Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin

For at least a year, the web site of the Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin ("departmental archives of the Lower Rhine", a.k.a., Alsace) has made available a collection of images scanned from civil and parish registers. They include:

• parish registers from the XVIth century to 1792
• 10-year index and civil registers of birth, marriage and death from 1793 to 1902
• family names’ choice registers by Jews (1808)

The registers are not indexed, unfortunately. The records search is locality based, but if you know where your ancestors lived and roughly when, it can be well worth your effort to browse through the images – and decipher the French, Latin, or German (often in deutscheschrift) – to extract the information hidden there.

In my case, I received a tip from fellow researcher Didier Ott (see his web site) regarding the location of Johannes CRIQUI. Using this information and approximate vital dates I already had, I have been able to locate birth records for Johannes' family, filling in vital dates and the names of Johannes' and Catherine's parents!

I'll be updating my Most Wanted pages and the master research database, but in the meantime, go check out the Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin web site for yourself.