Religious denomination in the 19th century

[mosgau]

I am wondering if there is a way to know if an ancestor was catholic, protestant or another confession during the 1860's - 1870's in France. Is there any church records or other documents that someone knows of?

[ericdubois]

Chances are that your French ancestor was catholic, as this was by far the most common confession. Based on the 1851 census:

Sur 35 783 000 habitants, la France comptait alors, au vu des réponses recueillies, 34 931 000 catholiques, 775 000 protestants, 74 000 israélites, et 3 000 personnes sans religion (Statistique générale de la France, 1855, p. xxv).

Although protestants were significantly under-reported.

The census of 1851, 1861, 1866 and 1872 included a question on religion. During the German period Alsace and Moselle census and vital records included religion information.

Church record-keeping continued after the revolution (and still continues), but was no longer handed over to the state. For catholics, it's usually in the diocese's archives. If you know the date of birth/baptism, marriage, or death/burial, you can contact the diocese that the parish belongs to and, with a little luck, get a copy of the records.

Regards,

Eric

[paris75013]

Hi !
Generally speaking, registers or files of French public authorities can not contain any mention of the ethnical origin, the religion or the political opinions of a person. The nationality is not either mentioned in the civil registers, instaured only in 1793.

The French CIVIL registry was created to dis-connect the objective facts (birth, civil marriage, death) and someone's belonging (or not) to a certain religious group. The coexistence since 1793 of the Civil registry (N,M,D), by the communes on account of the State, and registers of religious events (B,M,S ; decided by the king in the 16th c. for the Catholics) has never stopped.

A person born in a "commune" in the countryside often bas a baptismal in the "paroisse" of the same place. So, in a rural area, it remains rather easy to check in the "registres paroissiaux" if this person has a baptismal, marriage or funeral recorded by the church. But it is not so true for people living in cities. That's why it can be pretty difficult, when you know someone's place of birth, to find if, when and where a baptismal or whatever took place.

Cordialement
Agnès

[sdirez]

For Catholic Church, you can ask the diocèse if they have information about your ancestor in their archives.
Here is the list of French diocèses : https://fr.geneawiki.com/index.php?title=Dioc%C3%A8ses_de_France

Maybe someone else have information for other religions.