FAQ
- Organizing your visit to the SHD
- How and what to consult at the SHD?
- What to find at the SHD?
- What can I reproduce and how?
- How to find a document?
- I am seeking to assert a right
- I am a military member. The administrations responsible for my pension rights
- What if I can't get there?
- How can I benefit from research assistance?
- For companies, institutions, the press (PQR or national) and associations
- How to come and work at the SHD?
- How can we help the SHD to enrich its holdings and collections?
- I can't find what I'm looking for
Organizing your visit to the SHD
- See the detail for the Brest Center
- See the detail for the Caen Center
- See the detail for Chatellerault Center
- See the detail for the Cherbourg Center
- See the detail for the Lorient Center
- See the detail for the Pau Center
- See the detail for the Rochefort Center
- See the detail for the Toulon Center
- See the detail for the Vincennes Center
- Brest: site accessible to PRM by elevator
- Châtellerault: reserved parking, access to the reading room
- Rochefort: reserved parking and access to the reading room
- Lorient: reserved parking and access to the reading room
To gain access to the reading rooms, readers must leave outerwear, bags, satchels, binders, food and liquids, and all non-essential items in the checkrooms.
Pens with ink, gel or marker are also not permitted in the reading room.
Consult the rules of the Châtellerault reading room
No catering is included. It is strictly forbidden to eat or drink in the reading room. Food and beverages are available in the area surrounding the sites.
Only sites that are not on military property offer Internet access. When possible, Internet access is limited and after identification of the applicant.
The SHD organizes symposiums, conferences, exhibitions, study days...
Consult the agenda of the SHD
How and what to consult at the SHD?
The SHD holds nearly 450 linear kilometers of archives. This collection is made up of large collections, spread over ten sites and available for consultation in nine reading rooms.
War, Army and Defense Archives
- in Vincennes
- 50 linear kilometers of archives
- from the end of the 17th century to the present day
Rating family: GR
Archives of victims of contemporary conflicts
- in Caen
- 20 linear kilometers of archives
- from 1914 to the present day
Rating family: AC
Air Force Archives
- in Vincennes
- 14 linear kilometers of archives
- from the beginnings of military aeronautics to the present day
Rating family: AI
Archives of the Gendarmerie
- in Vincennes and Le Blanc
- 66 linear kilometers of archives
- from the end of the 19th century to the present day
Rating family: GD
Arms and civilian personnel archives
- in Châtellerault
- 117 linear kilometers of archives
- from 1830 to the present day
Rating family: AA et AP
Military Personnel Archives
- in Pau
- 108 linear kilometers of archives
- from the end of the 19th century to the present day
- funds in the course of classification
Central Archives of the French Navy
- in Vincennes
- 14 linear kilometers of archives
- from the Revolution to the present day
Rating family: MV
Archives of the Navy
- in Lorient
- 4.5 linear kilometers of archives
- from the Revolution to the present day
Rating family: ML
Archives of the Navy
- in Cherbourg
- 5 linear kilometers of archives
- from the Revolution to the present day
Rating family: MC
Archives of the Navy
- in Brest
- 12.5 linear kilometers of archives
- from the 17th century to the present day
Rating family: MB
Archives of the Navy
- in Rochefort
- 7 linear kilometers of archives
- from the 17th century to the present day
Rating family: MR
Archives of the Navy
- in Toulon
- 20 linear kilometers of archives
- from the end of the Ancien Régime to the present day
Rating family: MT
Administrative Entities Series created as of January 1, 2007
- Interdepartmental Services ZA
- Minister's Office ZB
- General Secretariat for Administration ZC
- Armed Forces Staff ZD
- Army ZE
- Navy headquarters ZF
- Naval organizations based in Cherbourg ZG
- Naval organizations reporting to Brest ZH
- Navy organizations reporting to Lorient ZI
- Naval organizations destined to Rochefort ZJ
- Navy organizations reporting to Toulon ZK
- Air Force ZL
- National Gendarmerie ZM
- Délégation générale à l'armement ZN
- SGA/DFP/Civilian personnel files ZO
The SHD does not take the place of users to consult archival documents for them, but you can request a reproduction, at a distance, of documents correctly identified by their call number and title.
You cannot borrow archival documents except for an exhibition.
Some works from the SHD libraries can be borrowed but not everywhere. Ask at the centers for information.
What to find at the SHD?
More than X finding aids to help you find your way through the archives. (link to the simple search engine)
- Some digitized funds of individual files of contemporary conflicts.
- The library catalog..
- The Revue historique des armées.
- The Cultural and educational news
On partner sites
- The funds digitized with the help of the Directorate of Heritage, Memory and Archives of the General Secretariat for the Administration of the Ministry of the Armed Forces: nominal files of combatants and those who died for France in contemporary conflicts (World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Indochina War, the Algerian War, OPEX), unit diaries from World War I (logbooks and operations, logbooks, etc.), digitized, archives of the Compagnie des Indes, of the French armies in the Levant, registration books of the Imperial Guard and the line infantry, plans of armored vehicles. ), digitized, archives of the Compagnie des Indes, of the French armies in the Levant, the registers of the Imperial Guard and of the line infantry, plans of armored vehicles...
