Two hundred years after the death of the emperor on Saint Helena, we are excited about a major milestone: Geneanet’s community of genealogists has indexed over 1 million of Napoléon’s soldiers!
At Geneanet, we accompany our community of genealogists by organizing and supporting indexing projects which, like all data provided by members, are free for all. We are excited about a major milestone: our dataset of Napoléon’s soldiers has just passed the 1 million mark!
Every record of a soldier lists complete information: military muster roll number, last name, first names, parents’ names, date and place of birth including the French département, the military unit dates, and a link to the original image scanned and hosted by France’s Ministère des Armées. Each record also has the username of the volunteer transcriber and the index ID rank number in the Geneanet database. This precious information – names, parents’ names, birthplace, and dates – is a goldmine for genealogists. And with the original scan 1 click away, further information is available in the register image, such as the enrollment and discharge dates and the list of campaigns which can be matched with historical sources covering the unit in question.
From 1802 to 1815, Napoléon recuited approximately 2 million soldiers for his Grand Armée which crisscrossed Europe and participated in a number of legendary battles: Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstedt (1806), Friedland (1807), Somosierra (1808), Wagram (1809), Borodino (1812), and of course Waterloo (1815), to name only a few. These fighting men, volunteers and conscripts, were mostly French. But as many as 200,000 of them came from other European countries: Belgium, Italy, today’s Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and elsewhere. Following the Revolution, the “registre matricule” or military muster roll register was kept by every army unit with a copy for the Minister of War. Every soldier was assigned a number (unique only to that military unit, so different from today’s unique service numbers) and the register is a treasure trove of information: birth date and place, parents’ names, physical description, date enrolled, list of campaigns, injuries, decorations, and date and cause of departure – and injury or death. The registers were used for years afterward for pensions or as proof of military service.
If you have French ancestry, it is quite possible you will find an ancestor in this dataset. François Ollivier was one of Napoléon’s young recruits who battled to save France in 1814. What, he was a deserter? This register tells the story: every recruit not in hospital deserted that spring. Why? Well, by the first week of April, Prussian and Russian troops were in Paris, and Napoléon had abdicated and fled to Elba Island. François remained in service until May 29th, and no doubt wished to return home as the war was over…
France’s Ministère des Armées scanned these images from 1,191 registers – representing about 38% of all of Napoléon’s soldiers – and published them online in late 2013. [The inventory, in French, of the original documents can be found here.] However, finding a soldier’s record within the images was nearly impossible if you didn’t already know the unit and timeframe. A Geneanet member passionate about history, Claude Valleron, began indexing the registers in 2014 and was soon joined by other volunteers; since 2016, the project coordinator is member Alain Brugeat who works tirelessly to check and correct data. For example, the image above shows a birthplace difficult to decipher. French indexers are able to correctly identify many such place names. The Ministère des Armées published a second series of registers in 2019; eventually, all surviving registers will be online – and Geneanet members will continue to index them. Parlez-vous Français ? Help us grow this dataset here!
There are many other indexing projects at Geneanet honoring soldiers in France and elsewhere in Europe. In particular, there are hundreds of thousands of photos of gravestones of Allied soldiers who fell in France during the First World War and were buried there. Over 600 Allied military cemeteries have been completely photographed and indexed, and a thousand other cemeteries with military plots have been indexed too.
Geneanet volunteers regularly contribute photos of archival documents, monuments and cemeteries, as well as historical postcard images. Volunteers also index the names and places in uploaded documents, which makes pertinent search results possible. The Geneanet website provides members with an easy-to-use interface for uploading and indexing documents. If you are passionate about genealogy and have time to spare, please consider contributing unpublished archives or helping index archives uploaded by others. Visit our forums if you have any questions, the community is there for you!
2/19/22
I believe my ancestor from Mecklenburg was forced to join Napoleon’s army in 1812 when his army marched through Mecklenburg toward Russia. I’d love to confirm that if that muster roll is ever digitized.
