Census

Link to 1656 Census for Salm: https://query.an.etat.lu/Query/Dateien/13/D69560.pdf

This is a large download of hearth census in color and of better quality.

Without "censuses," family origins would end rather abruptly, with the last pair of ancestors the researcher was able to identify and whose relationship they could verify. Here, censuses provide an extension, allowing us in many cases to see a few decades further, even a century or more.

But normally, the vision they offer remains much more blurred, with some mists and clouds. The data are less precise and do not contain dates of birth or death, which does not prevent them from being very interesting. We learn that, clearly, this family already existed in this precise locality much earlier, because there is mention of a head of household bearing the same name, or rather—often—a similar name, sounding only slightly different  

Ancestors in the Census

While the various population censuses carried out in the 19th and early 20th centuries included an individual record per household with one line per person, the 1766 census is presented in the form of a list by locality. Individuals, grouped by household and identified by their first and last names, are listed in separate columns according to whether they are adult men (with an indication of their professional occupation), adult women, boys under 16, and girls under 14

The reading of this census, which is unfortunately not available for the entire country, is usefully combined with that of the property census of the same year, in turn on microfilm and generally referred to as "the cadastre of Marie Thérèse." This designation gives the incorrect impression that it is an inventory with maps and plans, when in fact we are dealing only with written enumerations and explanations.

The surnames in the 1766 census are not in all cases identical to those in the parish registers of this period, even though both are nonetheless due to the same local priests. It is nevertheless possible to establish the correspondences fairly easily.

When undertaking personal genealogical research on one's direct ancestors, no one can predict with precision how far back exactly one will be able to pursue these investigations successfully. Experience shows, however, that success will be uneven for the different branches of the Ahnentafel, the table presenting the successive generations of identified ancestors. In some cases, the investigation will reach a dead end around 1800, while - provided the required effort is made and the necessary persistence is displayed - other lines will allow themselves to be pursued beyond 1700, 1600 or even 1500.

Since the genealogist has examined the entries in parish registers from the 17th and 18th centuries without result, sources are rare, difficult to access, and difficult to read. Besides the minutes of notaries and the archives of courts, lordships, and monasteries, it is above all the successive population censuses, carried out primarily for tax reasons, which can contain valuable information

PETIT (Roger) †, Aid and subsidies in Luxembourg from 1360 to 1565. Contribution to the study of the development of taxation in a territorial principality, ed. by Jean-Pol WEBER. 

Volume 1: Introduction; 

Volume 2: Documents (1332-1574);

 Volume 3: Fire counts (1541-1561); 

Volume 4: Onomastic index, established by Jean-Pol WEBER & Claude DE MOREAU DE GERBEHAYE. Brussels, Royal Academy of Belgium, 2013; four volumes in-4°, IV-1721 p., tables (ROYAL HISTORY COMMISSION, series in-4°, A 78). Price: €135. ISBN 978-2-87044-006-3. 

The maximum and optimum opus that is to be presented here was defended with the greatest distinction as a doctoral thesis in 1982 under the direction of Léopold Genicot. But the scrupulous director of the State Archives in Arlon and learned professor at the University Center of Luxembourg was never satisfied with his work, which he continued to update at least until 1994, and thus Roger Petit passed away in 1998, without having finalized the publication of his work. The merit of Jean-Pol Weber and the Royal Commission of History who put the work back on the table, which ultimately comprises four large volumes or 1725 pages in quarto format, is all the greater. Scrupulously respecting the original manuscript, the editor only intervened to correct a few glaring errors - interventions always indicated as such - to standardize the bibliography and the critical apparatus and to elucidate "toponymic or anthroponymic curiosities" (p. 4).

At a time when taxation and public accounts are constantly being discussed, with a particularly attentive eye on the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Roger Petit's insight into the origins and early developments of public taxation in the Late Middle Ages and early Modern Times in the Duchy of Luxembourg will be of interest to more than just historians. The analysis of the gradual, sometimes hesitant, implementation of public taxation in the 14th and 16th centuries constitutes ipso facto a synthesis of the genesis of the modern state in a territory often considered backward, but where the dukes of the House of Luxembourg were at work first, then the indentured lords, from Josue of Moravia to Louis of Orléans, Anthony of Burgundy and John of Bavaria, then the Dukes of Burgundy and finally the Habsburgs

Roger Petit's first objective was to continue the publication of the household censuses begun by Jacques Grob and Jules Vannérus at the beginning of the 20th century. Preceded by a few lists of aid, donations, and loans from 1482 to 1565, the censuses of 1541, 1552-1553, and 1561, as well as the survey of the clergy's income from 1533-1534, occupy the bulk of the 570 pages of the third volume. All these accounting documents are published in the form of easily consultable tables, and not in their original layout The second volume (440 pages) consists of a critical edition of documents spanning from 1332 to 1574, but here it is more about normative documents relating to tax levies of various types or even remonstrances from the states that shed harsh light on the socio-economic realities of the country.

These two volumes are preceded by a first, humbly titled "Introduction," which constitutes an extremely detailed analysis of the fiscal policy of the successive sovereigns of the Duchy of Luxembourg and the administrative machinery put in place to implement it. Preceded by the general bibliography (sources and works), a first part deals with the origins to 1443, a second goes from the Burgundian occupation to the death of Charles the Bold, and a third continues until 1565 and beyond

See interesting article on census taken in Savoie: https://www.persee.fr/doc/hsr_1254-728x_1995_num_3_1_949

Source: Arch. dép. Savoie, SA 1953, fº° 97-118.

local agents; the commissioner had to be accompanied by two archers from the captain of justice to convince the recalcitrants.

The census is recorded in notebooks, by parish, within the framework of the 23 "salt granaries" which cover the entire duchy, with the exception of the three bailiwicks - Chablais, Ternier and Gaillard, Gex - then occupied by the Bernese and the Valaisans.

The information content:

Each family - or feu - is the subject of a head count: name and first name of the head of the family (for widows, the name of the deceased husband is reported), first name of the wife (rarely her name), first names of sons and daughters and possibly their children, names and first names of sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, names or more simply first names of domestic servants living with the family, servants and chambermaids. Age is not indicated, with some exceptions. The disabled (blind, deaf-mute, simple-minded) are noted Non-agricultural occupations are most often listed, at least in towns and villages. A distinction is made between exempt persons: "poor and miserable" and "younger" children under 5, whose exact age in months and weeks is sometimes specified. Absentees are also noted, whether they are serving in a nearby locality or have emigrated far away. Sometimes included are children taken in, orphans "fed for the love of God" and "given away," children born out of wedlock and generally raised in the father's family, regardless of his status. Religious communities are counted separately for urban centers 20. Livestock "taking salt" is also counted: cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and other equines. This second part of the census, extremely valuable for understanding the rural societies of the foreland and mountain valleys, is unfortunately missing for Faucigny.

REGISTER OF NAMES AND SURNAME(S) of the parishioners and inhabitants of the parish of Veyrier, mandate of Annessi in Geneva, and the census of the livestock of said parish, made by Pierre Barut and Jehan de Croes, modern scindiques² of said parish, and Martin Blanchard, co-vicar of said Veyrier, by order made on behalf of the Highness of Monseigneur, by Me François Garin, commissioner to this deputy the day.