Genealogy Chat

http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/take-it-further/
overseas/french-ancestors-%E2%80%93-french-census

(copy and paste both lines)

"In France, rather than being carried out nationally, it is in the form of a series of local censuses taken by local authorities. The first one was carried out under Napoleon in 1801 and was taken in 98 of the country’s départements. The next one was recorded in 1806 and then 1821, 1826, 1831.

From 1831 onwards, it was taken every five years (except for 1871 – delayed until the following year, 1916 or 1941 because of wars). The census records are held locally and, though not indexed, can be a gold mine of information. They tell you the full names of residents at an address, occupation, place of birth and age and nationality.

Some censuses are digitised and available online, but most must be consulted at the departmental archives. The closed period for census records is 30 years, so the last one you can view is 1975. For a useful guide to what is included on each census, see the Wikipedia entry on the French census."

So yes. there should be a French census, but they are held by Department rather than on a national data base. You'd need to know which region they were living in to start with.

http://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/France_Census says

"Because French censuses are not indexed, it is not easy to find a name in them"

Does anyone know if there was a census carried out in France in late 1800s?

Many thanks

Maria