Integration and social networks: Lutherans in revolutionary Paris, 1789-1797

Using the wedding registers of the Swedish embassy chapel in Paris during the years of the French Revolution, the article analyses patterns of integration among Lutheran immigrants who had come to reside in Paris. Using the network paradigm but not restricting the analysis to kinship networks, the identified relationships show that geographical origin played a significant role in the creation of networks, as did occupation. People with common geographical origins, and within the same trade, built up social networks lasting many years. Residential proximity was also present in network ties. In most of the weddings analysed, these different factors were intertwined, suggesting that the process of social integration often demanded both time and space as necessary elements. Moreover, the evidence suggests more generally that examining only kinship ties in the study of historical network analysis is unnecessarily restrictive if sources permit the examination of other bases on which networks can be formed.