GEMER takes into account all the records concerning seamen. This project cross-references the divisions of seamen's registers and the crews books with the civil registers. This allows us to follow each seaman in his navigations, but also to study his coastal links (family, habitat, multi-activity) and get a more precise idea about the problems concerning health or hygienic conditions (anthropology, epidemiology, funeral rites). This is a whole population, "the people of the shores" that emerges and that during eight generations, faces crises, wars and diseases, endures the weight of the State and adjusts to the new social and economic conditions. The rich sources of information allow us to tell the story of all these women and men. These sources allow to retrace a culture both wordily and intangible, always shaped by tradition, sometimes shaped by renewal with its unavoidable disruptions, renewal which is based on submission or resilience. GEMER is therefore a database where there will be 20.000 seamen registered in the class records covering the period from 1690 to 1790: in this database, you will also find the relatives of these seamen, their ascendant, descendant or collateral kinships, as well as their godfathers and godmothers. Three territories having equivalent populations and geographic configurations have been chosen: Plessis-Bertrand Estate with Cancale, the maritime district of the Seudre with Marennes and the district of Berre Pond with Martigues. This research will allow us to carry out a wide and complex study in historical anthropology, by multiplying science-based measures on the three defined areas of interest which complement, support and cross one another. We will study the lenght of careers at sea, the duration of navigations, the number of accidents and epidemics on board, the death rate at sea, the organization of labour and the question of wages. Besides, when seamen go back home, they are reunited with their families. So our study will deal with the way the sailors’ wives, sisters or daughters handle the situation in their prolonged absence. The study will also deal with agency, solidarity amongst women, female multi-activity, additional incomes, relationship with the representatives of the Church (the priests) and relationship with the representatives of the State (the Admiralty officers, "la sénéchaussée", the Commissioner of the "Marine du Roi"). After observing the health conditions of the seamen and their families’ questions may be asked about fecundity and survival, mainly concerning mothers and their infants. The way of life of these populations and the dangers that threaten the seamen have an influence on this social group’s demography. Its components linked with historical demography (marriage rate, fecundity, mortality, mobilities and migrations) will be analysed. What’s the GEMER project? It is an open access database: it will allow us to organize several study sessions that will lead to many publications as well as an international conference with proceedings both in English and in French; there will be also a book including all the elements highlighted by this research and a website will be opened. GEMER will organize a travelling exhibition and a docu drama about a trip to the South Sea will be also made: this documentary fiction will speak about seamen who sail to Newfoundland but who also "discover" the West Indies and the transatlantic slave trade, then, they go to the Mediterranean and finally travel to China. When war breaks out once again, they are also formidable privateers. A close relationship will be established with learned societies in order to reproduce this pattern, as well as with the Education Office.