Looking for census records for Valenciennes in Northern France.

[Mallory]

Hello all,

 I am trying to find any census records for the town of Valenciennes, which I believe is in the north of France, between the years 1801 and 1856. Ancestry.com has a lot of French census records but I am having trouble identifying which one would include the town of Valenciennes. Any help would be gratefully received.

   Thanks

   Mallory

[TreeSpirit]

Unfortunately only 20th and 17th century census years on the Archives Nord website:

https://archivesdepartementales.lenord.fr/search/results?formUuid=f0366f8a-2ef6-4cf2-b47b-6dec4a19e99f&sort=referencecode_asc&mode=list&facet_media=image&0-controlledAccessGeographicName%5B%5D=VALENCIENNES

A prevoius page mentions the following for when you can't find a census that you are interested in:
"Prenez contact avec la commune concernée. Les  listes étaient établies en double exemplaire : l’un destiné aux archives  de la commune, l’autre adressé à la préfecture. Cette double collection  est tenue jusqu’en 1946 et rétablie en 1954. Les mairies ont conservé  l’exemplaire qui leur était destiné"

[garstonite]

Mallory - what surname please - maybe we can find a family tree ?...you never know 

[joger]

The registers are on line here :
https://archives.valenciennes.fr/archives-en-ligne/

You may need help, tell us who or what you are looking for.

[Mallory]

Thanks all

 I have been trying to see if there was a link between a Thomas Manning Foreman and a branch on my tree and this seems quite interesting even if there’s no connection.

 There’s quite a bit of guesswork here but Thomas married Ann Margaret Polhill in 1811 and from census records she was born in India in about 1786.       

 Thanks to sgf28, hanes teulu and QueenoftheWest, in answer to a previous post I made, I think that Ann Polhill’s mother was Ann Smyth who had married Thomas Polhill in 1783 at Bengal, India.

 I found a newspaper article that reported the death in 1856 of Ann Smyth in Valenciennes, France aged 97. It said that she was the widow of the late Colonel Thomas Polhill and was once one of the detenues (POW’s?) of the emperor Napoleon and that she had lived with the same family for the last 54 years.

 I’m not sure why she is referred to by her maiden name, but her husband’s details seem to match.

    Regards

    Mallory

[jorose]

In French records, women are listed by their maiden names, followed by "wife of" or "widow of".

https://archivesdepartementales.lenord.fr/ark:/33518/xwf9v1q7tchz/cb763434-f1e9-4522-b5e9-4ea341f758c7
(page 552 if the direct link doesn't work).

Unfortunately this record doesn't give any more than you have really; the informants are listed as "neighbours", and did not know her parents' names.

[joger]

Ann is said born in Ireland.

[joger]

I found her in 1851 , 6 Place des Wantiers , vidow of Paulet , Pensionnaire de la Compagnie des Indes , English, 90 years'old.

[joger]

1846 , chef de ménage (head of the family , even if the person lived alone), 82 years'old