In 2021, we added more than a million documents and images allowing you to trace your ancestors on Genealogy Quebec, including birth, marriage and death records, headstones, city directories, death notices, memorial cards, historical newspapers and much more!
Thanks to these additions, the Genealogy Quebec website now offers some 49,877,724 images and files which allow you to trace your family’s history in the province and the surrounding area, from the beginnings of the colony to today.
Here is a more detailed overview of the year’s additions.
LAFRANCE
31,586 new birth, marriage and death records from Quebec, Ontario and New-Brunswick. (Details)
Addition of 1,700,000 marriage records dating from 1850 to today, from the NBMDS tool and Connolly File. (Details)
To conclude, the Drouin team would like to wish you health, happiness and many genealogical discoveries in 2022, and thank you for the trust you have placed in us for now more than 10 years.
9,000 images referencing hundreds of thousands of baptisms, marriages and burials recorded in Montreal have been added to the BMD Cards, one of the 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
The collection covers the following periods:
Non-Catholic baptisms 1760 to 1899
Catholic Marriages 1850 to 1899, A to D surnames
Civil marriages 1969 to 1975
Non-Catholic marriages 1760 to 1925
Catholic burials 1642 to 1850, A to B surnames
Non-Catholic burials 1768 to 1925
Images from this collection contain references to original records that you can also find on Genealogy Quebec in the Drouin Collection Records.
To demonstrate the process of finding an original record, we will be using John Nicholson’s burial which can be found in this new collection.
The directory gives us all the information necessary to find the original document of this burial: the name of the subject as well as the year and the parish of registration of the event.
John Nicholson was buried in 1817 and his burial is recorded in the Anglican Garrison register in Montreal.
We must now head to the Drouin Collection Records and find the folder pertaining to this register for 1817. Inside it, we will find the original record.
John Nicholson’s burial as found in the Drouin Collection Records
In addition to these new documents, the BMD cards contain some 2.3 million baptism, marriage and burial cards from Quebec, Ontario and the United States.
You can browse the BMD cards collection as well as tens of millions of other documents of historical and genealogical interest by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
25 historical newspapers have been added to the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
Here are the newly added newspapers:
Le Soleil (Québec) (1909, 1939, 1940 and 2005) Hebdo-Progrès (St-Léonard et Rosemont) (1984) La Parole (Drummondville) (1991 et 1992) La Santé (Montréal) (1969 and 1970) La Voix de l’Est (1971, 1976 and 1979) La Voix de Wolfe (Ham-Nord) (1969 and 1970) Le Canada-Français (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu) (1971 to 1973) Le Courrier d’Orsainville (Québec) (1969) Le Monde Illustré (Montréal) (1887 to 1900) Le Pharillon (Gaspésie) (1979 and 1980) Le Progrès Dimanche (Chicoutimi) (1966) Le Quotidien (Chicoutimi) (1982) Le Richelieu Agricole (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu) (1981 and 1982) Le Riviera (Sorel) (1960 to 1962) Le Samedi (Montréal) (1946) L’Écho (Louiseville) (1986 and 1987) L’Écho Abitibien (Val d’Or) (1987) L’Électeur (PLQ) (1967, 1968, 1971 to 1976) Les Nouvelles Saint-Laurent News (1985 and 1986) L’Horizon (Joliette) (1970 and 1972) Notre Temps (Montréal) (1951, 1952, 1957 to 1960) Perspectives Dimanche Matin (Montréal) (1974 and 1975) The Richmond News (Richmond) (April 30th 1897, May 7th 1897 and December 18th 1914) The Watchman (Lachute) (1919 to 1922) Ville de Val-Bélair (January 28th, 1966)
You will find these 33,900 new images in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, under the “23 – Journaux Anciens” folder. These 25 publications add to the many newspapers already available in the section:
Chesterville Record
Commercial Gazette (Montréal)
Daily Witness (Montréal)
La Chronique de la Vallée du St-Maurice
La Minerve
La Semaine (Québec)
La Tribune Canadienne (Montréal)
La Vie Illustrée (Montréal)
La Voix Du Peuple (St-Jean)
L’Action Canadienne
L’Alliance (St-Jean)
L’Avant-Garde
L’Avenir de Quebec
Le Carillon (Québec)
Le Castor (Québec)
Le Charivari (Québec)
Le Courrier (St-Jean)
Le National (Montréal)
Le Progrès du Golfe
Le Protectionniste (St-Jean)
Le Semeur Canadien (Montréal)
Le Trésor des Familles (Québec)
L’Écho d’Iberville
L’Essor (St-Jean)
L’Obligation (Montréal)
L’Opinion Publique (Montréal)
L’Union de Woonsocket
L’Union des Cantons de l’Est (Arthabaskaville)
Midi-Presse (Montreal)
Paris-Canada (Montréal)
The Advertiser
The Canadian Jewish Review
