How to make a family tree in France: steps, civil records, photos and voices

A family tree often starts with a simple question: where does my family come from? To answer it you need names, dates and places. In France, the good news is that most old records are online and free. This guide explains how to make your family tree step by step, where to look, and how to bring the tree to life afterwards with photos, voices and stories.

Step 1: start with yourself

You build a tree from yourself, working backwards. Write down your name, your date and place of birth, then those of your parents, your grandparents, and so on. For each person: surname, given names, dates and places of birth, marriage and death.

Do not go looking for the most distant ancestor straight away. One generation well established is worth more than three generations guessed.

Step 2: talk to the oldest relatives

The oldest people in your family know things no archive holds: a name someone actually went by, a home village, a trade, a falling-out. Visit them with questions and a photo or two. Record the conversation with your phone, with their consent.

Our sheet of twenty questions to ask your parents is free and printable. To go further, read our guide on the family interview: questions and recording.

Step 3: gather the family papers

Before the archives, look in the drawers, your own and your parents'. The most useful documents:

• The livret de famille: the French family record book, with the marriage, the births of the children, sometimes deaths, and the places.
• Announcement cards for births, marriages and deaths (faire-part).
• Memorial cards (images mortuaires), with the date and often the place of death.
• Annotated photos, letters, military service books, notarial deeds.

Step 4: note your sources

For every fact, note where it comes from: which record, which commune, which year, which reference or page of the register. It seems tedious, but it is what lets you check later, correct a mistake, and lets someone else pick up your work.

Step 5: number with Sosa-Stradonitz

In France, people very often number their ancestors with Sosa-Stradonitz numbering, or Sosa numbering. The principle comes down to three rules:

• You are number 1.
• A person's father has double that person's number, the mother double plus one. So your father is 2, your mother 3, your paternal grandfather 4, your paternal grandmother 5.
• Men have even numbers, women odd numbers, except number 1.

The benefit: one number is enough to place someone in the tree, and most genealogy software calculates it for you.

Where to find records in France

• Civil records (état civil): kept by the mairie since 20 September 1792. Birth and marriage records can be consulted after 75 years, death records straight away. For a recent record, ask the mairie of the place of the event for a copy; it is free.
• The tables décennales: they list a commune's records by ten-year period. Very useful when you do not know the exact year.
• The Archives départementales online: almost all have digitised the older civil records and parish registers, free to consult. The FranceArchives portal has a map to find each department's website.
• Parish registers: before 1792, baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded by the priest. Baptism records have been compulsory since the ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts of 1539.
• Censuses: every five years since 1836. They show who lived under the same roof, with age and occupation.
• Military registers (registres matricules): from the class of 1867, in series 1 R at the Archives départementales. Physical description, successive addresses, campaigns.
• The INSEE death index: deaths since 1970, free to consult, for example on deces.matchid.io.
• Genealogy societies (cercles généalogiques): the Fédération française de généalogie brings together many local associations. They publish transcriptions and help beginners.

For the details, department by department and source by source, read our guide starting a family tree in France: where to find the records.

Which software or website to choose?

• Free: Ancestrologie, Gramps and Ancestris, programs you install on your computer.
• Paid: Heredis and Généatique, both widely used in France.
• Online: Geneanet (free tree, GEDCOM import), Filae (free tree, indexed records for subscribers), FamilySearch (free with an account).

Whatever you choose, check that it reads and writes GEDCOM, the exchange format for family trees. That way you can switch tools without typing everything again. Our free GEDCOM viewer shows what a file contains, how many generations and where the gaps are, without an account and without the file leaving your device. For a more general method, see how to create a family tree step by step.

Bringing the tree to life

A well-sourced tree is still a list of names and dates. What brings it to life is what you add to it.

• Photos with a name and a year. A photo without a caption becomes, within two generations, a photo of strangers. Write at least who is on it and roughly when. To date a photo, see how to date an old photograph and identify the people.
• The voices of the oldest relatives. Of most of our great-grandparents, not a single recording remains. Of our parents and grandparents, there is still time. Record them around a photo: who is this, what were you doing then.
• The stories. Write down what is told at the table, even if it is only half true, and note who you heard it from.
• Sharing with the family. A cousin will recognise a face, an aunt will correct a date. A tree grows when others contribute.

To show or print your ancestors, our free ancestor chart tool draws four or five generations from a GEDCOM file, to print or as a PDF.

Your family tree in The Memory Palace

The Memory Palace is a private 3D palace where the family tree and the family's memories come together: on iPhone, iPad, Android and in the browser, in English and four other languages, with the data stored in the EU.

• The tree, imported or built. Create the tree in the app or import your GEDCOM file, and export it again as GEDCOM whenever you want.
• Three ways to see it. A tree view, a fan chart and a descendants view, with a photo for each person.
• A wing per branch. For example the father's side and the mother's side, then a room per person, per couple or per period. It is a suggestion; you arrange it as you like.
• The voice next to the photo. The photos hang on the walls, with a name and a year under each frame. Next to them you record who it was in your own voice, or add an existing recording, and you write the story.
• Sharing with the family. You share the tree with your relatives through a link, and invite them into a room or a wing, where they add their own photos, stories and recordings. Everything else stays private.
• Take everything with you. A full export as a ZIP file at any time, also on the free plan.

Want to see what it looks like? Walk through an example palace, no account needed.

Related guides

• Starting a family tree in France: where to find the records
• How to create a family tree step by step
• The family interview: questions and recording