French Vocabulary for the American Genealogist
A Practical Guide to Reading French Canadian Genealogy Records
Researching French Canadian ancestors but don’t speak French?
Neither do I.
But I’ve learned that you don’t need to be fluent in French to begin understanding French Canadian genealogy records. Parish registers use many of the same words, phrases, and patterns again and again. Once you learn to recognize them, a page of unfamiliar handwriting begins to look a lot less intimidating.
I created French Vocabulary for the American Genealogist as a practical reference you can keep nearby while you research.
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What You’ll Find Inside
This isn’t simply a French-to-English word list. I’ve included the vocabulary in the context of actual genealogical research.
The guide includes:
- Essential French genealogy vocabulary with English meanings
- French month names and commonly used phrases
- Relationship terms such as fils de, fille de, veuve de, parrain, and marraine
- Tips for recognizing patterns in handwritten parish registers
- Strategies for working with indexes, translations, and uncertain handwriting
- Real baptism and marriage records from my own French Canadian family
- Examples showing how a few words can reveal important genealogical relationships
 Real Records. Real People. Real Genealogy.
The records featured in this guide aren’t sample records I found just for teaching. They belong to my own family.You’ll meet my third great-grandmother, Marie Geneviève Chartier, first through her 1818 baptismal record, then as the mother of my second great-grandfather, Alfred Ouvrard, and finally through her 1852 marriage to François Martin.Following one family through several records lets us see something a vocabulary list alone can’t teach: how the words on the page become evidence about real people and real relationships.
One Important Thing to Remember
You don’t have to translate every word.
Start by asking: What kind of record is this? Who is it about? What information answers my research question?
That’s really the philosophy behind the entire guide.
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