The French Genealogy Blog

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letters X, Y and Z

Well, Dear Readers, we reach the end of this marathon with nothing but respect for the bloggers who participated and produced such consistently interesting writing on their French genealogical work. Below are our selections from the final posts.

• For the letter X, many chose the subject of how it is used to indicate an unknown person. Des racines lozériennes et bourguignonnes chose to discuss anonymous parents in birth registers, or né sous X, about which we wrote here.
• Secrets et ancêtres gives a superb example of the detailed research necessary in the effort to identify a father not named in a birth registration.
• GeneaBreizh reminds us that the letter X in a register can be the abbreviation for the tenth month of the year, in the Julian calendar, which is December. We give that and the other month abbreviations in our French Genealogy Glossary.
• De Branches en branches looks at the mark of X or a cross used when a person did not know how to write their name.
• Généa79 looks at Series X in Departmental Archives, which covers abandoned children, as well as at the issue of unnamed fathers.
• Catherine Livet tells an astonishing tale of the public exhibition of a woman's corpse in an effort to identify her.
• Des racines lozériennes et bourguignonnes surely deserves a prize for the best subject for the letter Y, Yersinia pestis, the plague.
• Une Colonie agricole discussed the Zouave regiments of the French Army.

Bravo!

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letters U, V and W

The end is in sight, Dear Readers. For the letter U, many bloggers chose to write about uniforms. Unfortunately, none of them gave any aid in uniform identification, so we do not include them here. The letter W presented a problem for many, as there are not many words in French beginning with that letter; many resorted to variations of "Wow" or to words in other languages. There were quite a few posts about wagons, French for railway carriage. Généa79 admitted defeat gracefully by pointing out that the letter W was not even in the French alphabet until 1948.

These are the posts that we believe may be of most use to you in your French genealogical research:

• SL Passerelle looks at undertaker records in Louisiana. Throughout the ChallengeAZ, this blog has been quite fun in showing how a French researcher uses American records.
• The wonderful archives of the AP-HP look at the records of emergency medical workers in Paris on their facebook page.
• GénéaTrip looks at the issue of spelling variations in names.
• Once again SL Passerelle shines this time with a survey of resources.
• Archivistoires gives a brief explanation of Series W in Departmental Archives, a series which gets too little attention.

UPDATE:

In response to this post, Madame K wrote to suggest for the letter W, something on Wallis-et-Futuna. None of this year's participants chose the subject but we did write about it last year here.

 

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter T

For the letter T, the bloggers contributing to the ChallengeAZ 2021 have provided some quite instructive posts:

• Feuilles d'ardoise and Des gens d'avant have both written about témoins (witnesses). Specifically, they write about using the details given about witnesses  (especially witnesses to marriages) to identify family members and to correct mistakes made concerning ancestors with the same name. We write a great deal on this subject in our book.
• GeneaBreizh looks at the succession tables, which we explain in English here.
• Des racines lozériennes et bourguignonnes and Généalogie Alsace both write about transcription difficulties. The former discusses sixteenth century French script and the latter looks at German Gothic script. Unable to manage either, we use this wonderful service. We also note some useful books on paleography here and Geneanet's tool here.
• Généalogie d'une famille ordinaire discusses successfully using the Archives nationales du Monde du Travail. These were explained in a talk on which we reported here.
• Généalogie Tahiti, which has been writing fascinating posts throughout the ChallengeAZ, each with a genealogy of a family, writes about a man who began life as an abandoned child in Poiters, arrived in Tuamotu and remained in Tahiti the rest of his life. 

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter S

Again, few of the submissions give instructions on how to do genealogical research, with the excellent exception of the first given below:

• Michèle Bodénès explains how to research, as much as is possible, all of the Senators of France since 1814.
• Chronique familiale looks at both burials, sépultures, and nicknames, surnoms, with some interesting explanations about the customs concerning the latter. Not all surnoms are "dit-names".
• GeneaBreizh also looks at sépultures and the language of parish registrations indicating burials.
• GénéaTrip looks at the project of Génénet.org to photograph all the grave markers of all the cemeteries of France. We discuss cemeteries and the project here.
• Des Racines et des arbres looks at researching eighteenth century soldiers.
• Souvenirs d'ancêtres explains French nineteenth century military conscription and documentation, a subject we have touched on here. For further military research, you might want to read this post.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter R

There are some very intriguing contributions for the letter R, and some that may be obvious but are also helpful.

• Généalogie d'une famille ordinaire and Chronique familiale both write about using the French census returns for genealogical research.
• Traces et petits cailloux gives a fascinating account of what happened to the parish registers of Acadia, telling how some were destroyed, some lost and some, astonishingly, discovered many years later. With links!
• De Branches en branches, forgetting to cite the heavily quoted scholarly work of Catherine Denys on the subject, describes exhumation registers, unique to Lille it seems, and the wealth of information they provide of authorities' attempts to determine if a death were caused by an accident or by something sinister.
• Sur nos traces exposes the really quite wicked criminal practice of creating false Holocaust documents to sell at auction and warns readers to beware.