The Dominion Illustrated News (Montréal)
The Inquirer (Trois-Rivières)
The Quebec Gazette
Le Franco-Canadien
Le Richelieu
Le Richelieu agricole
Le Richelieu agricole et Dimanche
Le Richelieu Dimanche
Le Canada-Français
You may browse these documents as well as 49 million images and files of genealogical and historical interest by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
October 24, 2021 marks the 400th anniversary of the establishment of civil registration in New France. On this exact date, Father Joseph Denis, priest of the Notre-Dame de Québec parish, baptized Eustache Martin, son of Marguerite Langlois and Abraham Martin dit l’Écossais [who gave his name to the Plains of Abraham]. Since the beginnings of the colony, the registration of vital events was entrusted to the ecclesiastical authority which enforced royal ordinances such as the keeping of duplicate registers – one being kept by the parish, the other being deposited at the local court.
From 1703, the drafting of records by the parish priests of New France was done according to the rules prescribed by the Ritual of the Diocese of Quebec. When New France was ceded to England through the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the colonial authorities maintained the old French laws relating to the registration of vital events. In 1774, the Quebec Act confirmed that the keeping of parish registers, whether Catholic or Protestant, was the responsibility of the clergy.
In 1760, Anglo-Protestant registers were introduced following the British Conquest. Protestant marriages were celebrated in accordance with the Marriage Act, a British law of 1754. The first of theses registers is that of the Anglican Garrison Church in Montreal, which covers the 1760 to 1764 period. Between 1760 and 1770, Protestant parishes opened in Montreal , Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Sorel.
In 1795, a law enacted by the Parliament of Lower Canada confirmed the application of the French ordinances while adapting them to the new situation of the country. Over the next two centuries, very few changes were made to the registration of vital events apart from a few minor adjustments resulting from the adoption of a new Civil Code in 1866.
We had to wait a hundred years before a major change was made to Quebec’s civil registration with the introduction of civil marriage which, since 1968, can be celebrated in courthouses and other authorized places. With the number of different denominations, and consequently, the number of celebrants authorized to register events having reached a new high – 5,417 registers were deposited for the year 1989 only – a change was in order. In 1991, a new civil code was adopted, confirming the prerogative of the State in matters of registration of vital events.
In 1994, the government implemented a modern civil registration system and created the position of Directeur de l’état civil which provided Quebec with a single non-denominational register. The new regulations transferred the legal responsibility of recording births, marriages and deaths in the province from the churches to the State. Despite these new regulations, priests and ministers of all faiths are still considered civil officers for the celebration of religious marriages, even if most unions are now contracted before a civil officer approved by the Directeur de l’état civil.
Between 1621 and 1800, the priests of the 159 Catholic parishes of Quebec recorded 690,000 vital events, to which we must add the few thousand Protestant events recorded from 1766 onwards. Between 1800 and 1900, seven million vital events were recorded, a number that grew to more than seventeen million for the 1901 to 2000 period. The Quebec archives now hold nearly 25 million vital event records spanning 4 centuries.
Consult all of Quebec’s parish registers from 1621 to the 1940s by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
Civil registration is an essential source of information for any genealogical, historical or demographic research. The quality of Quebec’s parish registers is unique in the world and the baptism, marriage and burial records drafted by ecclesiastical authorities since the beginning of New France have survived time without many gaps.
Until 1994, parish records were accessible to researchers, but they were closed to consultation with the advent of the new provisions on civil registration. This situation makes genealogical research more difficult and deprives Quebecers and their descendants of an important part of their collective memory. Genealogists such as myself understand that the protection of personal information is a priority in modern times, but shouldn’t our administrative authorities find compromises so that family history research can continue, and to allow the current and future generations the opportunity to learn about their roots?
