Six 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 available newspapers:
Le Franco-Canadien (1893 to 1899) Le Richelieu (1935 to 1969) Le Richelieu agricole (1978 to 1980, 1983 and 1984) Le Richelieu agricole et Dimanche (1986 and 1987) Le Richelieu Dimanche (1987) Le Canada-Français (various years between 1888 and 1987)
You will find these 72,841 new images in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, under the “23 – Journaux Anciens” folder. These six 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
You may browse these documents as well as 49 million images and files of genealogical and historical interest by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
More new content on Genealogy Quebec! This time in the Obituary section, which contains all the obituaries, memorial cards and tombstone pictures available on the website.
Memorial Cards
5,350 memorial cards have been added to the Obituary section, which now contains a total of 97,802 cards. You can search this collection by name or first name of the deceased as well as by date of death.
Most of these cards pertain to individuals who died in Quebec between 1860 and today. You can browse this collection with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec at this address.
Internet obituaries
A new milestone is within reach in the Internet Obituaries section, with close to 2,600,000 death notices now available. As the name suggests, this section contains obituaries from various online sources and covers all of Canada from 1999 to today.
This collection is updated monthly and is equipped with a search engine allowing you to browse obituaries by name, date, or via the text of the notice.
All these documents can be browsed in the Obituary section, where you will also find, in addition to memorial cards and internet obituaries, 710,000 indexed photos of headstones and 1,250,000 death notices from Quebec and Ontario newspapers. More information about the Obituary section can be found on the the Drouin Institute blog.
Subscribe to Genealogy Quebec to have access to the Obituary section as well as 14 other tools totaling nearly 47 million images and files!
An update has been applied to the Connolly File, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
19,219 baptisms, 13,249 marriages and 42,321 burials were added through this update.
What is the Connolly File?
The Connolly File is an index of births, marriages and deaths from Quebec and parts of the United States and Canada covering a period spanning from 1621 to 2020. It is developed and maintained by the Société de généalogie des Cantons-de-l’Est. The tool contains over 6,750,000 birth, marriage and death records.
The keeping of Quebec birth, marriage and death records dates back to the very beginnings of the French colony in North America.
In 1621, the first Catholic parish register opens, recording the births, marriages and burials of the population of the young colony.
Guillaume Couillard and Guillemette Hebert’s marriage in 1621, from the Notre-Dame-de-Québec register. Samuel De Champlain, friend of Guillaume, serves as witness. Source: Record 66317, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com
In the 1760s, following the conquest of New France by the British Empire, and the arrival of many individuals of Protestant faith in the province, the Catholic Church looses its monopoly in the documentation of birth, marriages and deaths in Quebec.
John Cativin and Isabella Donaldson’s marriage in 1766, from Montreal’s Anglican register. Source: Record 4777972, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com
In 1926, the State establishes the Registre de référence à l’état civil, which didn’t replace but rather complemented the practice of recording birth, marriage and death records in churches. This register includes a majority of the marriages and deaths recorded in the province between 1926 and 1997. It can be consulted with a subscription on Genealogy Quebec at this address.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s marriage in Montreal in 1964. Source: Marriages and Deaths 1926-1997, GenealogyQuebec.com
In 1994, Quebec centralizes the registration of its population’s vital events with the creation of the Direction de l’état civil. The vast majority of these documents are not publicly available.
How Quebec birth, marriage and death records are used in genealogy
Thanks to the recording of Quebec’s birth, marriage and death records, initially by the church and then by the government, the descendants of Quebecers can easily trace the history of their families. But in concrete terms, how are birth, marriage and death records used to trace a family’s history?
Quebec marriages
The key to tracing a genealogical lineage is found in marriage records. The reason is simple: historically, the marriage official was required to include the names of the parents of the spouses in the marriage record. This information allows us to go back a generation and find the marriage record of the parents of the spouses. A complete lineage can thus be traced through the chain of marriages of the individuals forming it.
Several databases containing Quebec birth, marriage and death records exist on the Web, but the most complete is the LAFRANCE, available on Genealogy Quebec. We will use it here to illustrate the principle explained above.
To begin our research, we need a starting point, a marriage from the desired lineage. For demonstration purposes, we will be using the marriage of the great-grandparents of the author of this article, François Eugène Desjardins and Anna Jacques.
We begin with a search for the spouses in the LAFRANCE.
This allows us to find their marriage record, in 1907.
The marriage record contains the groom’s parents’ names, Charles Eugène Desjardins and Marie Malvina Fortin.
We will now search for their marriage.
Again, this search leads us to their marriage record, in 1864
This process is repeated for each generation, until we arrive at the first immigrant of the Desjardins line in Quebec, Antoine Roy dit Desjardins, who’s marriage record can be seen below.
Quebec birth and death records
Births and deaths, on the other hand, can be used to paint a more complete picture of the lives of one’s ancestors.
