Using the births, deaths and marriages registers If you read my last post about how I used the census returns in the online departmental archives to make a start on tracing the owners of our mill, you’ll know just how useful they are. But as a census is only conducted once every few years I … Continue reading Tracing the history of our french home – Part 2
Using census records When I ponder about the history of our French water mill, I guess one of the things that immediately comes to mind is the people who lived and worked here. One of the old post cards that I had managed to find shows a couple standing outside the mill. The figures are … Continue reading Tracing the history of our french home – Part 1
From the initial exploration of the fabric of the building, it didn’t look as if our home was more than a couple of hundred years old. However, one quite important thing to know if you own a water mill in France is what droits d’eau, water rights you have, if any. As Colin was quite … Continue reading Mapping the past
When we bought our mill I was hoping to receive a sizeable pile of old deeds which I could study when whiling away the grey winter hours by the log fire with a glass of wine. I was rather disappointed therefore when it appeared that the old documentation had somehow been ‘discarded’ during the most recent changes of ownership. So I'm on the hunt...
One of the things on our long list of 'things to get organised' when we first moved over permanently was exchanging our driving licences. Now, up until the unholy mess that is Brexit happened, this wasn't even something I needed to worry my head about. The UK was part of the EU, we both had … Continue reading Getting a French Driving Licence – another saga
