What the ANF directly establishes. The letter speaks neither of exclusion nor expulsion. It states that the family’s representatives were asked to resign after an independent review concluded that the submitted records did not match the originals.
- 9 June 1989 : Admission at the General Assembly.
- December 2011 : Review and resignation letters dated 13 and 15 December.
- 17 May 2016 : Written reply from a former ANF vice-president.
The role of the Proofs Commission [Back to contents]
The ANF explains that its Proofs Commission verifies two matters: a valid instrument granting transmissible nobility or recognising noble status, and a certain male-line descent between its beneficiary and the applicant. It reviews and authenticates the submitted material before a candidacy reaches the board and General Assembly.
This procedure explains the wording in the 2016 letter: “agnatic ancestry”, comparison of submitted material with original records, and the consequence drawn from their non-conformity.
Timeline, 1989–2016 [Back to contents]
Admission
The letter records admission at the ANF General Assembly.
Review
An independent expert reviewed the agnatic ancestry. According to the ANF, the records submitted did not conform to the originals.
Resignations
The resignations were submitted in two letters that are not yet part of the public corpus.
Written confirmation
A former ANF vice-president summarised the admission, review and conclusion.
The letter of 17 May 2016 [Back to contents]
English translation of the central passage
“The Cheynet de Beaupré family was indeed admitted to the ANF at the General Assembly of 9 June 1989.
The representatives of the Cheynet family were asked to resign from the ANF in December 2011 following checks carried out by an independent expert on their family’s agnatic ancestry. These checks concluded that the records submitted did not conform to the original records.
The resignations were submitted by letters dated 13 and 15 December 2011.”
The letter adds that the ANF could provide the necessary evidence and concludes that the Cheynet family is “absolutely non-noble”.
Current official lists [Back to contents]
As checked on 1 September 2026, neither the ANF’s official table of families under the letter C nor its 2025 list of admitted families no longer represented contains an entry for Cheynet.
Caution: absence from online lists is not, by itself, proof of non-noble status. The decisive record remains the 2016 letter and its account of the 2011 review.
The admission file still to be located [Back to contents]
The French National Archives hold accepted ANF admission files from 1932 to 1991 in series 19930288/1–19930288/215. The 1989 admission should therefore be documentable within that group, subject to confirmation and access permission.
- the complete 1989 application file;
- the exact list of submitted records;
- the independent expert’s report;
- the resignation letters of 13 and 15 December 2011;
- any minutes of the Proofs Commission.
Documentary conclusion
The sequence is established by a direct ANF source: admission in 1989, review of the records in 2011, a finding that they did not conform to the originals, and resignations in December 2011. The present corpus does not yet identify with certainty every record included in the admission file.
Sources
1. ANF — letter of 17 May 2016.
2. ANF — mission of the Proofs Commission.
3. ANF — official table of families, letter C.
4. ANF — families no longer represented, 15 January 2025.
5. FranceArchives — accepted ANF admission files, 1932–1991.