Genealogical technique

To carry out a genealogical research is to identify the ascending ones or the descendants of a person by going up generation after generation using generally administrative acts making it possible to establish filiation.

Genealogical research can be made with personal capacity or for professional reasons: in this last case it is a question, generally, of drawing up the list of the recipients of a succession without direct heir.

Definition of the objectives

The genealogy is a " activity; chronophage". It is necessary to define, if possible upon the departure, the goal which one wishes to reach in order to collect all the data meeting this aim but only these because the researcher never has enough time.

It is thus necessary to define:

the type of genealogy: ascending Genealogy, downward Genealogy, agnatic ascending Genealogy;
in ascending genealogy to determine the branches on which one wishes to work in priority;
to identify which collateral will be systematically required: brothers and sisters, unites brothers and sisters, children of the brothers and sisters, witnesses of the marriage certificates, birth or death, etc;
the type of information which one wishes to collect: beside the acts of civil statue which make it possible to draw up a long list of names and places, there exist acts, certainly more difficult to find and rarer, but which enable us to apprehend the lifestyle, mentality: they are the notarial acts, the acts concerned with civil and criminal justice, the land register, etc

Method

The step consists, on the basis of a known ancestor, to find the descendants or the ascending ones thanks to documents establishing without ambiguity the relationship. These documents are generally preserved in the town halls (in France), of the specialized services of files,….

Genealogical research requires a true work of detective:

the documents are dispersed in the various services of files to the liking of the removals of the ancestors
It not of document indicating the successive removals
the documents preserved in the services of files are seldom indexed there (i.e. it is not enough, for example, to know a patronym to locate all the acts containing this patronym). It is often necessary to traverse a great number of documents before finding the good.
the reading of the old acts is often difficult and thus takes time
Certains documents were lost: these gaps become increasingly numerous as one goes up in time
the oldest documents provide incomplete information

A great rigor is necessary to undertake a genealogical research: with each time a new relationship seems to be established, it is necessary to attempt to show that the deduction carried out is the only possible one. Indeed:

It is frequent that in the same generation and in the same place, several people carry the same names and first names. One finds even sometimes couples carrying the same names and first names
When one does not lay out any more acts allowing to establish in an explicit way filiation, it is necessary to redouble precaution: to find other acts supporting the assumption
In the event of uncertainty, absence of unquestionable proof, it is necessary to consign that filiation is not proven as much to be able to push the investigations thereafter that to inform the other genealogists in the event of genealogical exchanges of information.

Starting point

Acts held in the family

All the acts preserved by the family must be required and last in review. In France for example a Family record book is delivered since 1880 with the husbands in whom the acts of civil statue concerning the couple are consigned. One will also seek the copies of acts of civil statue, notarial acts, etc…

Family memory

The interview of the family members makes it possible to collect information being able to go up far in time: by questioning his grandparents, it is possible to collect information going up with 7 generations by supposing that the questioned person knew her own grandparents and that those had collected the family memory before their grandparents. Information collected is however to exploit with precaution: the names became deformed, time embellished reality, of the conjectures became facts,….

Information on remote parents can make it possible to circumvent the absence of direct filiatif act.

To control the organization of the files

The document retrieval requires to know the existing documents, their place of conservation, cuttings administrative into force at the time, and the access terms with the services of files.

The documents usable depend partly on the administrative context at the time of the act: the acts of civil statue are not obligatory in France before the beginning of XVIe century…. Geographical factors play a big role: thus in France the civil statue is often set up initially in the cities, the notarial acts are more frequent in the South of France (country of statute law), etc… Finally the conservation of the acts is unequal of a place to another: the wars, the local disorganization of the files, the revolutions involved unequal destruction of a place to another.

The place of establishment and conservation of the act often depends on the nature of the act: in Brittany the consents are preserved in majority in Nantes, etc…

The services of files generally publish guides which make it possible to the researcher to have a relatively precise idea of the documents available.

The access to the personal documents most recent can be regulated (in France for the acts of Civil statue of less than 100 years,…) : the researcher must then prove his filiation to have access there.

The personal document retrieval

The research of the acts of the civil statue are to be privileged. The birth and marriage, death certificates make it possible, when there were not removal or loss of files, to go up easily from generation to generation.

The censuses and the notarial acts come to supplement the information collected in the acts of Civil statue.

The other acts used in genealogy are either rarer and more difficult to find, or contain less information: they are the roles of taxes, the legal documents,….

To consign the data collected

The data collected must be recorded in a way organized to be able to be exploited. Today the data are often consigned in specialized software

For each direct or indirect ancestor one draws up a card in lequelle are consigned:

name and first name
date and birthplace
date and place of death
date and place of marriage
name and first name of the spouse
date, place and first names of the children

for each act (civil statue, notarial act.) :

place of filing, coast, page.
summarized act (witnesses,…)
addresses classification of the act
date of obtaining the act, support

Notes are added to consign information which cannot be formalized in a structured way: indications on research to be carried out on this person,…

To identify each ancestor, a number is affected with each individual. There exist several systems of classification of which the most used are:

the Classification of Sosa-Stradonitz in ascending genealogy
the Classification of Abboville in downward genealogy

The nonpersonal document retrieval

(...)

Techniques to be controlled

The Paleography

The reading of the old texts requires to control the Paléographie, which makes it possible to transcribe the texts written with old writings.

The Onomastic

The recourse to the Onomastic , i.e. the etymology of the proper names, makes it possible to provide indications on the origins of an ancestor, possibly the followed occupation when the patronym was fixed (at the 13th century).

Tools

Software of genealogy

Internet

Many documents are from now on available on Internet (digitized files, raised of personal associations, genealogies, numeric libraries) and their number believes each year because the tools and the procedures from now on are ground and there exists a political volunteer of digitalization in many services of public records.

Internet is also a good means of exchanging with other genealogists information and given when one carries out research in an area located far from his place of residence.

See too

genealogical Research in genealogical France
Document in France

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