All are available on the Mémoire des hommes website. - Registres matricules of the Departmental Archives and file of the Dead for France: Grand Mémorial
- Finding aids on the national archive portal, France Archives
- 2,900 library volumes and 740,000 digitized pages on Gallica
What can I reproduce and how?
In the reading room, the reader can make unlimited copies. For a reproduction of career files, depending on the reading room, you can obtain copies of the files in their entirety (CAAPC) or only the service identification statements (CHA) which summarize the entire career. Microfilm is only available for the Vincennes collection. Only requests concerning an entire documentary unit, corresponding to at least one or more archive boxes/registers, will be considered. In addition, the use of a silent digital camera without a flash is authorized in the reading room. The use of flatbed scanners is not authorized, except for the CAAPC reading room, where digital reproduction equipment (camera, A3/A4 scanner) is available to the public for unbound documents in good condition (cf. Archives militaires, mode d'emploi. © Archives & Culture/SHD)
The SHD offers a range of services that vary from one reading room to another, depending on the resources available. You will mainly be able to order photocopies or digital files. The following are excluded from reproduction by photocopy: documents which, because of their physical condition, their format or the nature of their support, are likely to be damaged; public archives consulted by derogation when the latter does not mention an authorization to reproduce; private archives whose donor or owner has forbidden reproduction; documents from iconographic collections; maps and plans. Publications subject to copyright may not be reproduced. Documents held by libraries are excluded from photocopying for reasons of conservation for older documents and for regulatory reasons for more recent documents.
Orders must be for documents correctly identified by their call number and title. They can be made on the spot, to the staff of the reading rooms or to the persons in charge of the iconographic collections, or they can be sent by mail, to the address of the SHD site where the document is kept. (cf. Archives militaires, mode d'emploi © Archives & Culture/SHD)
How to find a document?
It is possible, we keep a total of millions of files and boxes!
There is no database or general directory that allows you to know instantly if a person is the subject of a file or a matricule box or not.
You must first gather as much information as possible about your ancestor, including
- Name, first names, and date of birth
- Army in which he served
- Rank
- Start and end dates of service
- Unit (regiment, ship, etc).
Based on the information you have gathered, consult our guides and research assistance sheets.They will tell you what records you can expect to find, the archive in which they are held, and the finding aids available online or in the reading room. In most cases, it is only on site, by searching the finding aids or the registers themselves, that you will be certain that your ancestor has left a trace in our archives
The frigate La Belle-Poule brought back to France the ashes of Emperor Napoleon I in 1840. Many of you are trying to find out if your ancestor was part of the crew of this ship during this mission.
The crew list is kept by the Service historique de la Défense in Cherbourg, under the number 1 C2 10. It can be consulted on site.
The rank indicates the rank occupied in the military hierarchy and gives the right to command. It is generally linked to a particular job, but the development of staffs and services has led to the creation of officer and non-commissioned officer positions without troops, sometimes with a specific designation.
We call:
- petty officers, corporals and master corporals;
- NCOs, sergeants and first sergeants, warrant officers and chief warrant officers and majors;
- junior officers, second lieutenants, lieutenants and captains;
- senior officers, commanders, lieutenant-colonels and colonels;
- general officers (the term "general" dates from the 15th century and was first used in contrast to the term "private officers" which referred to unit owners), brigade, division, corps and army generals.
Consult the list: origin of the names
Consult the list: military charges
I am seeking to assert a right
In general, the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War is your best contact.
All inquiries regarding the following topics should be directed to the agencies listed below:
Army and common services (army health service, SEA and SCA) & (enlisted - conscript - recalled - regular - goum - harki - aasses - maghzen - commissioned except for the files of general officers and officers before 1971: files held at Vincennes)
Service historique de la Défense
CAPM
Caserne Bernadotte
64023 PAU Cedex
Air Force:
B.C.I.A.A.
Base Aérienne 102
BP 8313
21083 DIJON Cedex 09
Navy:
C.T.I.R.H.
BP 413
83800 TOULON ARMEES
Foreign Legion:
Bureau des Anciens de la Légion Etrangère
BP 38
13998 MARSEILLE ARMEES
In general, the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War is your best contact.
All inquiries regarding the following topics should be directed to the agencies listed below:
Competent agency
Bureau Central des Rapatriés
57, Cours du 14 juillet
BP 119
47004 AGEN Cedex
In general, the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War is your best contact.
All inquiries regarding the following topics should be directed to the agencies listed below:
If you live in France:
The Veterans and War Victims Office (VVA) of your place of residence.
If you live abroad and you are a national of:
Algerian nationality:
ACVG Paris
295-303, Rue Saint-Jacques
75240 PARIS Cedex 05
Tunisian nationality:
ACVG Marseille
12-16, Rue Jules Cantini
13006 MARSEILLE
Moroccan nationality:
ACVG Bordeaux
4, Rue d’Aviau
33000 BORDEAUX Cedex
Other African countries nationalities:
ACVG Pau
3, Avenue Dufau
64000 PAU
Other nationalities:
ACVG Paris
295-303, Rue Saint-Jacques
75240 PARIS Cedex 05
In general, the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War is your best contact.
