Alsace-Lorraine, Germany, French Citizenship Declarations (Optants), 1872
Historical Background:
Alsace-Lorraine was a territory ceded by France to Germany in the Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871), as a consequence of the Franco-Prussian War. It included most of the region of Alsace and about a quarter of the region of Lorraine. The territories transferred to Germany were:
Alsace:
- Bas-Rhin department
- Haut-Rhin department (minus the city of Belfort and its Territory)
Lorraine:
- Moselle department
- 1/3rd of Meurthe department (cities of Château-Salins and Sarrebourg)
- 2 counties of Vosges (Saales and Schirmeck)
A total of 1,694 villages and cities (communes) were transferred. In 1871, the overall population of Alsace-Lorraine was 1,579,738 inhabitants.
The annexation was not popular among the French population of the region. The Treaty of Frankfurt required them to choose between emigrating to France or remaining in the region and having their nationality legally changed to German. A large number of people born or residing in the region opted for French citizenship rather than German. In 1872, those who elected to retain their French citizenship submitted statements in the town hall and published the fact in the weekly Bulletins des lois de la République française. This bulletin consisted of 395 alphabetical lists. Many of the residents who opted for French citizenship eventually emigrated to France or to other countries, including the United States of America.
About this Data Collection:
This data collection consists of index cards created by ARFIDO, a French genealogical and research association, from the original published lists. This collection contains information on 452,540 individuals - approximately 84% of the total declarations. Each index card contains:
- Name of the declarant
- Birth date and place
- Declaration date
- Number of the original legal bulletin
- Name of the spouse (if married)
- Home address
Alsace-Lorraine Since the War
ON the east side of the circle of statues to French cities that bounds the Place de la Concorde, the female figure representing Strasbourg, capital of Alsace-Lorraine, for many years sat draped in mourning, a constant reminder to a symbol-loving nation of an historical event which President Wilson in his Fourteen Points was to describe as "the wrong done to France in 1871." That wrong having been righted by the agreement by which Germany laid down her arms on November 22, 1918, the French army marched over the Vosges, to be greeted at every village by an outburst of collective emotion approaching the delirious. Improvised triumphal arches bore the legends, "To our Liberators," and "We Have Long Awaited You." Streets were decorated as for a festival and in the windows of many houses appeared portraits of ancestors of the occupants, testimony of loyalties antedating the forty-seven-year rule in Alsace-Lorraine of the Empire whose disorganized forces had scarcely yet completed their eastward passage of the Rhine. The President of the National Council of the two provinces, speaking from the tribune of the Palais Bourbon, assured the French Chamber that Alsace and Lorraine "gave themselves freely to France;" while the National Assembly at Strasbourg issued a declaration welcoming "joyously" the return to France "after a long and cruel separation," and suggesting "a new era of liberty, prosperity and happiness."
Within the last few months -- more than eight years after this exhuberant embrace between Alsace-Lorraine and "la Mère Patrie" -- nearly every revue and newspaper in France has undertaken to explain, each in accordance with its particular political bent, what has been commonly referred to as "le malaise en Alsace." Some have described in detail the political difficulties there; others have attributed the discontent chiefly, if not entirely, to German propaganda; while some Frenchmen are inclined privately to insist -- as certain people used to say of Ireland -- that malaise was chronic in Alsace and should not be taken too seriously. In any case,
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