide to the Savoie dialect, the Dictionnaire du Patois Savoyard, on the Internet Archive. Use this to read old letters from suspected Savoyards in the family, and possibly to verify their origins. Finally, for those unsure as to whether it is politically correct to use the term Savoyen(ne), Savoisien(ne) or Savoyard(e), here is a handy tract on the subject.
©2011 Anne Morddel
French Genealogy
As President of CGS-PRP, let me tell you that all looking for ancestors in Savoy are welcomed. We have many lists and we recorded more than one million acts. We count nearly half a million of persons in our genealogic basis.
Our main objective is to provide enough basis to guarantee the success of any visit to local archives. A.M.CHEVALLIER www.savoieparis.org
FROM ANNE: Thank you for adding this!
Posted by: André Marc CHEVALLIER | 14 February 2011 at 12:58