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Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths
- Guadeloupe: Basse-Terre from 1679 to 1900, Pointe-à-Pitre from 1728 to 1907; other communes (partial).
- Mayotte
- New Caledonia: (partial)
- Saint-Barthélémy (St. Barts): (partial)
- Saint-Martin: (partial)
- French Coast of the Somalis (French Somaliland): (partial)
- Senegal: (partial)
- French Sudan: (partial)
- Wallis and Futuna:
- Algeria: The digitised certificates for 1910
From 1905 it is no longer a name database; searches are carried out with the criteria 'communes', 'type of certificate' and 'date'.
Access to Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths database
Photos
Algeria, Sub-Saharan Africa, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Polynesia.
Access to the Ulysses Base
Maps and plans
Guyana, Marquesas Islands
Access to the Ulysses Base
Search tools
The efforts of the Archives Nationals d'Outre-Mer currently concern four fields:
- archives from the Sub-Secretariats of State and the Ministries responsible for the colonies from the XVIIth Century to 1962
- archives concerning Algeria and French Equatorial Africa
- private archives (especially collections concerning Sub-Saharan Africa)
- maps and plans, photographs
Access to on-line research tools
Latest publications
Private archives - Louis Tréchot's papers: Compagnie française du Haut et Bas-Congo - French Company of the Upper and Lower Congo (141 APOM, 1894-2003).
The Tréchot brothers, François, Henri, Louis, Aimé and Ernest, came from the Nièvre department of France. These sailors left for the Congo, opened up by Brazza at the end of the XIXth Century, and founded the Compagnie Française du Haut-Congo (CFHC) in 1899, having obtained the concession for the Likouala-Mossaka Basin. In 1929 when the concessionary system ended the CFHC merged with L'Alimaïne and the Compagnie Française du Bas-Congo (CFBC) to form the Compagnie Française du Haut et Bas-Congo (CFHBC), which mainly produced palm oil and exploited lumber wood.
The donation from the family concerns Louis's archives (not those of the Head Office of the CFHBC), the only one of the Tréchot brothers to have remained in the Congo. As the General Agent for the CFHBC he administered the factories, the business companies and the plantations in the Congo. The Head Office for his activities was in Brazzaville, but he travelled frequently from one trading post to another.
The archives mainly consist of his correspondence, exchanged with agents of the company, the local administration, companies and individuals established in French Equatorial Africa, as well as with his brothers who had returned to France for good.
The documents kept, often in poor condition, relate largely to the general administration of the CFHC, then the CFHBC, to the production and commercial activities of the trading posts and factories.
Private archives - Le Gentil de Paroy Collection (164 APOM, 1754-1826).
During the XVIIIth Century, the Le Gentil de Paroy family, established in Saint Domingue in the 1720s, acquired a significant heritage through a set of successions and a clever matrimonial policy. This consisted of sugar and coffee plantations which were lost when the island became the independent Haiti.
The documents kept, family and economic archives, relate mostly to the management of the plantations, particularly inventories drawn up at the time of the successions, the plans required for settling litigation and accounts and operational diaries sent to the Marquis de Paroy by his stewards. So the makeup of the Le Gentil family heritage in Saint Domingue can be established, as can their complete integration into the slavery society of the island and their participation in the economy, mainly sugar, of the colony.
Sub-prefectures in Algeria - Tizi-Ouzou Sub-prefecture (1858-1956)
The arrondissement of Tizi-Ouzou, in the Department of Algiers, was created by a Decree dated 11 September 1873 and its administrative centre was established in the town of the same name. The new administrative district included a large part of Kabylie, a mountainous region that was often difficult to access and where the revolt had recently been put down. In 1956 it became the Department of Grande-Kabylie. Nevertheless it continued in a reduced form as the new Department was split into six arrondissements including that of Tizi-Ouzou. The documents kept concern the colonisation of the territory and its main business of agriculture, particularly the cultivation of cereals and figs, as well as its surveillance (religion and administrative police) and its defence during the Algerian War.
