Finding Your Pre-Révolution French Ancestors

Are your French roots deep in the 17th or 18th century, or even earlier in the Ancien Régime? In this session, we will discuss useful online sources: baptism, marriage, and death parish registers, military records, and other sources. France's historical provinces will be covered, in particular those that overlap several of today's départements (counties). Historical migrations will be touched upon: the Wars of Religion, colonial emigration, border changes. We will spotlight family names, which can be very useful for identifying an ancestral village or town, and including "dit" nicknames used by soldiers - many of which became family names in Québec for example. Notarial records will round out this overview that will help you find your French ancestors.