Blog Review - Mode de Vie aux 16e, 17e siècles

For quite a while now, we have moseyed over to the blog of Odile Halbert,  Mode de Vie aux 16e, 17e siècles, "Way of Life During the 16th and 17th centuries", and it is quite phenomenal, really. Madame Halbert, in the research of her own family in Haut-Anjou, has placed more than two thousand posts on her blog.

Hundreds of them are transcriptions of notarial records in their entirety. Inventories, wills, marriage contracts, rental agreements, disputes, guardianships, imprisonments, auctions, sales, etc. On and on and on, she transcribes, giving us a fabulous collection of samples of every type of notarial record. She does not post photographs of the documents, as this is usually not permitted by the archives. She is ferocious about protecting her rights and woe to the person who would lift any of her impressive work. Heisting the transcriptions would not be the point, but using them a models to aid in one's own transcriptions. Using her transcriptions, one can learn the standard language used and much more easily transcribe a similar document. It is an online archive par excellence. 

Madame Halbert's website, Histoire du Haut-Anjou avant 1789, is a treasure trove of a different sort, giving descriptions and photographs of parishes and of various aspects of daily life before the Revolution. It would be a good resource to any student of the era, and a great resource to anyone researching the same families. She also gives guidelines on how to begin genealogical research in the region.

There are dozens of family blogs and websites out there, but we have found none that gives such a monumental amount of transcribed notarial records. Very, very useful.

©2011 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

Comments

[Anne]

Isn't she amazing? So glad you like it.

[Monsieur C.]

Thanks Anne, as always, for pointing me to this tremendously informative site! After spending many hours reading Mme O.H.'s brandishments and curmudgeonly asides between her wonderfully thorough and scholarly research, I have a nickname for her : « la généalogiste grincheuse » (smile!). -- You may be interested to know that in a reply she made to a January 2011 comment posted on her blog, Mme O.H. stated that she was 72 years old!! (Bravo Madame!) May we all be researching and writing so insightfully at her age!