French Military Records

Source: https://mattsko.com/2015/04/23/french-soldier-late-1800s/

Some time ago, I shared information regarding the Paris Archives. With some recent research of an ancestor, I thought I would share more information about the French Military records I have used.

​Today let’s look at a brother of my ancestor. His name was Mathias Leysen and he was actually born in Luxembourg. When he was a boy, his entire family moved to the Paris area where I assume they had better employment opportunities. How did he become part of the French military?

• “In 1889, needing more men for the army, the country changed the laws concerning foreigners born in France such that all foreigners born in France and still living in France at the time that they reached the age of majority and who had not surrendered formally their French nationality, were French and did have to do their military service.” Source:  French Nationality Law Through the Years - The French Genealogy Blog  
• “1889 - By the "Law of Three Years" the term of service was reduced to three years in the active army, to be followed by seven years in the reserves and fifteen years in the territorial army. Many types of exemptions were abolished. The full length of military obligation was twenty-five years.” Source: Researching a Conscript - The French Genealogy Blog

 
There is a lot of genealogical information contained in these military records. You can find their name, birth date, parents, occupation, residence, and level of education. My favorite section addresses how they look: the color of their hair and eyes as well as descriptions of their face shape, mouth, and nose.
 
If they were approved for service, that was noted as well as their military class. In the case of Mathias, he was part of the class of 1880 and approved for service: Bon Pour le Service Arme’ or good for armed services. I found that looking up individual words and phrases in Google Translate worked best for me. You could save an image of the document and try the Google Image translate. It will translate the printed text but I didn’t find the written text translation to be dependable.

Source: Recrutement militaire de la Seine - Archives de Paris

​The following section provides information about their service and where they were stationed. Mathias was in the service when there weren’t major conflicts, so it appears that his time was spent in Paris.

Source: Recrutement militaire de la Seine - Archives de Paris

During his time in the service, his place of residence was noted by date which is helpful because Paris does not have census records until 1926. In addition, you can see his progress through the system: territory army 1896 then the army reserve for the territory 1900. And finally, the date of dismissal from the army was in 1906.

Source: Recrutement militaire de la Seine - Archives de Paris

If you have an ancestor or a collateral relative that service in the French Military, it may help you pinpoint where they lived, their parents as well as details about their service. Sadly, Mathias had a niece who lost her husband to typhoid while in the service during WWI. Another died of pneumonia due to exposure to mustard gas. Some were permanently disabled and may have applied for a pension later. (I have not searched for pensions.)

I have found most military records using the Accueil - Archives de Paris. Here you can search in this section Recrutement militaire de la Seine - Archives de Paris where you can use the alphabetic tables or search by name.
 
 If you have an ancestor who died in WWI, check out this site to see if you can find additional information:  https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/fr/arkotheque/client/mdh/base_morts_pour_la_france_premiere_guerre/index.php
This site has many databases with a wealth of information related to military service. They also have links to information related to service outside of WWI and that includes service related to WWII.
 
I hope this gives you some idea of the information available when researching your French military records. There are likely many more but I have found these to be quite helpful. Good luck researching!