French Handwriting

• French Genealogical Word List

Before 1539, many church records are in Latin. In 1539 French was made the administrative language of France through the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts. As a result, there is only the occasional Latin word or phrase in church records after 1539.

BYU Script Tutorial for Reading French

• Script Tutorial for Reading French

Guide to indexing Toulouse, La Dalbade parish register (baptisms) from 1571-1599 and after

Guide to reading and interpreting old parish records of Toulouse for the purpose of indexing and reading old French handwriting. Click here to open the guide.

French Records Extraction Manual

Another resource is the French Records Extraction Manual, Full Manual. Much more is covered, but these first four lessons are especially useful.

• Chapter 1: Old French Records
  
• Chapter 2: Parish Christening and Civil Birth Entries
  
• Chapter 3: Marriage Entries
  
• Chapter 4: Other Entries
  
• Chapter 5: French Handwriting and Spelling
  
• Chapter 6: Name Identification
  
• Chapter 7: Gender
  
• Chapter 8: Dates
  
• Chapter 9: Putting it all in practice
  
• Appendix A: French Occupations List
• Appendix B: Common Abbreviations
• Appendix C: Answers to Self-Evaluation Exercises
• Glossary