All inquiries regarding the following topics should be directed to the agencies listed below:
If you live in France:
L’office des Anciens combattants et victimes de guerre de votre lieu de résidence.
If you live abroad:
Service des Anciens Combattants résidant à l’étranger
1, Place François Miterrand
58120 CHÂTEAU-CHINO
In general, the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War is your best contact.
All inquiries regarding the following topics should be directed to the agencies listed below:
If you live in France:
- Prefecture of your place of residence.
Court of first instance of your residence.
If you live abroad:
- The French Consulate General in your country.
I am a military member. The administrations responsible for my pension rights
The statement of service will be requested directly from CAPM and sent to you at a later date.
E.D.I.A.C.A.T.
Service Personnel Militaire métro.
76, Rue de la Talaudière
BP 508
42007 SAINT-ETIENNE CEDEX 01
Armée de l’Air
CERHAA de TOURS
Bureau des affiliations rétroactives
BP 339
37081 TOURS Cedex 2
Tél : 02 47 85 84 35
Applies only to military personnel with 15 or more years of military service: Service des Pensions des Armées.
Sous-direction des Pensions
5, Place de Verdun
BP 509
171016 LA ROCHELLE Cedex
Go to Service-Public.fr, Veteran's Card
You have worked for the Ministry of Defense and your pension fund is asking you for your service records? Here are the steps to take to obtain them.
Defense personnel (military, civil servants, state workers) who leave the ministry for any reason (end of contract for example for military personnel), without having obtained a retirement pension (before 15 years of service) are retroactively affiliated to the general scheme for their years of service in the Defense.
These services are thus taken into account in the calculation of the retirement pension of the general scheme at the time of retirement.
If the career record provided by the regional health insurance fund (CRAM), which administers the general scheme pension, does not mention the periods spent in the defense service, you must request a retroactive affiliation certificate from your former employer, specifying
- your first and last name
- your date and place of birth
- the start and end dates of your service (hence the importance of keeping your pay slips)
- the location of your services
List of services to contact to obtain your career statement, consult Retroactive Enrollment Services
Tables of campaign benefits for land and sea (territories, periods and campaign rates)
This document lists all campaign bonuses for military personnel. The bonuses are added to the years of actual service for the calculation of the pension.
The attribution of campaign bonuses is conditioned to the effective presence of the soldier on a territory, a building... and is associated to a period and a published text.
Access information related to the veteran's card directly from onac-vg.fr website.
Consult the list of military records offices or centers.
Access the Certificate of Service directly from the Servicepublic.fr website (military service or national service).
Access the Certificate of Service directly from the Servicepublic.fr website (military service or national service).
Access information about former members of suppletive forces directly from the onac-vg.fr website.
You can send a request to the Service historique de la défense de Vincennes:
Département de la collecte et des recherches administratives
Château de Vincennes
Avenue de Paris
94306 Vincennes Cedex
The letters sent must include the surname, first names, filiation, date and place of birth of the person concerned, as well as any information that may have been found on the place(s) and dates of detention.
What if I can't get there?
The SHD does not take the place of users to consult archival documents for them, but you can request a reproduction, at a distance, of documents correctly identified by their call number and title.
How can I benefit from research assistance?
In the reading room
In the reading room, the staff will:
- help you determine which fonds and series are of interest to your research
- direct you to the finding aids (inventories, directories, files, catalogs), which are designed to help you find the call number (i.e., the reference) of the archival documents or library books you can consult.
Remote orientation
The use of the finding aids, the summary of the holdings or the library catalog is an essential step, which will allow you, in many cases, to decide whether to consult our finding aids in the reading room and, if necessary, to ask to consult the documents that interest you.
How can the SHD help you?
If the information available online is not enough to guide you, we will tell you where and how to find the information you need. In most cases, you will then have to come and consult the documents themselves.
At the very least, we tell you:
- whether the information you are looking for is likely to be kept in the SHD's archives or library collections, and if so, on which site and in which documentary sets;
the availability of finding aids (available for consultation in the reading room only, published and available for sale, available for consultation on the Internet); - the availability of finding aids (available for consultation in the reading room only, published and available for sale, available for consultation on the Internet);
- if there is no finding aid or if it cannot be consulted in the reading room, the contact information of the person to contact to organize a work session.
Please note: in many cases, and especially in the case of genealogical research, we cannot tell you precisely whether we keep the file you are interested in. We simply indicate in which series of archives you can find the information you are interested in, without always being able to guarantee that it exists and has been preserved.
We do not answer personal questions such as:
- What was my grandfather's military career?
- How many victims did the battle of Trafalgar cause?
- Which units participated in the battle of Verdun?
However, we can tell you where and how to find the information you are interested in.
You can send your requests by creating a personal space or by sending a letter to the different SHD offices.
For companies, institutions, the press (PQR or national) and associations
How to come and work at the SHD?
How can we help the SHD to enrich its holdings and collections?
I can't find what I'm looking for
Last modification on 25/04/2023
