Finding your artisan ancestors: the hidden treasure of guild archives

Discover how to use guild, jurande, and companionship archives to find your artisan ancestors.

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Long before the freedom to undertake established by the French Revolution, the world of work was regulated by a rigorous and hierarchical system: the guilds (or jurandes). For genealogists, these structures are a goldmine. They allow you to go beyond the simple reading of baptism records to enter the daily life, skills, and social status of the artisan. Geneafinder offers a methodology to exploit these often overlooked sources.

Finding your artisan ancestors through guild archives

Under the Ancien Régime, most artisans practiced within guilds, that is to say, communities of trades regulated by the king and endowed with statutes, juries, and registers. These communities controlled training (apprenticeship), access to mastership, and the quality of production, while producing abundant documentation: statutes, masters' rolls, lists of juries, deliberations, accounts, etc.

For genealogists, this documentation ideally complements parish registers, as it allows you to identify the level of qualification (apprentice, companion, master), the place of practice, professional networks, and sometimes family ties between artisans of the same trade. Moreover, the official suppression of guilds in 1791 did not erase their archives, which are now preserved in public archives services and accessible to researchers.

Guild archives transform the simple mention "tailor" or "carpenter" into an extremely precise social, professional, and family profile.

Understanding what a guild is

Guilds, jurandes, confraternities: defining the terms

Before diving into the archives, it's important to clearly distinguish the main concepts related to the Ancien Régime artisanal world.

• A guild (or trade community) is an obligatory association, recognized by royal power, that regulates a given trade (butchers, bakers, coopers, etc.) with precise statutes and internal jurisdiction.

• The jurande refers to the body of juries, that is, the masters in charge of controlling the trade, enforcing the rules, and granting masterships.

• Confraternities are rather associations of devotion or mutual aid (often under the patronage of a saint), which may group the same artisans but with a religious and charitable objective.

FranceArchives reminds us that guilds have a public legal personality, social and technical regulations, and jurisdiction over the craftsmen in their jurisdiction. In several research instruments, the 5 E sub-series is specifically reserved for "former guilds, guilds, and communities of arts and trades," with files by trade (butchers, bakers, goldsmiths, etc.).

In practice, identifying whether your ancestor depended on a guild, jurande, or confraternity immediately directs your research to different types of archives (statutes, lists of masters, charitable confraternities).

Distinguishing guilds, jurandes, and confraternities avoids getting lost in inventories and helps target the right records right away.

How did the guild system work?

The functioning of the guild structured the artisan's career from apprenticeship to mastership.

The canonical scheme is based on three steps:

• The apprentice signs a contract with a master, often notarized, for several years of training.

• The companion is a qualified worker who has completed his apprenticeship and sometimes travels from town to town, especially as part of the companionship.

• The master obtains mastership after a masterpiece, the payment of certain rights, and registration on the community's registers, which allows him to run a shop.

FranceArchives' research instruments show that guild funds (such as those of apothecaries or goldsmiths in Montpellier) include admission registers, accounts, deliberations, and trade control documents, all of which may name apprentices, companions, and masters. The Museum of Companionship also reminds us that being a "master carpenter" first means being established on one's own, which does not automatically equate to the status of a companion, which nuances the reading of titles in records.

Knowing this progression allows you to date when your ancestor became a master, spot a possible Grand Tour, or understand why several men in the same family do not appear at the same level in the guild records.

The apprentice-companion-master triptych is the backbone of any research on artisans in a guild context.

Where are the guild archives located?

The 5 E series and guild funds

Most of the guild archives are now preserved in public archives services, primarily at the departmental level.

In several departments, a 5 E sub-series groups documents from former guilds, guilds, and communities of arts and trades, which were abolished at the Revolution. You can find, depending on the location:

• The statutes and regulations of the trade.
• The rolls of masters and admission lists.
• The deliberations, accounts, minutes of inspection.

The presence of an ancestor with an artisan trade in parish sources justifies a targeted search in the 5 E sub-series or in a guild fund identified in departmental inventories.

The inventories of the 5 E sub-series and guild funds are the priority entrance for any investigation into an artisan ancestor.

National Archives, Archives of the World of Work, and specialized databases

In addition to departmental archives, other institutions preserve valuable funds for the history of trades.

The National Archives and the National Archives of the World of Work (Roubaix) preserve funds from chambers of trades, unions, companies, or professional federations of the 19th-20th centuries.

Nominative databases, such as that of the "masters and companions of guilds" at the Museum of Companionship, list thousands of companions identified in private or associative archives.

By combining departmental inventories, national databases, and specialized resources, Geneafinder or a personalized research table can help map artisans of a lineage over several generations and territories.

Method: Finding an artisan ancestor step by step

Starting with trade mentions in civil records

All research begins with what you already know: the trades mentioned in civil records and parish registers.

The profession often appears:

• In marriage and death records (for example, "master shoemaker," "blacksmith," "carpenter").

• In some 19th-century population censuses, taken every 5 years and indicating the occupation of each household member.

Systematically recording the profession in Geneafinder, for each individual and for each record, allows you to quickly identify lineages with a high concentration of artisans and direct your research to the right trades and guilds.

Identifying the relevant guild and the right archive fund

Once the trade is identified, you need to associate it with a guild and a specific archive fund.

1. Use trade guides (peasants, artisans, rail trades, etc.) to understand the variations of each profession, possible statuses, and relevant archives.
2. Search in departmental inventories if a corresponding guild is described (for example: "Community of bakers," "Community of goldsmiths," "Community of carpenters").
3. Note the call numbers of registers and files (statutes, rolls of masters, lists of apprentices) and record them in your files, notes, and Geneafinder sources.

Through a few targeted searches, you build for each artisan ancestor a "trade profile" (guild, available sources, period covered) that you can reuse and enrich in Geneafinder as you make discoveries.

Concretely using guild registers

Guild registers are rich, but sometimes difficult to read: you need to know what you're looking for.

Three types of mentions are particularly useful:

• Admission lists of apprentices, companions, or masters, which indicate name, first name, sometimes parentage, and geographical origin.

• Deliberations that mention artisans in the context of conflict, fines, or appointment to an office (guards, juries).

• Accounts and tax rolls, which detail the financial participation of masters or the rights paid upon admission to mastership.

In practice, each mention found (reception of mastership, appointment as a jury, fine for non-compliance with statutes) can be recorded in Geneafinder as a "professional event" dated, enriching the biography of the ancestor beyond just birth and death.

Guild archives offer direct access to the world of work under the Ancien Régime and allow you to follow your artisan ancestors from apprenticeship to mastership, shedding light on their status, networks, and place in urban society.

By cross-referencing these records with civil records, censuses, notarial archives, and specialized databases, and then structuring everything in Geneafinder, you build a truly embodied genealogy, centered on trades, gestures, and professional trajectories of your lineages.

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