Recently, the Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie and the Directeur de l’état civil du Québec held exploratory meetings that lead to a certain openness with regard to the consultation of death certificates between 1994 and 2021. It is to be hoped that these discussions will allow the dissemination of certain genealogical information while respecting the privacy of Quebecers. Quebec’s civil registration remains an essential collective asset for reconstructing the history of our families across space and time.
The parish registers of Quebec are an invaluable resource for genealogists and historians interested in the story of the inhabitants of the province. But it is important to emphasize that this window into the past comes to us from a small group of individuals: the priests of the province.
Father Marquette preaching
When drafting a parish record, the priest had to follow a predetermined format, dictating a formulation that generally did not deviate from record to record. Genealogists are familiar with this format; date of writing, date of the event, name of the subject(s), name of the parents, all framed by formulas such as “by us, the undersigned priest of the parish” and “who have declared not knowing how to sign”.
But these guidelines did not prevent some priests from adding a little color to their records, as you will see in this article.
The documents used in this article are from the LAFRANCE, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
We begin our visit of the past in 1734 with priest René Portneuf of the parish of Saint-Jean-de-l’Île-d’Orléans, celebrating the baptism of Marie Renée Marguerite Charlan.
The priest was much more than the officiant of the religious ceremonies of his parish; he was also its moral authority! Let us admire the zeal of Father Portneuf here:
« Je me suis nommé parrain après avoir répudié Simon Campagna à cause de son ignorance […] sur la religion ainsi qu’il apparu à tous ceux qui étaient présents lorsque je l’ai interrogé sur le Petit Catéchisme. »
“I named myself godfather after having repudiated Simon Campagna because of his ignorance […] about religion as it appeared to all those who were present when I asked him about the Small Catechism.”
It is interesting to note that Simon Campagna was already 5 times godfather before his regrettable meeting with Father Portneuf. You will not be surprised to learn that he will have no other godchildren during his lifetime.
The burial of soldier Jean Simon dit Sansregret at the Hotel Dieu de Québec, also in 1734, reminds us of the importance and omnipresence of religion in the customs and culture of the French colony.
« […] sans avoir jamais voulu recevoir les sacrements quoy que les Prêtres et Religieux se fussent employés avec beaucoup de zele pour le gagner, il fut enterré par nos infirmiers proche de la caserne sans honneurs et sans prières, et avec l’horreur qu’il inspirait. »
“[…] without ever having wanted to receive the sacraments despite the Priests and Religious employing great zeal to gain him, he was buried by our nurses near the barracks without honors and without prayers, and with the horror he inspired. “
Clearly, Mr. Simon dit Sansregret (which translates to without regrets) was aptly named.
Speaking of horror, it is hard to miss the blatant racism that is often found in the registers. Take, for example, the baptismal record of Marie Louise, daughter of Marie Anne, dated July 17, 1688 in Lachine.
« […] a été baptisée Marie Louise fille d’une sauvagesse nommée Marie Anne femme de mauvaise vie connue pour folle par tous les pais et coustumière d’avoir de tels enfans »
“[…] was baptized Marie Louise daughter of a savage named Marie Anne woman of ill-repute known for being mad by all the inhabitants and known to have such children”
Family reconstruction work carried out by the PRDH at the University of Montreal allows us to learn a little more about the fate of young Marie Louise. She would have been taken from her mother by the parish priest and entrusted to the Sulpicians, and then brought up by a Pierre Sarault dit Laviolette. Married three times over the course of her life, she drowned in 1777 at the ripe old age of 89.
But all is not dark in the registers; they often remind us of the humanity within some of the colony’s priests. The burial of Marie Benoist on January 13, 1736 in Longueuil, is a good example:
« […] a été inhumé le corps de defunte Marie Benoist […] âgée d’environ 44 ans, pendans lesquels, il a plû au Seigneur de l’éprouver par des maladies et des soufrances continuelles, qui ne lui ont rien fait perdre de l’espris de charité de douceur et de patiance, qui l’ont fait admirer par tous ceux qui ons connu cette vertueuse vierge sans vices qui est décédée comblée de merite et de grâce. »
“[…] was buried the body of deceased Marie Benoist […] aged about 44 years, during which it pleased the Lord to test her by continual illnesses and sufferings, which did not make her lose anything of the spirit of charity, gentleness and patience, which made her admired by all those who have known this virtuous virgin without vices who died full of merit and grace. “
In a similar vein, we have the burial record of naturalist and surgeon Michel Sarrazin, who died on September 9, 1734 at the Hôtel Dieu in Quebec.
