Online Resources for Genealogy Research in France

By Paul Woodbury

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A computer monitor on a modern desk displays the French flag. There are office supplies, a plant, and a cup of coffee on the desk.

Genealogical research in France offers some of the most detailed, well-preserved, and accessible documentation for illuminating the lives of ancestors and drawing connections to distant generations of ancestry. France first introduced government-sponsored universal civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1792. Though the content of these records has evolved over time, even early records are extremely detailed.

Even before 1792, the French government collected and preserved copies of church records. After the French Revolution, and over the course of the 19th century, many of these records were deposited in government archives. Today, many of these early records are available online through both government websites and commercial databases.

While parish registers and civil registration records constitute the principal sources (and the first priority) for recent genealogical research in France, other types of records may aid in extending ancestral lines or obtaining greater detail regarding an ancestor’s life. Records such as maps, censuses, newspapers, legal notices, military conscription records, succession documents, notarial records, and more (many of which can be found online) can also aid in genealogical research.

While there are hundreds and perhaps even thousands of websites that can assist in genealogical research in France, following are some of the online resources that we have found to be most helpful for French genealogy:

Reference Resources

The following sites may be helpful for researchers as they learn about French record types, record keeping practices, methodological approaches, historical context and geographic context.

FranceGenWeb

FranceGebWeb is a French genealogy website made by genealogists for genealogists with reference material for areas of France, as well as some specialized research databases. Among the pages associated with this site is CommunesGenWeb, which enables searches of the more than 36,000 communes established during the French Revolution, along with information on the evolution of their names, merges, and divisions over time. Detail pages for these communes also support identification of localities within a geographic range which is useful for radial searches.

Geneawiki

Geneawiki is a collaborative reference resource for French genealogical research, including helpful articles on record types, their history, organization, and methodological considerations.

FamilySearch Research Wiki

Here you will find reference articles for how to perform research around the world including in France.

The French Genealogy Blog

Created and maintained by Anne Morddel since 2009, the French Genealogy Blog contained detailed, well-researched and regular articles and posts on many topics related to French genealogy. The blog was retired in March 2025, but many of the posts have been archived on the Wayback Machine and are now being published as part of themed booklets.

La Revue Française de la Généalogie

La Revue Française de la Généalogie is a monthly French language magazine dedicated to genealogy topics in France. The same publisher also sells specialty issues and research guides.  

Geoportail

Managed by the Institute of National Geography of France, Geoportail has several map historic and modern map collections for France including the Cassini maps (prepared between the late seventeenth to early nineteenth century) the Carte d’état major (made between 1820 and 1866), and modern-day records of cadastral parcels, aerial images, and other maps. The text on these maps is searchable enabling exploration of obscure and lesser-known place names.

Napoleon.org

An excellent tool for converting Republican Calendar dates to their Gregorian calendar equivalents is available through Napoleon.org. Between 1793 and 1806, France adopted a new calendar system for the new French Republic: twelve months of equal length at thirty days each. Each month was divided into ten-day cycles called decades. The year ended with five (six in leap years) supplementary days. The months were renamed with titles describing the weather. Each day of the year was named for a flower, plant, animal, or farm tool mirroring the former Saint’s days. Years were counted from 22 September 1792, the first day of the French Republic. Even in other areas of the French empire, these names and calendar conventions were utilized and sometimes translated into the local languages.

Meyers Gazetteer

Meyers Gazetteer describes German place names French equivalents, as well as the Lutheran and Catholic parishes associated with particular areas. Alsace and Lorraine came under French jurisdiction over the course of the sixteenth to eighteenth century. In 1871, control reverted to the German Empire. France regained control after World War I and again after World War II.

Commercial Websites and Databases

Large commercial databases (both with an international reach and which are more specific to France) often bring together indexes, digital images, and compiled family trees from many areas of France.

Filae

Filae is a commercial website dedicated to French genealogy which was recently acquired by MyHeritage.com. It hosts the “Noms de Famille” tool, available on the French version of the site, which shows surname distribution data based on civil registration returns and statistical reports from 1970 and later and dealing with events from the 1890s to the present.  

In addition to compiled family trees, the site also publishes indexes of records from genealogical societies, indexed images from department and municipal archive websites including of civil registration, church records, censuses, and succession tables, and other databases for government decrees, passports, French-born individuals residing abroad, naturalization indexes, military honors, government pensions and more.

Geneanet

Geneanet is a commercial website which was recently acquired by Ancestry.com. It has millions of detailed (and often sourced) family trees. It also has significant databases of birth, marriage and death indexes (sometimes with associated images), census records, Parisian cemetery records, succession tables, and military records. Geneanet’s genealogy library also interfaces with other public websites to connect with published genealogies, newspapers, legal decrees, and death notices.

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Geneanet claims to be the largest European genealogy website. Here’s an overview of its family trees and other helpful features.
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FamilySearch

FamilySearch has been pursuing indexing of civil registration, church records, and census records in France over the past several years. Additionally, the FamilySearch catalog has additional resources for various areas of France including compiled and published genealogies, archival catalogs, and more.

MyHeritage and Ancestry

In addition to the collections from Filae and Geneanet, which are also searchable through MyHeritage and Ancestry respectively, these two latter companies also have additional record collections and resources for France including record indexes and family trees. Further, while genetic genealogy testing companies no longer sell to customers residing in France, MyHeritage DNA has the largest database of customers from France who tested when kits were still available.

Department Archives

France is divided into ninety-six metropolitan departments and five overseas departments. These departments are often composed of several arrondissements, which in turn are divided into cantons, and finally into communes. The records most frequently utilized by genealogists, including parish registers and civil registration are kept in two copies: one at the commune level and another at the department level. Coordinated digitization efforts at most department archives have made their websites invaluable online resources for genealogists.

Most often these websites host digital images of parish registers and civil registration records. Birth records may be published online after 100 years, marriage records can be published after 75 years, and death records can be published after 25 years. Decennial tables (or indexes of civil registration records compiled every ten years) may also be available well into the 20th century. Even so, these records cannot be made database searchable through digital indexes until later (120 years for births, 100 years for marriages and 75 years for deaths). Therefore, while more recent records might not appear in database searches from commercial websites, original records may still be available through department websites. Also, while more recent records may have redacted information in commercial websites (including in census records or marginal notes of later marriages or deaths in civil registration records), the original versions on department websites rarely have the same redactions.

In addition to civil registration and parish registers, many department websites digitize and publish additional collections that can be helpful including:

  • Census records taken every five years from 1821 to 1946 with the exception of 1871 (taken in 1872), 1916 (skipped due to World War I) and 1941 (skipped due to World War II).
  • Military conscription records commencing in 1867 for male individuals turning twenty within each year.
  •  Tables of succession created within each canton or registration district detailing all deaths that occurred as well as details relating to the inheritance of property.
  • Notarial repertoires which are abstracts of notarial records (such as marriage contracts, last wills and testaments, and property transactions). Sometimes department archives also include complete collections of older notarial records.
  • Electoral lists of citizens eligible to vote within a commune in a given year and kept annually.
  • Cadastral maps (particularly from the Napoleonic era).
  • Mortgage records relating to individual properties.
  • Town council minutes and deliberations.
  • Lists of grievances prior to the French Revolution
  • Newspapers
  • Prison registers
  • Postcard and photo collections
  • Passport collections
  • Maritime sailor and ship registration records
  • Commune histories
  • Public assistance registers
  • Hospital records
  • Cemetery and funeral home records

Below you can find links to each department archive:

Should links to department websites change in the future, a central resource likely to have updated links is France Archives, which maintains links and information regarding department archives as well as other archival institutions. Another resource that can help connect with various department archives is Archives départementales en ligne.

Municipal Archives

In addition to the department collections of civil registration and parish registers frequently published on department websites, some municipal and commune archives have digitized their own collections of civil registration and other records.  One list of municipal archives with online collections is maintained at archives-departementales.com.

National Archives

While most genealogical research in France is performed based on the materials in department archives, records created at the national level may also be helpful in genealogical research. While some digitization efforts for collections in the national archives are underway, most currently available digital records on the main National Archives website are indexes which provide call numbers enabling consultation of original records onsite. Nevertheless several stand-alone websites of national import may be of help:

Memoire des Hommes administered by the Ministère des Armées includes several databases associated with prisoners or war, soldiers who died in combat, historic troop censuses, military unit histories and journals, and members of the French resistance during World War II.

Léonore, a database managed by the National Archives, includes digitized files for members of the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest military and civil honor (which can be granted to up to approximately 2500 people per year, and which has been granted to an estimated 1 million people since the first award ceremony in 1804).

Archives nationales d’outre-mer, or ANOM, has digitized civil registration, military recruitment registers and other records for French overseas departments and territories including many areas of Africa, the Caribbean, North America, the Indian Ocean, French Polynesia and Asia.

Newspapers

French newspapers can also be an important resource for learning more about ancestors. They often included extracts of civil registration acts, notices of death (similar to obituaries), notice of notarial acts, and advertisements. Newspaper collections are sometimes found in department websites, but can also sometimes be found in university libraries, department libraries, and other jurisdictions. Geneanet’s Genealogy library interfaces with some of these institutions.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France, or National Library of France, has a digital catalog of online newspapers, pamphlets, notices and more which is text searchable through OCR named Gallica. A commercial portal for searching some of the same items in this collection is RetroNews.

National publications including the Bulletin des Lois (Bulletin of Laws) and the Journal Officiel (Official Journal) are also available through Gallica and are the subjects of some of the databases of Filae.com.  These official publications of the government might include information on naturalizations, patents for inventions, acts of name changes, military promotions, awards and medals, acceptance lists to state schools, pensions for civil servants and information on members of the Legion d’honneur.

Modern death notices (which can include information on living and surviving relatives) are sometimes published on websites such as the following:

Genealogical Societies

Research in France benefits from a strong culture of genealogical circles or societies who publish guides, finding aids, indexes, transcriptions, abstracts, compiled genealogies, and journals to facilitate family history research. One directory for department and local genealogical societies and circles can be found at the Association-genealogie.

Huguenot Research

A major component of the French diaspora was migration from France in the 16th to 18th centuries as a result of religious persecution of Protestants or French Huguenots. Some resources which can help with Huguenot research in France include:

La Conclusion

Online French genealogical research is supported and facilitated by these and many other websites providing ample documentation and extensive opportunities for tracing genealogies in France and uncovering rich biographical details regarding French ancestors. Start your own journey today in exploring your ancestors in France!

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A version of this article was published online in July 2025 and in the March/April 2026 issue of Family Tree Magazine. Last updated: February 2026

French Genealogy, Heritage

Author

Paul Woodbury, AG, MEd., is a Senior Researcher at Legacy Tree Genealogists (https://www.legacytree.com/paulw) where he has helped solve hundreds of genetic genealogy cases. He graduated from Brigham Young University where he studied Genetics and Family History. He also holds a master’s degree in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. In addition to genetic genealogy, he loves research in France (for which he has received accreditation through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists). He regularly presents on genetic genealogy and French research topics in webinars, institutes, and conferences.

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