CONVENTIONS

Label

Our convention is "Standard Spelling of Last name", "First Name" (number in Roman numerals if there are more than one person with that name) Alternate spellings of the name (if the record contains a different spelling than the standard) can be found in our downloadable dataset. Titles and honorifics are not included. Special French characters including accents and cédilles are avoided.

• ■      An example might look like: Ravaneau, Francois (ii)

 

Parish

This is the parish in which the individual is likely to have resided at the time of the record. We have used the following guidelines for determining likely residence.

• ■      For birth records: the child, parents, and siblings of the child are likely residents of the parish in which the record appears.
• ■      For marriage records: the bride is a likely resident of the parish in which the record appears.
• ■      For death records: the deceased and her or his spouse are likely residents of the parish in which the record appears.

 

Inner / Outer

In general, individuals who appear in records from the inner parishes are marked “Inner” and those who appear in records from the outer parishes are marked “Outer.”

This is not the case when individuals are identified as residing in a different parish than the parish in whose records they appear.  In these cases, the label reflects the location of the parish of residence.

In cases in which individuals appear in the records of multiple parishes, individuals are marked according to the likelihood of where they resided at the time.

 

Parish Officials

We have excluded the connections of people who appear in the records only in an official capacity. These individuals include sacristans, priests, and some praticiens. If, however, an official of a particular parish signs in a non-official capacity (e.g. in another parish), this connection is included.

Connections

The connections featured in the graphs on this site depict the following relationships.

• ○       Parents
• ○       Siblings
• ○       Marriage
• ○       Godparent
• ○       Signatory (of baptismal, marriage, and burial records)
• ○       Witnesses (those who were in attendance at the above events but could not sign).

 

Weighting

An edge's weight corresponds to the strength of the relationship depicted. Relationships between nuclear family members are weighted most heavily (a weight of 3). Those between godparents and godchildren are weighted 2. Signatories and witnesses are connected to the people whose records they signed with edges weighted 1. Edges with greater weighting exert a stronger attractive force between the two connected nodes.

Directionality

Some edges show direction of a relationship. These include:

• ○       Parents → Children
• ○       Godparents → Godchildren
• ○       Signatory/witness → Primary person for whom the record was created

Some, however, are undirected

• ○       Siblings
• ○       Marriages