How to find a foundling, abandoned, or assisted child in the archives?
Discover the history of foundlings or abandoned children through archives.
©Gallica - BnF
Finding a foundling, abandoned, or assisted child in the archives is a fascinating challenge for genealogists. These children, often left without known lineage, have nevertheless left precious administrative records. However, the procedures can be complex as the sources are multiple and scattered.
Before starting the search: gather all the information
Even before starting the search for a child and their journey in the archives, it is important to gather as much information as possible by asking yourself a few questions about:
- The time period (child's birth, year of abandonment...)
- The location (department, city...)
- The information you already have (gender, parents, reason for abandonment, family record...)
- The information you wish to find (their file, ancestry...)
Group all this information; it's clues to start your search.
A brief history of state care for children
- Before the Revolution: The state did not intervene in the care of abandoned children, which was handled by lords, village communities, and primarily religious institutions.
- March 4, 1556: Henry II issues an edict establishing a presumption of homicide in the case of the death of an illegitimate child if the pregnancy had not been declared.
- 1638: Saint Vincent de Paul founds the Foundling Hospital, marking the beginning of an organized system for assisting abandoned children.
- 1793: The Republic establishes assistance for abandoned children, now cared for by civil hospitals.
- 1805: The Civil Code legalizes adoption, providing a legal framework for child placements.
- 1811: A law creates a service for found and abandoned children in each prefecture and designates a hospital per department for their reception. These establishments must have a 'turn' for anonymous child deposits.
- 1849: Public Assistance becomes a decentralized state administration in each department. Children under its protection become wards of the state.
- 1869: Services for assisted children must now create an individual file for each state ward, including information on their civil status, known parentage, and follow-up (placements, education, training, behavior).
- June 27-28, 1904: A law restructures Public Assistance: it redefines categories of assisted children, consolidates previous regulations, replaces 'turns' with reception offices, and places the guardianship of wards under the authority of the prefect (previously managed by a hospital commission).
- 1956: Public Assistance is replaced by Child Welfare (ASE), integrated into health and social services departments, then into general councils (now departmental councils).
Some vocabulary: the different types of placements
- Foundling (term used between 1639 and 1858): born to unknown parents, found or brought to an establishment meant to receive them (e.g., in the hospice wheel or in an open office). Also considered a foundling if the mother gave birth in a hospice where she is recognized as unable to care for them.
- Assisted child (term used between 1859 and 1906): parents are unable to raise them (death, judgment, material reasons).
- Indigent child or poor orphan: considered a poor orphan from an indigent family, in the care of hospices or assisted at home. May be placed in a foster family.
- Morally abandoned child (term used between 1881 and 1906): born to known parents, then abandoned without a trace from the parents.
- Assisted child (term used between 1873 and 1930): parents are financially helped to provide for their needs and ensure their education.
- Child in deposit (term used between 1841 and 1930): parents cannot temporarily take care of them. They may be recovered at any time by their parents. As of 1959, all admitted children (assisted or morally abandoned) will go through this service. Starting in 1907, we will refer to them as Pupils of the Assistance (term used between 1907 and 1930).
- Child born under X: born to known parents who do not wish to care for them while requesting anonymity.
📋 Assisted children and children in deposit are placed under public protection. The others are state wards, or wards of the public assistance.
Note, "state wards" should not be confused with "wards of the nation," a term that, starting in 1917, designates war orphans and children whose at least one parent was recognized as a victim of war (seriously injured or gassed during World War I, for example).
Researching Archives: Useful Records
Admission to hospices and then to public assistance for a child was done in different ways:
- A foundling was the subject of a police report. This document is transcribed in the birth registers of the municipality and serves as a birth certificate. The child is therefore registered in the 'foundlings' register of the hospice where they were taken in, awaiting placement in a foster family.
- Abandoned children were admitted to a hospice if a justice of the peace or mayor certified, by an act of notoriety, the absence of the parents.
Upon arrival, each placed child was assigned a matricule number and a file to gather their life information. It is possible to find this file in various archive funds depending on the case.
To find an individual file, here are the main elements to know:
- Child's first and last name
- Date of birth
- Matricule number
Researching in Departmental Archives: Series X - Assistance and Provision, and Subseries 3X
This archive collection is accessible at departmental archives (of the abandonment location), or at municipal archives for large cities.
Subseries 3X provides you with several files:
- Files of abandoned, found, or assisted children (matriculation registers, registers of exposed and found children, placements with wet nurses, files for children in foster care, registers of deaths of found or abandoned children between 1 and 12 years old), foreign children abandoned in France...
- Files of assisted juvenile delinquents by court decision or at moral risk
- Files on private assistance establishments, religious orphanages
- Files on Public Assistance (names of wet nurses and foster families)
- Maternal and infant protection (registry of assisted mothers, infant consultations...)
Note that registers are accessible in the reading room after a 50-year waiting period. However, in accordance with CNIL recommendations, only registers over 100 years old are freely available. For the period after 1920, it is necessary to visit the reading room or submit a request to AD services to obtain a digital copy.
You can consult these files on several Departmental Archives websites (non-exhaustive list):
Additional sources to trace an assisted child
If a child's file does not exist or has been destroyed, it may be interesting to explore these additional sources:
- Hospital archives (registers of assisted children, minutes of abandonment and exposure declarations, records of wet nurses, children's admissions and discharges...)
- Judicial archives (minutes, judgments and adoption files, educational assistance...)
What You Need to Know About Public Assistance
The Role of ASE:
Child welfare is part of the child protection mission, which aims to ensure that children's fundamental needs are met and to preserve their health, safety, morality, and education (Article L112-3 of the Social Action and Families Code).
This is a competence exercised by the Department, in conjunction with many actors, including the justice system and associations. It handles three main missions:
- Prevention: support and financial aid for families;
- Protection: home interventions and out-of-home placement measures;
- Adoption: care for state wards and processing of adoption applications.
Access Times for Individual Files:
- Immediate communication of the file only for the interested party (request to be made to the Adoption and Origins Research Cell of ASE)
- 50-year delay from the last document added to the file
- 25-year delay from the death of the interested party if medical information, or 120 years from birth date
- 75-year delay (or 100 years if minor) if there are documents related to a case brought before the justice system.
Abbreviations to Remember:
- A: abandoned
- AN: abandoned naturally
- AL: abandoned legally
- D: deceased
- EGNV: natural custody (V may mean 'voluntary')
- EGLV: legal custody (V may mean 'voluntary')
- ES: rescued child
- GPE: temporary child custody
- MA1: relinquishment of parental authority by one parent
- MA2: relinquishment of parental authority by both parents
- MAN: morally abandoned naturally
- MAL: morally abandoned legally
- O: orphan
- OL: orphaned legally
- ON: orphaned naturally
- PE: state ward
- RTL: temporarily placed legally
- RTN: temporarily placed naturally
- T or TR: foundling
Resources:
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