My grandmother was born in France and I still love to hear her stories of her years growing up there. Many of them are sad - WWII was a tough time to live in France - but it is still amazing to hear the stories of a different time and place. I was very intimidated, however, when I first set out to research her ancestry. My grandmother came to America almost 60 years ago as a war bride, so there are no longer any relatives left in France with whom she keeps in contact. She knows the language well, obviously, but I also really wanted to do a lot of the research on my own.

It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. My grandmother was able to write to France to request copies of her parents' birth and marriage certificates. From there we were past the 100 year privacy laws, and were able to find many of the records we needed on microfilm through the Family History Library. The French keep excellent records, and it is actually much easier than most people think to trace a family back through several generations.

During the past year, research in France has exploded on the Internet. Boy, that would have made our research SO much easier :) The departmental archives of Yvelines, which covers the area where most of my grandmother's ancestors lived, has their civil records, parish records AND census records online in digitized format - for FREE access. They aren't the only ones either...

Genealogy research in France is fun and really not all that difficult - even for beginners. Dig into your French roots and see what I mean with the steps and tips in Beginner's Guide to Researching Your French Ancestry.