A few individual pages:
The person and family sheets have been generated automatically by a genealogy database.
The data were initially compiled from various sources, and the main contributor was Dr. Jean-Paul Dardel of Hendaye. If you have not yet purchased the book he has published, you should get it: it contains innumerable details and documents on our family. (see page "Famille Dardel").
The software — originally American — used for the database is now in French (since December 2011). All the pages, with a few exceptions, are in French. A list of abbreviations is given below.
Let me know what you think of this genealogy site. More importantly even, send me comments regarding possible mistakes, or additions. The complete database is available in GED format (a specific genealogy database format, requiring genealogy software) for those interested. It contains a few more details, notes for several of the listed persons, and includes presently 6733 entries of which 1484 Dardels, vs 2000 and 1407 at the time of the first edition of Jean-Paul Dardel's book, plus another 284 for the Fenin-Villars-Saules branch. The database also contains 1093 pictures, of which 826 for individuals and 267 images of family groups.
It goes back to Jehan Dardel, in the 15th Century and shows now eighteen generations of Dardels in five centuries!
A little far-fetched, albeit true: the "Swedish branch" of the family descends from King Christian III of Danmark, who was an ancestor of Sophie Lewenhaupt. Here the corresponding chart in PDF format, in French with coats of arms.
Convention for given names
By default, the first given name is assumed to be the usual one. The order of the given names is in principle the order under which the child was registered at birth. In cases where the usual name is not the first one, it is indicated with an asterisk (e.g.: Marc Amiod*).
Tips for searching the database:
1. Family card
Clicking on one of these given names will bring a family card (title: "Généalogie Dardel") with details of that person and his or her spouse, including their parents and children. From there, you can navigate the entire database.
Caution : I have selected the French version of this Table of Contents as the "Pivot" for the web database. Therefore, whenever you click the "Sommaire" (Contents) link, you will be brought back to the page in French. Sorry, I can't help it because the entire set of pages, except the present one, was created by my software, and I had to make a choice for the contents. I thought it was more logical to use the French one. Besides, all the data in the base, including notes, are in French.
When you click on a name in bold in the family record (usually one of the spouses, or an unmarried person), an individual record appears. It contains new elements:
The "Home Card" is that of Jehan Dardel the miller, who is the starting point of the present genealogy.
The ID numbering is arbitrary and has no genealogy significance. Every person has a reference number. However, I have established a list of correspondence between the IDs of this site and the reference numbers shown in Jean-Paul Dardel's family book. This is an index you can sort by name, surname, date, ID, or branch. If you click a name on this List of all people, you will open their person card.
3. Mini-Tree
In addition to the two display methods above, if you click this small tree on any family sheet or person sheet, you get a family tree of the ascendants of the person for 5 generations.
4. Portraits and photos
The presence of this camera indicates a "media" page in which you will find the person's image in bigger size and possibly other pictures.
Pictures showing a family group are accessible only from the family card, whereas pictures of individuals can be accessed from both types of card.
As a principle, we publish only pictures of deceased persons. There are however exceptions for people having a public life, those who have posted a picture of themselves on social networks or who have been the subject of an illustrated press article, as well as a few group photos. See the list of people of which at least a picture illustrates this site.
Send us new pictures! See some suggestions to scan, format and send us photos and documents.
Mar. | Mariage | Marriage date and place |
Div. | Divorce | Divorced |
Nais. | Naissance | Birth date and place |
Bapt. | Baptême | Christened |
Déc. | Décès | Death date and place |
Inh. | Inhumation | Burial |
Cau. | Cause | Cause of death |
Pro. | Profession | Occupation |
Étud. | Études | Education |
Conjoints | Conjoints | Spouses* |
Enfants | Enfants | Children |
Conjoints | Spouses* | |
Père | Father | |
Mère | Mother | |
Glossary: terms of the menu bar (top of pages) | ||
Sommaire | Overview (this page) | |
Noms de famille | Surnames | |
Racine | Tree root (home card) | |
Fiche de famille | Family sheet | |
Fiche individuelle | Person sheet | |
Chercher | Search |
* In the case of multiple marriages, click on the underlined number to open the card with the other spouse and their descendance.
Several of the fields are left blank, because we didn't have the information. Please send us any additions or corrections (see Updates).
Specifically, we would like to have:
If you would prefer not to appear at all in the genealogy, we can erase your name. Today, 22 persons (among approximately 1480 living or thought to be alive) are in this case.
The main source of the data is Jean-Paul Dardel's book (second edition, 2004). The sources used in the book are not known to us: they result of the many trips that Jean-Paul made to Neuchâtel during 30 years to exhaust the official archives of the town and several villages. As he was a meticulous man, his sources must be very reliable. In Switzerland, the civil status was recorded in parish registers since the 15th century. In 1799, a law made it compulsory for Swiss municipalities to keep civil registers (births, deaths and marriages), but it was revoked shortly afterwards, and it was not until 1830 that it became common practice.
Many new pieces of information were received later. Since the summer of 2011 — unfortunately not before — we have noted the source of the information in the database. It is shown in the person sheets as a small clickable red exponent. The reference may cover the person as a whole or only part of the person's data: event, profession, notes.
Recent updates originate either from direct information sent by family members (a good part of it through the update form available here), or from internet pages, including Wikipedia for famous persons, as well as from family trees posted by others having persons in common with our own family tree. We also reviewed numerous press archives that provided data on births, deaths and marriages, as well as occasional obituaries or articles about a few of the characters in our genealogy. In all cases, errors are possible, but we have been very careful to ensure that the collected information was at least plausible.
See on another page the complete list of the sources. The cards that do not show a source are in their majority based on Jean-Paul's book.
Note: The numbering of the sources may vary from one to the next version of the genealogy. The numbering of persons (ID) doesn't change.