French Handwriting

Online Tutorials for French Handwriting on Learning Center

Many resources exist that will help you read French records. One of these is the Reading Handwritten Records Series of free online classes available at FamilySearch. It includes tutorials on

• Reading French Handwritten Records Lesson 1: The French Alphabet
  
• Reading French Handwritten Records Lesson 2: Key Words and Phrases
  
• Reading French Handwritten Records Lesson 3: Reading French Records.

BYU Script Tutorial for Reading French

• Script Tutorial for Reading French<be>

Guide to indexing Toulouse, La Dalbade parish register (baptisms) from 1571-1599 and after

Guide to reading and interpreting old parish records of Toulouse for the purpose of indexing and reading old French handwriting. Click here to open the guide.

French Records Extraction Manual

• The website housing these PDF files is currently down for maintenance.

Another resource is the French Records Extraction Manual, Full Manual. Much more is covered, but these first four lessons are especially useful.

• Chapter 1: Old French Records
  
• Chapter 2: Parish Christening and Civil Birth Entries
  
• Chapter 3: Marriage Entries
  
• Chapter 4: Other Entries
  
• Chapter 5: French Handwriting and Spelling
  
• Section One
• Section Two
• Section Three
• Section Four
• Section Five
• Section Six: Answers
• Appendix A: French Occupations List
• Appendix B: Common Abbreviations
• Appendix C: Answers to Self-Evaluation Exercises
• Glossary