Daily Ancestorseptante
Septante is "seventy" in regional French (Belgium, Switzerland), where standard French says soixante-dix; nonante is ninety.
Standard French counts seventy as soixante-dix, sixty-ten, but Belgian and Swiss French use septante. The FamilySearch French word list also gives octante for eighty and nonante for ninety, words you may meet in the same records.
If your ancestors came from Belgium or Switzerland, expect septante and nonante in ages and years. A Swiss date of mil huit cent septante-deux is simply 1872.
As seen in a recordDeath record from a French-speaking area of Switzerland, 1880s
âgé de septante-quatre ans
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How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "septante." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/french/septante. Last checked 2026-10-28.