Accessing French Records

[dreeny22]

 I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks searching for,  without any real success the best way to access French Records in order to find out more in connection with a German line in my family.

The family left Germany c1850.  They arrived in England in 1865.  Between 1850-1866 they were in Paris because 3 children were born there.  I am told that many German families and individuals left Germany during the troubles in the early 1850's and  many of them headed for France. 

Being in France for that length of time records must have evolved but where to start I am no wiser after, as mentioned, much searching of the WWW.   

I should be most grateful for any help and advice ... Many thanks.

Dreeny22???

[Yorkslass]

Hello Dreeny,

And welcome to Rootschat.

This is a French site, with Paris BMD's from 1860-1902.  It's free, but it is all in French, and unless you know which arrondissement they lived in Paris, it may be a long search!
http://canadp-archivesenligne.paris.fr/archives_etat_civil/1860_1902_actes/index.php

Good luck,
Yorkslass

[Yorkslass]

Hi again,

This is probably a better search - you can enter the name in the bottom box, and there's no need to put the arrondissement.

http://canadp-archivesenligne.paris.fr/archives_etat_civil/1860_1902_tables_decennales/index.php

Yorkslass

[dreeny22]

Hi Gaby.

Thank-u for replies.  I have accessed the site and negotiated the details but cannot seem to get beyond surnames beginning with "B".  I am obviously doing something wrong or is it they do not go any further.

dreeny22

[Yorkslass]

Hello again,

I "tested" the site with the name "Chevalier" with the period  1860-1872 and got quite a few hits.

What is the name you are searching for Dreeny?

Yorkslass

[jorose]

Just a note on the Paris records, which can be centrally accessed from this link:
http://canadp-archivesenligne.paris.fr/archives_etat_civil/index.php

The "tables décennales" (first link) are ten-year indexes, you will still have to search these for each arrondissement separately although you can search by surname and have it give you a list of the appropriate index for each arrondissment.

Once you have the date and arrondissement of the record you want to look at, the second link (registres d’actes)  allows you to search by date and arrondissement and access the originals.

But since you have children who may have been born between 1850 and 1859 to this family, you should probably first check the alphabetical indexes of reconstituted records (there was a fire in 1871 which destroyed many records), which is the "fichiers alphabétiques" link on the above page.

Although these are only an index, they index everyone from every arrondissement in the same file and often (particularly with the later entries, but not always) say which arrondissement the record was from. That might be a shortcut for you to work out which part of Paris the family were living in and cut down the time it takes to find other records.