If you are looking to learn about your French ancestry, then there are a few places to start.

First, you might consider some of the popular genealogy websites, including Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, and Family Search Wiki, all of which have information from France.

If you are primarily curious about your DNA, you may opt for websites such as Living DNA, 23andMe, or Ancestry DNA. However, if you are doing the process from France, you should be aware that France does not allow at-home DNA testing.

Home DNA testing has been banned in France since 1994 under the loi de bioetiques (law of bioethics) – the only way you can take a DNA test legally in France is by getting medical approval or a court order. Anyone who breaks the law faces a fine of up to €3,750.

Nevertheless, there are still plenty of great ways to learn about your history and where you come from, especially as more records are being digitised across France.

Finding documents about your ancestors

Oftentimes, paid genealogy websites will allow you to build family trees, or even link yours with the work that other people in your extended family have accomplished. These sites make it faster and simpler to scan archives that reference your family members, but there is usually a subscription price attached if you want to go beyond the basics.

If you already know your ancestor’s name, you can try to search for their civil documents on your own. If you do not speak French, now would be a good time to open up a translator like Google Translate or Deepl. 

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: France’s unique regional identities and the languages that shape them

Before starting, you will want to figure out when your ancestor was alive.

This could determine whether their region was even part of France – for example, the historic Alsace-Lorraine territory flipped back and forth between France and Germany for many years. Meanwhile, the southern Mediterranean city of Nice was finally ceded to France in 1860, and prior to that Italian had been the official language used in the area.

Once you’ve figured out where your family member hailed from, you can start off by googling ‘archives’ alongside the French commune (town) or département (county) that they are from. Several archives websites will have a dedicated page for those researching their généalogie (genealogy).

If your information is not that specific and you do not know exactly where they lived, you might start off by using larger databases, such as the archives site: FranceArchives.Gouv.FR.

Going straight to the larger archives website might be helpful too if your ancestor’s town or city had records destroyed at any point. For example, during the fires of ‘Bloody Week’ during the Paris Commune in 1871, many of the city’s records were destroyed when the Hôtel de Ville burned down. 

Luckily, some records were salvaged, namely those kept in the individual town halls of arrondissements.

On the France Archives site, you can find the full list of different archives pages for the départements, which will include things like censuses (les recensements) and voting rolls (listes électorales). 

Prior to 1792, church parishes kept documents (les registres paroissiaux) related to events such as baptisms and marriages. Some of these go back to the 14th or 15th centuries, though many begin around the 16th century.

After 1792, a lot of official documents related to marriage, death and birth were recorded on civil registers by local communes. These are called registres d’état civil. As you look for these you ought to come up across the tables décennales – tables drawn up every 10 years after 1792 listing all the births, marriages and deaths in the commune for that period.

You may also be able to locate your family member’s grave or tombstone using the French version of ‘Find a Grave’.

There are separate websites available for researching people who were in the armed services. For example, if you believe your family member participated in World War I, then you can find information about them on the ‘Grand Mémorial’ site.

You can also try the Memoire des Hommes website to look for former servicemen.

If you believe your family member may have departed from or arrived in France by boat, then you can also search for liste des passagers (passenger lists). And for north Americans who believe their French ancestors may have first stopped through Quebec, you can try the dedicated ‘Genealogy Quebec’ website.

As for paid sites – there is also the website Filae, which has compiled archives and old documents from across France. It may be a bit more user friendly than the public archives websites. The website does offer some free information, but to go further you will need to pay for a subscription.

You could also make an account on the French genealogy site, and Geneanet, in order to make use of its vast array of family trees.

Keep in mind that many records have not yet been digitised, but if you can narrow down the commune or département you need to look at, plus the time period, then you could consider taking a trip to their records office (the archives).

Finding information about your ancestor’s life in France

While there is a lot you can do on the internet to research what your ancestor’s day-to-day may have looked like, going in person may be an effective option to immerse yourself in the history.

If you know where they hailed from, consider visiting the local town hall (mairie). Especially in small towns, the mairie can be an essential starting point to get information about where records might be kept, the location of local cemeteries and more.  

READ MORE: Préfecture v Mairie: French admin offices explained

Some town halls may store old property records, deeds, and previous zoning plans, which could help you figure out exactly where your ancestors lived.

As mentioned above, taking a trip to the local archives is a great option too.

When it comes to learning about the area, if you search ‘Culture et patrimoine’ plus the name of the town or département, you will come across local monuments, museums, and other landmarks. 

You can also try to look up castles open for visitors in the area – France was a feudal society for many centuries, and restoration efforts to maintain old chateaux not only focus on the castles themselves, but also involve learning about the surrounding area and villages.

Almost every French town and village has a war memorial listing the people from that area who died in World War I and II so you may find members of your family listed – some of the memorials have pictures of those who died too.

Getting help along the way

There are also resources for joining genealogy associations, such as the Centre d’Entraide Généalogique de France, which brings together people interested in genealogy and sometimes hosts workshops. You can find them online.

Most départements have their own Association généalogique, so you can search that plus the relevant French département.

There are also plenty of genealogy workshops hosted by local authorities and/or amateur groups, which you may be able to find if you search ‘atelier de généalogie’ plus your area (though you would likely need some level of French to get by).

You can also try to join Facebook groups for ‘généannoteurs’ (fans of genealogy in France) and online forums to ask questions to other people in the same situation as you, such as the community section of ‘Family Search’ (found here). 

Will I be able to get citizenship through ancestry?

Probably not. Unlike Ireland, which allows citizenship through grandparents, or Italy, which accepts any ancestor going back to 1861, in France you need a French parent to qualify.

There are several routes to obtaining French nationality. The best-known methods, other than being born in France to French parents, are by marriage to a French citizen, or to have lived in the country long enough to fulfil residency requirements. 

France has a relatively generous approach to getting citizenship through residency – you can apply after just five years of living here (or two years if you undertook higher education in France) and the fee is just €55. Set against that, however, is the requirement for a language test, the lengthy application process and the extra costs in getting certified translation of documents.

READ MORE: Can I obtain French citizenship through ancestry?