1/3/22
Perhaps he has not yet been indexed? There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers (and their parents) awaiting transcription by volunteers
1/3/22
The site of the Ministère des Armées (https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/) where the digitized muster rolls are hosted is without risk, just use the download button when you are looking at an image there
1/3/22
Hi, do you know what unit he was in? Perhaps he has not been indexed yet. The wikipedia article has his birthdate in Paris, if you know his parents’ names you can search those too
1/3/22
Although the 1,000,000 mark is a major milestone, the work is not done – there are between 400,000 and 800,000 soldiers not transcribed yet. If you know what unit your ancestor was in and can read French, you can check the project’s page here: https://fr.geneawiki.com/index.php?title=Matricules_Napol%C3%A9oniens_1802-1815/S%C3%A9rie and see if the unit’s muster roll has been transcribed, is underway, or has not been started. Knowing the unit, it is of course possible (and has been since late 2013) to step through the appropriate roll on the Ministère des Armées site… but this is quite fastidious as there are thousands of soldiers in each unit. That’s why our community index is so useful!
1/3/22
Hi, on Geneastar there are trees of both Napoléon I and Napoléon III, e.g. https://gw.geneanet.org/gntstarbonaparte?n=bonaparte&oc=0&p=napoleon&type=tree
1/3/22
Hi Francis, do you have a name?
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My ancestor, Jean-Louis deCreeft ( Don Luis deCreeft) fought AGAINST Napoleon during the Penninsular Wars. He was a cavalry lieutenant and fought under Colonel Josef Cass\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ He’s mentioned in Robert Southey’s “History of the Penninsular War.”
12/19/21
Is it possible to search one Napolean soldier based on the year he died or deserted ?
12/18/21
I was told that one of my Uncles, Joseph LaPlante, had done some genealogy work about 50 years ago, he has passed since. He said we had blood ties to Napoleon, don’t know how, but would like to find out if it’s true.
12/18/21
My ‘half fifth great uncle’ Frederick Bedwell was Masters Mate on the ‘HMS Northumberland’ that escorted Nepoleon to St. Helena.
12/18/21
Interestingly, I already knew that my ancestor fought under Emperor Napoléon and his service is reasonably well documented, including his being wounded at Ligny prior to Waterloo. I searched your database and got no result. How do you explain this?
12/18/21
Thanks so much for everyone’s hard work. This is exciting. Merry Christmas Every One.
12/18/21
Very interesting, well done. David
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I am looking for records relating to Antoine/Anton Plançon de Rigny, an ancestor of mine. He was a dragoon in Napoleon’s service. While I can find a Wikipedia article in Russian about his later life, I cannot find any further details. Do you anything in record about him? I’ve looked extensively. Here is the Wikipedia article: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BD_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87
12/18/21
We have a medal of St Helen but do not know to whom it belongs. Can we find out?
12/18/21
This is just what I’ve been looking for! Thank you so much Claude Valleron, Alain Brugeat, and other volunteers! I have a pastel portrait and uniform belt with the head of Medusa which belonged to my ancestor who went to Egypt with Napoleon, but I’ve never been able to find anything about my French ancestors because can’t read French. Maybe this will break down the wall that’s been a big obstacle. Thank you again! Merci beaucoup!!
12/18/21
I am fairly new to Geneanet .
Having a particular interest in the Peninsular War I have, with some like minded friends, visited most of the major battlefields in Portugal, Spain, France and finished, naturally, with Waterloo on 200th anniversary in 2015 (photos and video taken or posterity).
I intended to make some searches for my son in law who has French ancestry via Jersey, but decided to try my name first not expecting a match. To my surprise I got one, my surname is fairly uncommon in England, let alone France, and hasn’t travelled further than Sussex and parts of Surrey and Kent, so imagine my surprise when the match came correctly spelled. Naturally I will be researching further.
I have not been able to ‘save as’ the French documents into a folder on my new MacBook, getting a message that page not saved as cannot be sure original site is secure. Being a French ministry document I would think it is fully secure and that I probably need to tweak my Mac to accept it or if anyone can advise a work round?
12/18/21
I have DNA match to: Napoleon I (1769-1821) => H (mtDNA)
and
Napoleon II (1811-1832) => H3 (mtDNA)
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I believe my Great Great Grandfather, Philippe C. Drumel, was a drummer boy in Napoleon’s army. He was born in Breste, Finistere, Bretagne, France on 25 Sept,1798 and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 23 June, 1894.Can you confirm this information for me?
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General Alexandre Mocquery