Five generations of the Pelletier-Andriveau family have headed the Archives Généalogiques Andriveau. In their quest for excellence, they have inspired all the great measures that have guaranteed the profession’s reliability from its inception. For forty years, it was Jean-Marie Andriveau’s turn to embody this commitment, before passing it on to his daughter, Cécile Andriveau, President, and to his son, Matthieu Andriveau, Managing Director.
Cécile Andriveau
President
Matthieu Andriveau
Managing director
THE STORY OF A HERITAGE AND ITS TRANSMISSION
Probate genealogy dates back to 1830, with the creation of the firm that would eventually become the Archives Généalogiques Andriveau.
The history of the Archives begins in 1830. At that time, a young merchant, Hippolyte Trannoy, left his native Picardy for Paris. There, unfulfilled with a single activity, he developed the various services to his clients. He then takes advantage of his many business contacts to reach agreements with heirs whom notaires do not know about or have been unable to find, and informs them of their inheritance rights.
This marked the birth of a new profession, one that would soon experience a real boom: the probate genealogist. Hippolyte Trannoy, and his successors later on, join forces with young lawyers to meet the ever-growing demand of public officers who are eager to find the rightful claimants to estate assets. Among them is Gustave Pelletier, who joins the Firm’s management in 1875. Meanwhile, this brilliant young lawyer quickly shows himself to be a talented entrepreneur, a visionary who realises the profit a partnership with several genealogy firms might generate for his own firm. His wish to expand therefore leads him successively to establish connections with one Parisian competitor after the other. He also seizes the opportunity to create several branches outside of the capital.
In 1881, he and his associates, Alfred Manigot and Jules Jorré, acquire the
l’hôtel de Marsilly to house the millions of files already compiled by his predecessors. [link to Andriveau Collection] Located at 18 rue du Cherche-Midi, in Paris, it still serves as the Archives Généalogiques Andriveau’s head offices.
In 1895, two years before his death, Gustave Pelletier brings his son-in-law, Marcel Andriveau, into the management team. For nearly half a century, this new young lawyer will oversee the successful growth of the Firm that would eventually be named after him.
In fact, from 1951 onwards, his son, Bernard, puts an end to the system of partnerships, buying back all company shares. In turn, Bernard’s sons, Jean-Marie and Francis, actively contribute to the development of the probate genealogy firm by inaugurating new branch offices, in Cannes, Poitiers, Dijon and Nancy. And in 2010, Jean-Marie transfers the firm to his own children, Cécile and Matthieu, who are currently managing it.
THE ANDRIVEAU COLLECTION
The legendary Andriveau collection houses over 200 million civil-status records and 15,000 Parisian registers.
In 1850, two associate directors, Julien Picque and Alfred Manigot, thought of gathering sources to increase the efficiency of their investigations, thus launching these precious archives. The next step was to embark on the considerable task of cataloguing all marriage notifications, death certificates, electoral lists, alimony decrees, etc., to follow the trail of the living as well as the deceased.
With the authorization of the mayors of Paris, as well as of parishes and town halls, the Firm’s genealogists then spent nearly a century indexing all the registers then available.
This source of information is unique in the world; we know the original Parisian civil-status deeds drawn up before 1859 were destroyed in May 1871. The fires of the Commune burned the Hôtel de Ville, its annex, and the Paris Palais de Justice, where eight million housed documents went up in in smoke.
Since then, the genealogical archives established by our Firm during the 1850’s and 1860’s have constituted a unique part of our patrimony.
Some marriage records from the Andriveau collection have been available online since 2011.