©2021 Anne Morddel

Frenrch Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letters P and Q

Up to the letters P and Q in the ChallengeAZ and the contributor numbers are slipping a bit. We recommend:

• Généa79, writing on the improbable surnames given to foundlings and illegitimate children. Should you have such amongst your ancestors, Dear Readers, do peruse this to try to get an idea of what sorts of surnames can help to identify (as was, surely, the intention) such children. It can save you much time in wasted research on a fabricated surname.
• Sur nos traces gives a superb history lesson, using the military records, of the Fourth Legion of Reserves in Napoleon's Army, the Peninsular War and the sufferings of prisoners of war in the British hulks and on the island of Cabrera.
• Généalogie Alsace describes something we also have found on occasion: a local census written by a parish priest and entered into a parish register. They are rare and precious and a good reason to look at the back of every register on which you are working. Always.
• Sandrine Heiser explains the different types of identity cards issued to the people of Alsace-Lorraine from 1918, when the region became French again and when some very unpleasant expulsion of ethnically "undesirable" residents was practiced.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter O

We have come to the letter O in the ChallengeAZ. Only one of the submissions provides research advice, though all tell of interesting research discoveries.

• GeneaBreizh is most useful in explaining the word ondoiement. You may have come across a mention in a parish register that a child was ondoyé. When you look up the verb ondoyer in your dictionary, you find that the first meaning is to "undulate, wave, ripple, billow". The secondary meaning is "to baptize privately in an emergency", which we find to be a rather humorous comment on how a lay person would conduct a baptism.
• Généalogie d'une famille ordinaire muses on obéissance in marriage vows, and in the comportment of married women (obedient or not) in the past and now, with less than cheerful conclusions.
• Des racines et des arbres and Pérégrinations ancestrales both discuss orphans. The former discusses how they were identified in parish registers and the latter looks at the types of names they were given.
• Sur nos traces introduces us to ORT, the acronym for Organisation Reconstruction Travail, a group of practical training schools for Jewish people. Some ninety years of student register books were digitized and, if the links are ever repaired, would be a very good research tool.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter N

Moving along at a snapping pace, the ChallengeAZ has reached the letter N.

• There are, of course, many writers who chose the subject of naissances, births. Généa79 gives an account of the records on a particular illegitimate birth. La chronologie familiale explains civil registrations of births.
• The subject of naturalization and citizens' rights was covered by GénéaTrip, with a good explanation of the naturalization files in the National Archives (which we covered on The FGB here, with further discussions here and here, with apologies for vacillations between British and American spellings) while Auprès de mon arbre, gives an interesting account of Swiss ancestors who acquired Belgian nationality.
• Une Colonie agricole describes, in "N comme nomads" what the state did with the abandoned children of itinerant basket makers. For any of you with French ancestors who were abandoned children cared for by the State, enfants assistés, we recommend this blog in it entirety, for it is devoted to the examination of a single "agricultural colony", or work farm for children, and some of the thousands of the children placed there. The study is a work in progress and is a fascinating work of scholarship.
• Sur nos traces, once again, also presents a scholarly post, on the subject of Jewish burials for those who lived in Paris in the eighteenth century and the development of the cemetery at La Villette, with some excellent links to useful resources for French Jewish research.
• Au Cour du passé explains the function of a notaire royale, accompanied by a sample document explained in detail. (See our booklet on notaires.)
• The blog on facebook of the APHP is about the Bureau des nourrices, the State administered registration of wet-nurses, which we covered in a post here. In response to which a Dear Reader contributed this marvelous post.
• Many chose to write about names, and we found the post of Jeunes et généalogie to be a rather thoughtful meditation on what happens to women's names after marriage.
• Traces et petits cailloux gives a splendid historical discussion of the Acadians sent to live in the tropics.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter M

The letter M marks the half-way point of the ChallengeAZ. Perhaps we have lost a couple of participants along the way, for their number dropped for the last letter, but they may submit a number of posts in a rush, or we may never hear from them again. Today's better contributions include:

•  La Chronologie familiale looks at the basics of a nineteenth century marriage registration, very briefly, as we once did in English here.
• Once again, Généalogie Alsace is quite helpful for researchers in providing a small lexicon of Alsatian-German terms used in marriage registers.
• Chronique familiale explains marginal notes in civil registers.
• Antequam... la généalogie! continues to be excellent with a long explanation of how to use the Monuments aux morts (the monuments to war dead found in every town and village of France, as we described here) for genealogical research.
• Passerelle généalogie shows remarkable courage in discussing the Mormon church, then proceeds to give an extremely thorough and practical tutorial on how to explore the French records on FamilySearch.

Some very good work here.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy

ChallengeAZ 2021 - The letter L

We are happy to report that things are picking up, Dear Readers, as our intrepid bloggers have a new spurt of energy. Or it may be that L is an easier letter than others.

• Traces et Petits cailloux continues to write about the Acadians, in this post about those deported in 1755 to England, arriving at various ports, including that of Liverpool.
• Souvenirs d'ancêtres discusses laws and the importance of knowing them at any given time covered by your research, not only for historical context but to know how to interpret the documents you may find. Excellent.
• Antequam la généalogie! explains the research usefulness of electoral lists. Our own post on the subject can be found here.
• Des racines et des arbres gives a very helpful survey of Latin terms for genealogists.
• Feuilles d'ardoise delves into the difficulties of spelling variations of surnames and how to find them all when searching a database. This is  important for too many of you, Dear Readers, search for just one spelling of an ancestral name, when there easily could have been half a dozen.
• Sandrine Heiser, who writes Lorraine ... et au-delà!, has a suggestion for how to find the military record of an ancestor who served in the German Army by using the lists of men missing or killed to learn more about their rank and regiment.
• Généa79 has a scholarly article by Monique Bureau on a complicated case of legitimation in the seventeenth century - with almost all of the research done on documents uploaded to Geneanet. We wrote a much smaller explanation of legitimation in France here.

©2021 Anne Morddel

French Genealogy