Archives départementales de Seine-Maritime

The Archives of Seine-Maritime is an archival repository in the department of Seine-Maritime, Normandy, France.

The law of the 5th brumaire an V (26 October 1796) imposed the gathering of archives in the capital city of each department and stands as the birth act of the Department archives in France. In the department of Seine-Inférieure (now Seine-Maritime) it took almost a century to create a unique repository.

As late as 1825 public archives were scattered in different sites in Rouen. The acquisition of a building located near the Préfecture eventually made the task of reunification possible. Under the impulse of Charles de Beaurepaire, Head of archives from 1851 to 1905, the building was enlarged in 1856 and 1896.

Charles de Robillard de Beaurepaire spent all his professional life as an archivist in the Seine-Inférieure Department until his retirement in 1905, so he had time to develop and enlarge the repository and the collections, time to process, arrange and describe a huge amount of archives. He was a great contributor to Norman history. It’s worth pointing out that, among others tasks, he wrote and published the finding aids for the archives of secular clergy (including Rouen archbishopry’s archives, Rouen chapter house’s archives, all the Rouen and Seine-Inférieure parish records) which took none less than 7 volumes (1868–1900), which are still very useful and used daily by our patrons.

More information on the Wikipedia page

The Website, in French, is