Les instruments de recherche du minutier central des notaires de Paris. Quatre-vingts ans de travaux

Abstract

Over the past eighty years the archivists in the Minutier central des notaires de Paris (the central notarial archive of Paris) have experimented different methods to make the collection accessible. The main shifts in perspective divide the period into three phases. During the early years (1928-1948), Ernest Coyecque, archival advisor to the Chamber ofNotaries and responsible for planning the transfer to the Archives Nationales, endeavoured to supply the records with essential finding aids, whilst Jacques Monicat, keeper of the Minutier central, started an exhaustive inventory but could not carry it far because of the overwhelming quantity of documents. In 1948, the year in which the first transfers were completed, the archivists undertook a series of thematic indexes at the request of research institutions, but then stopped in 1977 when funding was suspended. During the 1970s theMinutier central became a focal point for experiments in computerised inventories of archives. These different phases all contributed to defining current ways of dealing with notarial records, and produced a structured albeit highly complex set of finding aids. The end results might not be entirely satisfactory, but should be considered adequate in relation to the available support. As for the relevance of the tools thus created for the specific needs of end users, the debate remains open.