Private archives - Protestant churches in Algeria (208 APOM, 1838-2003)
The Protestant Church was officially recognised in Algeria by the Royal Decree of 31 October 1839, even though the low number of the faithful prevented the application of the law of the 18th of the 7th month of the French Revolutionary Calendar, Year X. The Central Consistory of Algiers, within which the two denominations, Lutheran and Reformed, had to coexist, and the oratories, which were served by auxiliary pastors, were created. This administrative union was maintained by the Imperial Decree of 17 September 1859 at the same time as the parishes and presbyterial councils were established. In 1867 the Central Consistory of Algiers was dissolved and replaced by the three consistories of Algiers, Constantine and Oran. The first synod of the Reformed Church of Algeria was held in 1880. Following this it was joined by the ministers of religion of Tunis and Sfax. As for the Lutherans, they disappeared from Algeria gradually. With the absence of pastors, the parishes asked to be attached to the Reformed Church. After independence, this became the Union des associations cultuelles de l'Eglise réformée en Algérie (The Union of Religious Associations of the Reformed Church in Algeria). The documents relate to the missions of the Consistories of Algiers, Oran and Constantine, particularly pastoral actions and the orphanage at Dély Ibrahim.
Repository for colonial public papers - Census, roles and reports for refugees, faiths and allegiances, lists of concessions (Sub-series G1, 1664-1881).
The documents kept are mainly made up of censuses taken in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, digital, nominal (rare) or summary reports drawn up by colonies or localities. Exceptional in mainland France but frequent in the overseas territories, they make it possible for the Royal administration to estimate the size of the population living in the territory (heads of families, women, children, employees, domestics and slaves ) and to evaluate it as well as the economic situation. Also kept were the lists of refugees from colonies ceded to England (Acadia, Cape Breton Island and Saint John's Island in Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, French India, Falkland Islands), correspondence and memoirs clarifying the history of populating territories, as well as sources on landed property (allegiances in Canada, concessions in Canada and Louisiana).
Sub-prefectures in Algeria - Sub-prefecture of La Calle (1912-1962).
The archives of the Sub-prefecture of La Calle, an ephemeral institution created during the departmental reforms in Algeria in 1955-1956 are particularly representative of these French administrations which concentrated their powers and means in participating in the war effort.
The documents kept, partly related to the protection of people and property and the surveillance of individuals and the territory, thus provide essential clarification about the war against acts of terrorism, cantonments, movements and activities of the rebels. Others concern the coordination between the civil administrations, including the sub-prefecture, and military authorities, and the actions of the specialised Administrative Sections of the arrondissement. The political life and state of mind of the populations during the seven years the Sub-prefecture existed are also well represented.
So the collection of the Sub-prefecture of La Calle offers an essential complement to that of the mixed commune (already classified and available on IREL - on-line research tools): the action of the French administration on this territory may now be studied in its entirety.
Ministry for the Colonies - Political Affairs Directorate: Service de Liaison avec les Originaires des Territoires Français d'Outre-Mer - Department for Liaison with People originating in the French Overseas Territories (SLOTFOM, 1911-1957).
The Department for the Organisation and Surveillance of Colonial Workers in France, created in 1916 by the Ministry for War and appurtenant to the Department of Colonial Troops was responsible for the surveillance of the indigenous labour force which came to work in mainland France and the liaison between the employers and the colonies. In 1917, the Department came under the aegis of the Ministry for the Colonies and collaborated with the Ministry of the Interior and the police departments of the Governments General. It had infiltrated agents and undercover correspondents who evolved in all parts of society. In 1923 it was succeeded by the Department for the Control and Assistance in France of Native People from the French colonies, the task of which was extended to all subjects or French protégés from the Empire. Then in 1941 this Department became the Service de liaison avec les originaires des territoires français d'outre-mer (SLOTFOM) by the Decree of 28 February 1946.
Between 1911 and 1957 SLOTFOM and the departments which preceded it had gathered and centralised information on the political activity of native people in mainland France and the colonies. Thus the documents kept are an exceptional source for the history of the overseas territories' nationalist and communist movements, especially in Indochina but also in the other territories of the Empire.
Secretariat of State for the Navy - Correspondence on the arrival in Guadeloupe (Sub-series C7, 1649-1815).
French colonisation started in 1635: a trading company, the second Compagnie des Iles d’Amérique, obtained in exchange for expenditure "[which it had] formerly made or which it will have to make in the future" the definitive property of the island.
After the company was dissolved in 1648 the Iles d'Amérique, including Guadeloupe, were sold to individuals. They were bought back by Colbert in 1664 when the Compagnie des Indes occidentales was founded, to which their development was entrusted in exchange for the exclusive rights to trade and navigation.
La Compagnie des Indes occidentales disappeared in 1674, and Guadeloupe was reunited into the Domaine Royal. Taken by the English in 1756, it was restored to France by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
Ministry for the Colonies - Modern colonial personnel (Series EE, End XVIIIth-XIXth).
Series EE keeps the files for personnel who served in the colonies from the French Revolutions to about the 1880s. Only Letter A has been put on line, the rest of the dossiers are being processed.
