Departmental Archives (France)

From the French Wikipedia page

In France, the expression " departmental archives  " designates both the administration responsible for the management of the archives produced in a department , officially called the departmental department of archives, and the building where these archives are kept and searchable by the public. Expression is very rarely used to designate the archival documents themselves: the archives proper to the department as a territorial collectivity form only a small part of these archives.

In several departments, a guide of the archives was published in the second half of the xx th century to present the public with these aspects.

History
The departmental archives were created in each department under the law of 5 Brumaire Year V ( October 26, 1796) 2. They were intended to preserve the archives of the Ancien Régime (including those of the bishoprics, abbeys, etc. disappeared) as well as the archives of the new institutions.

The law of 28 Pluviôse year VIII provides that the prefect is responsible for monitoring the archives. It seems that they did not care enough about it then. The law of May 10, 1838makes archival conservation a mandatory expense for departments. It is supplemented by several circulars and "instructions" of the Ministry of the Interior establishing in particular a uniform classification framework (see below). At the same time, departmental archivists, notably from the School of Charters and the Committee on Historical and Scientific Works, with the titles of "archivist of the Rhône, Oise, etc." ".

This situation favors the classification and sorting of archives, as well as the development and printing of research instruments.

Several departmental archives suffered destruction, sometimes very important, during the First and Second World Wars. For example, in Arras, the Saint-Vaast Palace, which housed the departmental archives of the Pas-de-Calais , was destroyed in 1914 by the German canons, the archivists could not save in a cellar not occupied by the defenders of the city that some of the most valuable archives

The Second World War disrupts services again. After the Liberation, the departmental archives experienced a more prosperous period, with an increase in their staff. This is often an opportunity to build new archive buildings.

The laws of decentralization of 1983 entrust the departments managing the departmental archives, officially called "departmental archives." The State, however, continues to play a role in the departmental archives through scientific and technical control, exercised by the director of the department.

Status
The departmental archives are mainly a department of the department, under the authority of the president of the departmental council and, alternatively, a deconcentrated department of the State placed under the authority of the prefect and the Minister of Culture.

Departmental archives exercise missions devolved to the State:

maintaining archives which remain the state property of the State; by exercising scientific and technical control over the archives of municipalities, their groupings and public establishments 3. In order to be able to exercise these regal functions, the departmental archives directors are always curators or general conservators of the heritage of the State civil service, placed at the disposal of the general councils. Some posts of curators, as well as positions of documentary studies or secretaries of documentation, within the departmental archives, are also state posts made available, others depend on the territorial civil service.

Documents kept
The decree of 1 st July 1921 laying down general regulations of the departmental archives officially defined the composition as follows:

"(A) Titles of the institutions and establishments of the Ancien Regime suppressed in 1790 and following years, and papers of individuals sequestrated during the Revolution; b) Papers of the administrations and public institutions which have succeeded each other in the departments from 1790 to the year VIII (departments, districts, cantonal municipalities, tribunals or revolutionary commissions, supervisory committees, popular societies, etc.); c) Documents of the administrations and establishments whose laws, decrees or regulations have prescribed or authorized the payment in the Departmental Archives. "

The list of the types of documents preserved, managed and highlighted by the departmental archives is now fixed by article R. 212-62 of the heritage code 4 :

the documents of Ancien Régime which have been attributed to it since year V (or later); the archives of the department since the Revolution ; the archives of the deconcentrated State services and public institutions, whose head office is located in the department ( prefectures , rectorates , DRASS ( DASS or Public Assistance: State Pupils), but also universities , water agencies ...); the notarial archives of the notaries of the department; certain municipal archives whose deposit is, according to the case, voluntary or obligatory; private archives deposited or privately owned archives whose property has been transferred (by gift, bequest or sale ) to the department. In addition, the departments comprising the chief town of the region may, by agreement with the regional council, keep the regional archives or part of them.

Finally, the departmental archives of Guadeloupe, Guiana and Martinique are the beneficiaries of the legal deposit.

Essentially, the legislation is that of the French public archives.

Concept of "classification framework"
The classification of archives is based on a ranking framework, common to all French departments, consisting of series identified by a letter (capital letter). The possible sub-series numbers may vary according to the history of the department and that of its repository: the deposits and payments of notaries will for example be classified in sub-series 3E in such department and sub-series 5E in another.

After the identification of the series or subseries, consultation inventories or digital repositories of this series should provide a dimension indispensable or reference for the communication of the desired article.

In certain departmental archives, the classification framework includes adjustments taking into account the specific institutional history of these departments and the existence of atypical archives ( overseas departments, management by the Compagnie des India under the Old regime, etc.). Some series may not be present in some

Series or subseries without limitation dates

 * Series E (variable subseries): marital status (may contain, by exception, articles after 1790); notarial archives (may contain, by exception, articles after 1790)
 * Series E-filing: parish registers, civil status and municipal archives filed ( communal collections deposited ) - (all dates
 * Series H-deposit: hospital archives filed (all dates)
 * Series J: various documents (entered by extraordinary way) (all dates)

Old series (archives prior to 1790)

 * Series A	Acts of sovereign power ; field
 * Series B	Courts and jurisdictions : parliaments, bailiwicks , presidencies , seneschals , admiralty , seigniorial jurisdictions
 * C Series	Provincial Administrations: Stewardship
 * D Series	Public Education, Science and the Arts
 * E Series	Feudalism ; family records; corporations
 * F Series	Various documents and archives; civil archives.
 * G Series	Secular clergy (ancient dioceses, cathedral chapters, parishes , cures)
 * H Series	Regular clergy (abbeys, priory, collegiate)
 * Series I	Protestant funds

Revolutionary time series (1789-1800)

 * K series	Laws, Orders , Orders (1789-1940) ( in part )
 * L series	Fund of the Revolutionary Period (1789-1800): administrations; courts
 * Q Series	Domains ; registration  ; mortgages ( in part )

Modern series (1800-1940)

 * M Series	General Administration: elections and lists of electors, censuses , etc.
 * N series	Departmental Administration and Accounting
 * O Series	Municipal administration
 * P Series	Finance ; taxes, cadastre
 * Q Series	Domains ; registration  ; mortgages
 * R Series	Wars and military affairs
 * S Series	Public works ; transport network
 * T Series	Teaching ; culture  ; sports
 * U Series and B Series	Justice
 * V Series	cults
 * X Series	Public assistance
 * Y Series	Penitentiary institutions
 * Z series	subprefectures

Contemporary Archives
Series W was created on December 31, 1979, to cover administrative and court payments for the period after 1940.
 * W Series: Public Archives after 1940 (July 10, 1940)

The W series is based on the principle of payment as a unit for the care, filing and indexing of archives. The payments are defined as the set of documents of the same source entered on the same date in the archives.

The principle is that of a continuous numbering of payments:

In order to make search easier, indexing is associated in principle with the W series, which is based on the W thesaurus. On the other hand, as a matter of principle, the W-Series finding aids should be presented according to the producing services (see respect for funds ).
 * from 1 to 999 for payments entered prior to 1980 ,
 * from 1000 to the payments came from the 1 st January 1980.

Specific series

 * Fi series: Maps, plans and figurative documents entered by extraordinary means
 * Mi Series: Microfilms
 * AV Series: audiovisual archives