Genealive

Visit any French village and you will see always see three constructions: the church, the town hall and a memorial honoring the victims of World War I. This monument can be very interesting for your genealogy research.

Build most of the time with funds provided by the French State with the assistance of the town, these monuments are a testimony of the number of victims every village suffered. With a total of 1 385 000 French men killed (not counting the 300 000 civilians killed), this war was the bloodiest for France. These monuments were built in remembrance of the fallen ones. Many  bodies were identified, yet 17% were never identified. These monuments were therefore also a place to morne for the families of these men as well as to give them the honors.

Each monument is unique. Most are a simple obelisk or wall surrounded by a chain hanging mortar shells with some decoration on them:

• Palms

• a rooster (the “Gallic Rooster”, the national emblem of France)

• a crown of laurel or of oak branches (symbol of Victory or Power)

Some are statues are of common subjects:

• a standing French soldier in uniform with his Lebel rifle watching over his fallen brothers (affectionately nicknamed “le poilu”, the hairy because most soldiers did not wash or shave for days while in the tranches),

• a soldier holding a fallen comrade,

• a mother holding his fallen son.

Most monuments in France will have Mort pour la France (“Died for France” equivalent to Killed in Action) written on them except in Alsace-Moselle where it is replace by  Mort pour la Patrie (Died for the Country) or La Commune de … pour ses enfants (The Town of … to her children). In many of these villages there you will find men who fought on French or on the German side on the same monument.

There is always a list of names of the men killed during the war. Organized alphabetically, you will sometimes find a year of death but no specific date. The men listed had to be born or live in the town prior to being killed in action (Mort pour la France). You will also find later lists added to the monuments for soldiers killed in World War II, French Indochina, Algeria or even Yugoslavia.

It is not unusual to find several men with the same last name: where they brothers? Cousins? These monuments are also a testimony to lost names. Indeed, many names have are no longer used today since the only male bearers were killed in World War I.

When visiting your ancestors’ villages in France, take a few minutes to look at the memorials: a cousin or a descendant of one of your ancestors or one of his close friends may be on it.

1793 to 1805: a period dreaded by many French Genealogists. France was working with a very different calendar: the Revolutionary Calendar. It was created in the same idea as the metric system: show the difference with the old sytem and make it consistent as well as logical. The metric system stayed; the calendar was out.

Used for fourteen years, it started with September 22, 1792 as the first day of the calendar of the year I and 1805 as the last year it was used with the year XIV. Each year was divided into 12 months of 30 days each: Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse, Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor. Each month was divided into 3 weeks of 10 days each. The days also had different names: primidi, duodi, tridi, quartidi, quintidi, sextidi, septidi, octidi, nonidi and décadi. At the end of each year, 5 more days were added (6 on leap years) to compensate for the lost days in some of the months. You can find all the details of this amazing calendar (and find out the current date) by visiting the Wikipedia page.

Let’s move on to a few questions you probably ask yourself with regards to the calendar and your French genealogy research.

How do you deal with this information in a genealogy application? Do you convert it to a Gregorian calendar date or do you leave it as?

I would recommend doing both. Many genealogical applications (such as Heredis) will be able to convert it automatically and handle the new format. If it can’t, you will probably have to enter the date in the Gregorian calendar as the application will tell you it does not recognize the date format. Put the revolutionary date in the sources of the documents as well as in some other field were it is visible. This was an official calendar and will therefore be used in all documents of this period but also later documents. For example, if one of your ancestors was born during this period but got married after the Gregorian calendar was back into place, you will find a reference to this event using the revolutionary calendar in the new document.

If you do not have software to convert it, how do you convert it by hand?

There are two different ways of doing this:

-The easiest way is to use a website or application such as Calendar Home.

-You can also do it the old fashion using tables such as this one provided by Philippe Fournier. This will work if you are away from your laptop or do not have an internet connection. Always have a copy in your papers, just in case…

Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please use the comment form bellow.