Finding and Accessing French Archives Online

Are you aware that over the past decade, nearly all French historical vital records have become available free online? There's a catch however: without a known date and municipality, you need to use indexes or other pointers to avoid endless online page turning. In this session, we will discuss retrieval methods specific to birth, marriage, and death records, censuses, military records, and more. We will cover the standard classification of French archival records, the Tables Décennales contemporary ten-year indexes, navigating some of France's different Archives Départementales sites including downloading high-quality images, decoding cryptic source references in online trees, and the usefulness of marginal notes which are always absent from online indexes. Learn efficient pathways to your ancestors’ documents!