Qui-sommes-nous ?

The proof commission is a unique and recognized feature of the ANF. Its mission is to identify and list the families of candidates for membership of the association. To this end, it ensures that :

1. Each family has, in the past, been the subject of a valid decision of transmissible ennoblement or recognition of nobility according to the nobility law in force at the date of the acts invoked in the family's region of origin.
2. There is a definite link of male descent between the ennobled person invoked and the candidate.

In France, since the early Middle Ages, the hereditary right to nobility has been transmitted only by men.

Since the 17th century, in application of successive royal decrees, each family has had to prove its transmissible nobility in order to claim membership of the "second order". The Commission des Proofs takes up all the decrees, and regulations over time to specifically establish this membership of the nobility.

Devenir membre

Members of the Commission des Preuves must apply to the Chairman.

They are co-opted on the basis of their willingness to make themselves available to serve on the commission, and their skills and expertise in genealogy or as experts in the fields of nobility, archives, paleography, heraldry, history, etc.

Initially welcomed as trainees, members are then appointed by a vote of the commission, endorsed by the association's board of directors.

Nos activités

The Evidence Commission guarantees the authenticity of the files submitted for admission to the ANF. This means that its members work intensively together to gather, authenticate, discuss and finally accept or reject hundreds of family documents designed to substantiate the noble character of candidate families (new families) or members to be attached to families already received and listed in the family table.

To do this, the commission relies on the expertise of numerous volunteer experts in Paris and the provinces: jurists, genealogists, archivists, palaeographers, heralds, chartists, etc.

The commission helps candidates to put together their admission file, guiding them in their search for documents, archives, places and organizations from which to find and collect copies of original documents proving the candidate's nobility and parentage. This long quest is accompanied by caring and passionate specialists who work on a voluntary basis every week in liaison with the candidates.

This research work is sometimes made extremely difficult by the disappearance of archives as a result of wars, revolutions, fires, the sale of family fiefdoms, etc. The commission then establishes cross-references between the various archives.tablishes cross-references with judicial or notarial acts, which tend to establish over a hundred years or three successive generations the declared status of squire or similar for the members of the family concerned.

Each month, the committee meets to examine the files to be presented to the Board of Directors, which then decides whether to present a given family to the ANF Annual General Meeting. Each candidate can only be admitted if accepted by the annual vote of the meeting. Over one hundred and fifty new members join us each year.

The commission also conducts research, to verify a posteriori the authenticity of documents produced by families who are already members. It also preserves the archives of admission files. The Archives Nationales also receives a digital copy for preservation.

Last but not least, she is the correspondent for many genealogists from other nobility associations who are conducting related research. She answers all calls and instructs many people who, as individuals, are carrying out similar research.

Nous contacter

Commission des Preuves
Association d'Entraide de la Noblesse Française
9 rue du Chevalier de Saint George
75008 Paris

Mail: preuves@anf.asso.fr