« Il avait exercé son art en ce païs plus de 45 ans avec une rare charité, un parfait desinteressement, un succès extraordinaire, une adresse surprenante, une application sans égale pour toutes sorte de personnes qui luy faisait faire avec joye et avec grace, tout ce qui depandait de ses soins pour le soulagement des malades qu’il traitait, il était aussy habile chirurgien que scavant médecin, comme les belles cures qu’il a faites en sont les preuves. »
“He had exercised his art in this country for more than 45 years with rare charity, a perfect disinterestedness, an extraordinary success, a surprising address, an unequaled application for all kinds of people which made him do everything with joy and grace, everything that depended on his care for the relief of the patients he treated, he was as skilful a surgeon as he was a doctor, as the fine cures he performed are proof of this.”
It is evident that Mr. Sarrazin had the esteem and the deep respect of his contemporaries, and he is regarded today as the first Canadian scientist. You can learn more about this fascinating individual here.
We are all aware of the value of church records in the genealogical sphere, but are we paying enough attention to the anecdotes they contain? The priests have offered us, in their own way, a fascinating window into our past, and all researchers should make it their duty to carefully read the records that pertain to their ancestors.
In the next articles in this series, I will continue to explore various historical subjects and themes using the documents available on Genealogy Quebec.
27,153 headstones from 43 cemeteries in Quebec have been added to the Obituary section, one of the 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
The Obituary section now contains over 730,000 headstones.
The Obituary section
The Obituary section is home to all of the obituaries, memorial cards and headstones available on Genealogy Quebec. It is divided in 4 sub-sections.
Internet obituaries
This section contains obituaries published online by various Canadian newspapers and funeral homes between 1999 and today. As of October 2021, the collection contains over 2,630,000 obituaries and is being updated monthly.
Newspaper obituaries
This section contains over 1,250,000 death notices published in newspapers from Quebec, Ontario and the United States between 1860 and today.
Memorial cards
This section contains 97,800 memorial cards published between 1860 and today. Most of these cards pertain to individuals who died in Quebec.
Headstones
This section contains 730,000 indexed pictures of headstones from various cemeteries in Quebec and Ontario. Here is a list of the cemeteries available in the collection.
More information about this section can be found on the Drouin Institute’s blog.
You can browse the Obituary section as well as tens of millions of other documents of historical and genealogical significance by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
Genealogy Quebec is a subscription based research website regrouping all of the collections and tools developed by the Drouin Institute over the course of its existence.
The website’s 15 tools and collections total for over 100 million images and documents covering all of Quebec as well as part of the United States, Ontario and Acadia from 1621 to this day. Genealogy Quebec is by far the largest collection of Quebec genealogical and historical documents on the Web.
The PRDH-IGD is a directory of ALL vital events (baptisms, marriages and burials) recorded by the Catholic church in Quebec and French Canada from 1621 to 1861, as well as a genealogical dictionary of families commonly referred to as “Family Reconstructions”.
The PRDH-IGD database contains over 3.2 million records and can be described as a comprehensive family tree of the French-Canadian population from the beginnings of the colony to 1861.
The Fichier Origine is a repertory of baptisms of immigrants to Quebec found in their country of origin (France, essentially) within a collaborative project between French and Quebec genealogy federations coordonated in Quebec
The Trace my roots Website gives you the opportunity to purchase geolocalized tours in English or in French which you can follow at your own pace, by bike or car, using a phone or tablet. Depending on the route, you will discover, for example, the home of an ancestor, the great career of one of your ascendants or the bridge bearing their name. These excursions have something to captivate the interest of those who are interested in history, especially if they are passionate about genealogy.
