Researching history of house

[WendyG]

Hi everyone

I expect this has been a topic in the past but cannot seem to find it.

I have an old farmhouse and would love to know its origins and history down the years It has obviously had many changes and add-ons and may even have had a fire.

Any helpful ideas as to where to research would be very appreciated. Someone suggested local Mairie as a starting point.

WendyG

[pachapapa]

Departmental Archives. Many are now digitised and available on line.

The archives from my village with parish records dating from the 16th century were moved to Niort in the mid 60s.

The cadastre napoleonien is always a good start to confirm situation at start of 19th century.

[WendyG]

Thanks very much, will try.

WendyG

[Tony F Dordogne]

Where do you live Wendy?

Different Archives have different levels of digitization and apart from the Departementale, there may be other local archives that can help you.  At the Mairie - depending on the size of your commune/town - they may have the original registration documents for births, marriages and deaths and you can often trace the history of the house back through the previous families and also ask locally, people may well be able to help you.  You might also try to find out if there is a Departementale history/archeology research group, they are also very helpful as are genealogy groups.

But the DAs are the best source, if they're not online there is a national archiving system used across France at the DAs so if you can use one, you can use them all - and if there are notaire's records, they're a goldmine.

[woolybanana]

Unfortunately many records were destroyed in various uprisings in different parts of France. You may be lucky. Here in the Vendée anything over about 200 years old is often fragmented or non-existant.

Don't neglect the living record; many old folks can give you precious information going back a good few years.

[Alan Zoff]

If you Google:

Rechercher l'histoire de votre maison

you will get a few suitable hits with tips in French. Click the translation options if you want it in (something like) English.

[maude]

We also are in the se corner of the vendee.However our Maire tells us that no records are held before 1946?Our house is over 100 years old.Our French neighbour across the road used to own part of our house which we believ had been a cafe.She replied NONE to our questions re the history or old photos..looke up the cadastral history from the Napoleonic date to find that a single farmhouse 1km away is shown,but our commune of mainly ancienne houses isnt!!! Good hunting anyway. Maude333