Decennial Tables and Genealogy

Small handbook for genealogists, traps to avoid

God bless the inventor of decennial tables! In addition to saving us time, they spare us hours of research through 1001 registers that could make your fingers and eyes bleed. For any experienced genealogist, the use of these decennial tables is no secret, and the number of hours spent browsing these lists is counted in tens or even hundreds. However, it’s not useless to take a quick look at them. 

First of all, why are they so useful? Simply because they greatly simplify the genealogist's work and save something very precious: time! Indeed, they summarize all civil registry records (births, marriages, deaths) recorded in a commune in 10-year increments, and this since 1793. They classify individuals in alphabetical order by the first letter of the surname. This avoids searching through different registers year by year when you don’t have precise dates. In fact, these tables are an excellent way to specify the date of an act and thus help you find them. The digitization of decennial tables stops for most departments in 1902. This is not the case for all, for example, we find some dating back to 1911, but departments are reluctant to publish tables that are still too recent.

Traps to Avoid

Obviously, to use these tables, you need to know the commune of your ancestors. Additionally, to have all the records, it would be necessary that they never moved. If that’s the case, especially for many families in the 19^thcentury where the domain was passed down from generation to generation and where they tended to stay grouped together, it is possible to quickly trace back generations. 

It’s not uncommon to have homonyms in the same commune. It’s then thanks to the spouse’s name that you will authenticate the person. Another trap to avoid: On the death record of women, their maiden name appears, not their married name. 

Also be careful with abbreviations, used to avoid repetitions :

7bre: September

8bre: October

9bre: November

Xbre: December

Note: It’s useless to look for decennial tables that are too old, they don’t exist! Before 1793, there were Parish Registers, kept by the parish priests, and gathering the following acts: baptism, marriage, and burial.

Decennial tables are therefore the main ally of any beginner in genealogy. For the more experienced, it provides a significant time saving and greatly facilitates research. You will have understood: long live the inventor of decennial tables!