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Moselle, France Genealogy

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Guide to Moselle Department ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

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History[edit | edit source]

Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Lorraine and is named after the river Moselle, a tributary of the Rhine. Moselle's borders and contents have changed extensively over the years, including a period between 1871 and 1919 when the department did not exist.[1]

Localities (Communes)[edit | edit source]

Church Records and Civil Registration (Registres Paroissiaux et Etat Civil) Online[edit | edit source]

The vast majority of your research will be in church records and civil registration. For more information on these records and how to use them, read France Church Records and France Civil Registration. Fortunately, these records are available online from the archives of each department:
Here is the website for the Department Archives of Moselle, where you will find these records.


Online Census Records[edit | edit source]

Census records can support your search in civil and church records. They can help identify all family members. When families have similar names they help determine which children belong in each family. See France Census.

The French nominal census lists from before 1872 were not kept by the German administration; only the lists kept at the prefecture of Meurthe (Château-Salins and Sarrebourg districts, nowadays in Moselle), which are in the Departmental Archives of Meurthe-et-Moselle in Nancy because they were not of interest to the German administration, and the lists in the communal archives, which are not very complete, remain.

The lists of German censuses from 1871 to 1910 were never deposited in the archives of the German prefecture of Metz; we do not know where they are now, assuming that they were kept after their statistical exploitation.

The lists of French censuses from 1921 to 1936 were never handed over to the Moselle prefecture because the Alsace-Lorraine statistics office in Strasbourg kept them; they perished in 1940 in all likelihood.

Online Local Databases and Extracted Records[edit | edit source]

Groups devoted to genealogy have also extracted and/or indexed records for specific localities, time periods, religious groups, etc. Since church records at the departmental archives are generally not indexed, you might find an index here that will speed up your searching.

Microfilm Records of the FamilySearch Library[edit | edit source]

Many church and civil registration records have been microfilmed. To find a microfilm: Click on Moselle , find and click on "Places within France, Moselle," and choose your locality from the list.

Writing for Records[edit | edit source]

Online records tend to cover only the time before 100 years, due to privacy laws. You can write to civil registration offices and local churches who might honor requests for more recent records of close family members for the purpose of genealogy.

For a civil registration office, address your request to:

Monsieur l'officier de l'état-civil
Mairie de (Town)
(Postal code) (Town)
France

For a parish church:

Monsieur le Curé
(Church --see The Catholic Directory for church name and address)
(Town) (Postal Code) France

For other addresses and for help writing your request in French, use French Letter Writing Guide.

Learning to Read Enough French, German, or Latin to Do Genealogy[edit | edit source]

It's easier than you think! You do not have to be fluent in French or German to use these records, as there is only a limited vocabulary used in them. By learning a few key phrases, you will be able to read them adequately. Because this region once belonged to Germany, many records are written in German.

German[edit | edit source]

Here are some resources for learning to read German Records:

French[edit | edit source]

Here are some resources for learning to read French records.

These lessons focus on reading church record and civil registration records:

Another resource is the French Records Extraction Manual. The full manual or individual lesson chapters are downloadable from this webpage. A number of helpful lessons are available here, but the first five lessons are especially useful.

  • Chapter 1: Old Records
  • Chapter 2: Christening, Marriage, and Other Entries
  • Chapter 3: Marriage
  • Chapter 4: Other Entries
  • Chapter 5: French Handwriting and Spelling

Latin[edit | edit source]

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.

Search Strategy[edit | edit source]

  • Begin with the death information of the focus ancestor and locate the death record.
  • Use the information on that death record to locate the ancestor's marriage record.
  • Use the information on that marriage record to locate the ancestor's birth record.
  • Once the birth record is found, search for the focus ancestor's siblings.
  • Next, search for the marriage of the focus ancestor's parents. The marriage record will have information that often helps locate the birth records of the parents.
  • Search the death registers for all known family members.
  • Repeat this process for both the father and the mother, starting with their birth records, then their siblings' births, then their parents' marriages, and so on.
  • If earlier generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) do not appear in the records, search neighboring parishes. It is possible they may have moved or boundaries changed.

Genealogical Societies and Help Groups[edit | edit source]

FamilySearch Centers[edit | edit source]

  • FamilySearch Centers
  • FamilySearch Centers (FSCs) are branches of FamilySearch and the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah (United States), located all over the world. Their goal is to provide resources to assist you in the research and study of your genealogy and family history by:
    • Giving personal one-on-one assistance to patrons
    • Providing access to genealogical records through the Internet or microfilm loan program
    • Offering free how-to classes (varies by location)
  • There is no cost to visit a FamilySearch Center or FamilySearch Library. They are open to anyone with an interest in genealogical research. They are operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
  • Partner sites such as Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Findmypast.com, and many CD based collections can be searched free of charge.

Finding a FamilySearch Center

Websites[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Moselle (department)," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moselle_(department) (accessed July 14, 2020).

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