Le Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:56:11 -0500, "Jason Bourgeois"
<jbourgeois@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> écrivait dans soc.genealogy.french:
>But surely there must be lists mouldering in an archives in France
>somewhere, no?
I am working for years on a genealogy with almost every one living
in the former French colonies of the continent (including Acadia,
Quebec down to Louisiana). For that purpose, I read nearly all
material published in reviews until a few years ago (I had not yet
read the recent years). I was looking for useful material including
this kind of lists.
There are some lists of officers in the colonies, at random years,
nearly all after 1700, a list of soldiers in Louisiana, founded 1701.
There are lists for the 7-years war, so after 1750. I heard there
were lists from roughly the 1730s.
I know some data can be found in the personal archives of some
governors or other state officers, but their letters are usually
limited to officers or events. They may name someone, just like the
vital records, notary records, justice records, etc. can name someone,
and thanks to that, it is possible to rebuilt a military company for
example, but this is possible only in New France where nearly all
old records are indexed. The PRDH database for example has the
profession of people. In France, the population is just too large
to focus on secondary information at this time. An example :
there was the marriage contract of a former captain in the Regiment
of Carignan, but the database had only the name of the couples, the
name of the notary and the date. While reading the contract, we
have the name of the parents of the husband, where he was born, his
job (he is identified as a captain in the regiment of Carignan, so
we know he is the good person), etc. They have too many records to
register all that information and they are far from having indexing
all marriages in France before 1792 (when there are tables every 10
years). So you can't do easily the same thing that is possible here,
i.e. to search people by their job.
As for lists available in the archives, you can try by yourself.
There are some books called "inventaire sommaire des archives" with
a description of all records they had. This could include list of
soldiers. But, let's see.
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22inventaire+sommaire+des+archives%22+%22liste+de+soldats%22
Only 2 records found. While I can't see the details, it seems they
are about some specific kind of soldiers and after 1700.
With "liste des soldats", there are 6 more answers and the same
comments apply.
You can check more inventaires sommaires at gallica.bnf.fr but there
is no text search (except for titles of do***ents). "Serie C" is
the one you may want to explore.
Denis
--
Denis Beauregard -
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - www.francogene.com/genealogie--quebec/
French in North America before 1722 -
www.francogene.com/quebec--genealogy/
Sur cédérom à 1770 - On CD-ROM to 1770
|
