Jewish Marriages in FranceMarriages in Alsace, 1792-1899
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• Background • Contents of the Database • Example Illustrations • Original Records • Searching the Database |
This database contains information about 22,000 Jewish marriages in Alsace, between 1792 and 1899.
In 1792, the French revolutionary government made civil officers responsible for keeping vital records. Civil registration was accomplished by requiring the people to report all births, marriages, and deaths to a civil registration office, usually at the town hall [mairie]. There is no regional, departmental or country-wide summary of these registrations. This location-centric registration makes it difficult to find specific vital records, as not only must one know the names of the persons, but one must also know the specific town where the event occurred.
Many times, finding the source marriage information on a couple who had children, one has to look far and wide among many towns. This was the impulse which started this data collection. My French cousin, Jean-Christophe Leveque (was Levy), decided to create such a list (spreadsheet) of marriages in the towns surrounding the ones where his ancestors came from. This simple step has led to a database of 20,000 Jewish marriages in the region of interest — Alsace — the départements of Bas-Rhin (#67), and Haut-Rhin (#68).
Where and how the collection these data was obtained is relatively simple and efficient. Each département has an archive for the public which allows examination of these civil records on-site, and with the advent of the internet, on-line. Each département in France makes its own decision of what will be available on-line. Fortunately, the two Alsace départements made most of the data available on-line. That is where the data were extracted and transcribed. The majority of the data are in French, except for the early time periods and during the annexation of the area by the German, 1872 to 1918, where the records are in German.
The records in this database were selected by Pierre and his team based upon Jewish-sounding names and using their best judgement. They estimate a 95% accuracy rate, though they are sure there some names that are not Jewish (either because of names like "MEYER", which could be Jewish or non-Jewish, and/or due to intermarriage). Religion is not mentioned on any French-language record. However, religion was mentioned in the German-lamguage records between 1872-1918 (when Germany annexed the area).
Each entry in this database contains the following information from the vital records:
Dates: The date field in the early years was not in the Gregorian Calendar, but in the Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar, a decimal-based calendar which lasted from about 1793 to 1805. For more information about the French Republican Caldendar, see the Wikipedia article.
The patronymic name has been normalized for ease of search, e.g.: "LEVY" could actually be "LEVI" or "LEWI", etc., and that means once you locate a probable marriage, one should go to the original record and examine the data therein, which may include the parents’ names, the ages of the bride and groom, the witnesses, any previous marriage or divorce, children born before the marriage, etc.
For the Bas-Rhin, go to: http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/registres-paroissiaux-et-documents-d-etat-civil/, then enter the town and select the year with the sliding bar.
For the Haut-Rhin, go to: http://www.archives.haut-rhin.fr.
A few of the large towns, such as Strasbourg, have their own archives, and some of the data were extracted from these on-line archives, mostly in the years after 1902.
In the actual record you should find the correct patronymic name, possibly the names used before 1808, the parents’ name and their status (living, in attendance, date of death), names of witnesses and their relationship, sometimes dates and places of the banns.
The Jewish Marriages in France database can be searched via the JewishGen France Database.
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