The project
The Socface project develops automatic handwriting recognition technologies to analyze all census lists from 1836 to 1936 (i.e. 20 censuses) and produce a database of individuals who lived in France during this period.
About us
Funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), the Socface project brings together archivists, demographers, economists, historians and computer scientists working together to develop technologies for the large-scale processing of huge series of historical documents.
- Partners
- Team
Recollection of the images
Contact and information on the project for the archivists who would like to be part of it.
Schedule
From September 2021 to March 2025, we will collect, process, standardize and analyze individual data from the French censuses.

In a few words

The Socface project aims at developing automatic handwriting recognition technologies to transcribe all the census lists from 1836 to 1936 (i.e. 20 censuses). The information gathered will be used to produce a database of all individuals who lived in France during this period and to follow them throughout their lives. Then, we will take advantage of this database to analyze the evolution of French society over a century. The data obtained from the census lists will then be made available to the general public, allowing anyone to freely browse through millions of records.

Download

Présentation du projet à destination des services d'archives [PDF | 440.2 K.o.]