The Magic Box at the Archives départementales de Paris

Genealogical research on those who lived in Paris being difficult, we like to tell of any and all tools that may be of help. We have found another magic box. In the Archives départementales de Paris is a fine creation of the archivists: an alphabetical card index of all the names that appear in court and some other records held in the archives, the fichier général des noms de personnes. It is quite a large collection that fills many, many drawers, forming part of the divider between two rooms. 

 As so many of the birth, marriage and death records of Paris were destroyed in the nineteenth century, this card index is most useful. For each name, there may be only one card, or there may be two or three cards for a more important personage with references to many documents. A sample card, on one Patrice-Thomas-Nicolas Dromgold, a priest at Chartres, can be seen below. The card tells that he died at an abbey in 1789 and indicates that there was no will and there were no heirs, succession vacante. The card also gives the call number -- DC6 32 -- for the original document, which can be requested. 

 In this case, the orginal documentation is in a bound volume of the Lettres de Chancellerie (the high court of the pre-Revolutionary government, the ancien régime).

 

The entry concerning Dromgold is the fourth on the page.

 

These may be small gleanings  but every little bit helps in genealogy.

©2012 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy