In an earlier post, I discussed the death record of my fifth great grandfather Jean Germaine Voisard, the mayor of Montécheroux, France from 1815 to 1826. In the record, Jean’s mother is named only by the initials NN. This means that neither of the witnesses knew her name. One of the men was a grandson. Her name was Jeanne Antoine Jourot, and she died when … Continue reading Ancien Régime

Jean Germain Voisard was the mayor of Montecheroux, France from 1815 to 1826. He was a fifth great grandfather on my father’s side. As the “maire” of the commune he was first and foremost a bureaucrat whose main responsibility was enforcing the regulations of the “Code civil des Français” – also known as the Napoleonic Code. Msr. Voisard was born in 1754 and he was … Continue reading The Napoleonic Code

Geneanet.org is a genealogical website headquartered in Paris, France. It differs from ancestry.com in that Geneanet is a collaborative site where the members share in the effort of building family trees and supplying transcriptions of registers, both civil and parochial. The site has been around since the mid-nineties, and I was a regular visitor twenty years ago. At Geneanet, I could connect with fellow researchers … Continue reading A Well-Regulated Militia