Archives biographiques françaises

"A compilation of biographical notices selected from 180 biographical works on about 300,000 people in France, French-speaking Switzerland, Belgium, French Canada, and the Francophone colonies, as well as foreigners associated with France for a period of their lives. The collection represents phase one ('French Biographical Archive') and ('French Biographical Archive. New Series') of this project. The entries in this collection were taken from 302 biographical reference works originally published between 1647 and 1986"--The Library of Congress Guide to the Microform Collections in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, online version.