Come visit our website which holds over 520 Acadian and French Canadian resources. We also hold researchable databases that has over 2.5 million individual lineages for 2500 family trees. Contact is cajun@acadian.org
The years 1915 to 1978 of Lovell’s Montreal City Directory have been added to the City Directories tool, one of the 15 collections offered to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
In total, 150,000 new images are now available to subscribers of the website.
Lovell’s Montreal City Directory
The Lovell is a municipal directory of the city of Montreal and its surroundings published since the 1840s. It contains, among other things, a list of residents sorted by street and address, a list of residents in alphabetical order, a list of merchants and professionals as well as a list of various institutions.
On Genealogy Quebec, the Lovell is presented in a tree structure in the City Directories tool. Every year, from 1843 to 1978, is divided into a series of subfolders:
Introduction – Contains the cover page, a preface, as well as a table of contents
Index to Streets, Avenues, Lanes – An index of the streets, avenues and lanes of the city
Index to Miscellaneous – An index of miscellaneous institutions (shops, religious and governmental buildings, schools, etc.) by name
Index to Page Advertisers – An index of advertisers who paid for a full page advertisement
List of Line Advertisers – An index of advertisers who paid for a small advertisement
Advertisers Business Classified Directory – Advertisers indexed by type of of services offered
Street Directory – An index of residents and businesses, sorted by street and address
Alphabetical Directory – An index of residents and businesses, sorted by name
Places in the neighborhood of Montreal outside city limits – A shorter, less detailed version of the city directory for neighborhoods of Montreal that weren’t inside city limits at the time
Miscellaneous directory – An index of traders and professionals organized by the types of services they offer
Within these folders, another series of subfolders divides the images by letter, in alphabetical order. For example, to find the address of a Desjardins ancestor, you must go to Alphabetical Directory and open the “D” folder under the desired year.
The City Directories tool also contains the Marcotte, which is the Lovell‘s equivalent for Quebec City.
You can browse the Marcotte and Lovell directories as well as tens of millions of other documents of historical and genealogical interest by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
16,767 baptism, marriage and burial cards have been added to the BMD cards tool, one of 15 collections available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
These cards cover the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Iberville regions from 1900 to 1970.
You can browse them with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec in the BMD cards tool, under the ” Fiches (villes)/District judiciaire d’Iberville/ ” folder.
What is the BMD cards tool?
The BMD cards tool is a repository of baptism, marriage and burial cards from Quebec, Ontario and the United States.
The documents in this collection are organized in a tree structure. In the majority of cases, the cards are distributed in alphabetical order according to the last name of the subject of the card or the name of the location where applicable.
You can browse the BMD cards collection as well as tens of millions of other documents of historical and genealogical interest by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
Original document linked to 1919 marriages in the LAFRANCE
Most of the 1919 marriages available in the LAFRANCEare now linked with their original church document.
To view the document, open the record certificate and click on the link located at the top right corner of the certificate.
Record certificate of a marriage from the LAFRANCE. The blue arrow shows where to click to access the original document.Original document as presented on the LAFRANCE.
More information about the LAFRANCE
The LAFRANCE is a research database of millions of birth, marriage and death records from Quebec, Ontario and the United-States. It currently contains:
ALL of Quebec’s Catholic marriages from 1621 to 1918
ALL of Quebec’s Catholic baptisms from 1621 to 1861
ALL of Quebec’s Catholic burials from 1621 to 1861
ALL of Quebec’s Protestant marriages from 1760 to 1849
1,450,000 Quebec Catholic marriages from 1919 to today
80,000 Quebec civil marriages from 1969 to today
140,000 Ontario marriages from 1850 to today
38,000 marriages from the United States
3,000 Quebec Protestant marriages from 1850 to 1941
17,000 miscellaneous Quebec marriages from 2018 and 2019
68,000 miscellaneous baptisms and burials from 1862 to 2019
35,000 marriages from the Directeur de l’État Civil du Québec are now available in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
These marriages, originally published on the Directeur de l’État Civil’s website, cover the years 2018 and 2019.
Inside it, you will find a list of folders. The marriages are listed in alphabetical order according to the last name of the husband or wife.
For example, in order to find the marriage of a Nadeau, simply go to the N folder and browse the list of marriages alphabetically listed there.
You can browse these marriages as well as tens of millions of genealogical and historical documents by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
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