What did your ancestors look like?
Have you ever wondered what your ancestors looked like?
Discover the physique of your ancestors in the archives
It is possible to find precise photos or physical descriptions of our ancestors in the archives:
• In family photos : the source par excellence to put a face on a name. But, it is still necessary to find it and that these are annotated, right?
• In military registers : These registers contain precise physical descriptions of conscripts (20 -year -old men). They are interesting since almost majority of our ancestors, during this period, went through the cases of military recruitment to perform their service.
• In the ancient press : If your ancestor was a step-by-time, if he was watched or wanted by the police itself, it is possible to find his report in the old press.
• In parish or civil status registers : It is possible that a slightly more talkative priest than the others split a physical description on one of your ancestors. This is the magic of genealogical discoveries by the way! In fact, such descriptions could arrive at multiple births - in order to distinguish one child from another.
• In the registers of fairgrounds and nomads : From 1912 to 1969, the government delivered anthropometric notebooks identity with fairgrounds and nomads over 13 years old in order to identify them and monitor their movements. These notebooks are rich in information: measures, photographs, fingerprints ... They are available, for the most part, within the departmental archives, in the series M.
What did your ancestors look like in last centuries?
Difficult to draw up the robot portrait of an ancestor with simple physical descriptions! And if the photo is the best answer, a little overview of useful adjectives to describe our ancestors in the 18th and 19th centuries could serve you.
Physics - Size and weight
Several online archive sources (books in particular) allow us to find general information on the average sizes of the French over time.
The article The size of Parisians in 1793 (1983) by Jacques Houdaille informs us that The average size of a 25 -year -old Parisian at that time was 1.675m. But it is strong differences (of sizes!) Between the social classes. He deduces that: "Show that in Paris, growth was not continuing up to 25 years, which does not mean that it was the same in peasant populations whose food should be less rich in protein and which were certainly subject to earlier and harder physical work than Parisians".
Indeed, food and food shortages have slowed the growth of our poorest ancestors. But, Wars also played a role in the physical condition of our ancestors. As early as 1829, Villermé, a doctor, wrote: "The size of men became all the higher, and their growth ends all the faster since, all things being equal, the country is richer, the ease more general; that the accommodation, clothing and especially food are better and that sorrows, fatigue, the deprivation experienced in childhood are less large; In other words, misery, that is to say the circumstances that accompany it, produces small sizes and delays the era of the complete development of the body. "
Details
Depending on the years, it is in the registers that you will surely find the most details on your ancestors:
• Hair color
• Eye and eyebrow color
• the type of forehead (covered, discovered, wide, medium, vertical, etc.)
• The type of nose (medium, tapered, long, wide, etc.)
• The type of mouth (fine, average ...)
• The type of chin (round, fine, narrow ...)
• The type of face (ordinary, wide, bone, oval, round, etc.)
• The type of complexion (pale, ordinary, dark, etc.)
The physical particularities are also mentioned: scars, traces or tattoos, ears or deformed nose, beard.
💡 Did you know?
We owe the first precise judicial anthropometric identification system in Alphonse Bertillon. Grandson of demographer, brother of statistician and himself director of statistics of the department of the Seine and co-founder of the School of Anthropology, Alphonse Bertillon defined 14 useful measurements to perfectly identify an individual - Size, length of the feet, hands, ears, forearms, nose edge, eyes spacing ...
By combining anthropometry, descriptive reporting, photographic reporting and particular marks, its system will allow identify nearly 5,000 recurrences between 1882 and 1893.
Let's go good! If your ancestor was a desired criminal, you will most certainly have a physical description precise to put a face on a name.
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