For example, PRDH-IGD‘s “family files” group together all the vital events (baptisms, marriages and burials) related to a family unit.
Family file of Pierre Roy Desjardins and Marie Anne Martin, with their children listed as well as links to the baptisms, marriages and burials of every individual mentioned. Source: Family File 6710, PRDH-IGD.com
This global portrait, drawn from the baptism, marriage and burial records of the Catholic Church, gives us a unique insight into the lives of our ancestors and their migratory movements over the years.
Whether consulting a marriage, a birth or a death record, one can hope to learn the names of the involved parties and their parents, the date and place of the event being recorded, various additional information such as the place of residence or origin of the individuals mentioned, their marital status, age, and more. That’s a lot to learn about our ancestors!
The best sources of Quebec birth, marriage and death records online
Quebec is recognized worldwide for the comprehensiveness of its genealogical collections, and there are many sites offering access to Quebec birth, marriage and death records on the Internet.
Genealogy Quebec
Genealogy Quebec subscribers have access to the largest collection of Quebec records available on the internet. These can be found in various formats on the site: church parish records, civil government records, baptism, marriage and burial records, vital event register indexes, and more. The majority of these documents can be found in the LAFRANCE tool, a detailed index with a link to the original document of over 10 million civil and religious records from Quebec. The tool is equipped with a search engine allowing you to browse the following documents:
Every Catholic marriage from Quebec between 1621 and 1918
Every Protestant marriage from Quebec between 1760 and 1849
Every marriage recorded by the Quebec government between 1926 and 1997
Every Catholic baptism and burial from Quebec between 1621 and 1861
Every death recorded by the Quebec government between 1926 and 1997
1.7 million additional marriages from various sources in Quebec, Ontario, and the USA between 1919 and today
Tens of thousands of additional records from Quebec, Ontario and Acadia
Church record as presented on Genealogy Quebec’s LAFRANCE
A subscription is necessary in order to access the collections available on Genealogy Quebec. You can subscribe at this address.
PRDH-IGD
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 1849, as well as a genealogical dictionary of families commonly referred to as “Family Reconstructions”. The PRDH-IGD database contains over 2,500,000 records.
What makes PRDH-IGD a unique resource is the structure of its database. In addition to baptism, marriage and burial records, PRDH-IGD contains what are called individual and family files.
Every individual mentioned in a record in the database receives their own “individual file” in which all the information available on the individual is centralized.
Similarly, every married couple is assigned a “family file” which fulfills a similar role as the individual file, but in relation to a family unit.
The family file lists all of the couple’s children and provides a link to the events where these children are mentioned.
Ultimately, the PRDH-IGD database can be described as a massive family tree encompassing every Catholic individual who lived in Quebec between 1621 and 1849, or in other words, almost every single ancestor of the French Canadian population of America.
A subscription is necessary in order to use the PRDH-IGD database. You can subscribe at this address.
Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec (Quebec National Archives)
BAnQ’s website offers access to a digitized version of the parish registers of Quebec up to 1916, which can be consulted free of charge at this address.
Unlike the copy of this collection available on Genealogy Quebec, BAnQ’s version is not indexed. This means that you have to navigate through the church register manually, one page at a time, in order to find the desired record. Therefore, it is necessary to know the year and the parish in which the event was recorded in order to find it.
Genealogical societies
Joining a genealogical society can be a great way to access numerous collections of birth, marriage and death records, as they specialize in the preservation of genealogical and historical archives from their region. In addition, the volunteers and employees of the societies can guide you in your research and help you find the documents you are looking for.
You will find a list of genealogical societies in Quebec sorted by region at this address.
An update has been applied to the Acadia – Families tool, one of the 15 collections available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
Some 11,453 family files were added through this update.
What is the Acadia – Families tool?
The Acadia – Families tool contains 141,795 family files based on original Acadian records.
Currently, these records span from the beginning of the Acadian colony to the end of 1849. In addition, 33 locations covering from 1850 to the end of the available registers are included. A list of these locations as well as a more detailed overview of the collection are available on the Drouin Institute’s blog.
The files compile the information available about a family unit. They usually contain the names and first names of the parents, the first name of the child, the dates of birth and/or baptism, death and/or burial, and marriage (a total of 263,905 events), as well as the parish. Links to the original church documents pertaining to the baptisms, marriages and burials mentioned in the file are also often available.
Family file from the Acadia – Families tool. The blue links lead to the original documents.
It is now time to announce the 10 winners of the genealogy raffle launched on February 22, 2021, in which you could win an annual subscription to Genealogy Quebec, 1,000 hits on PRDH-IGD.com or $ 200 on our online boutique!
The winners are:
Lisa Guindon Michel Néron André Coulombe Sylvie Houle Jean Leclerc Guillaume Boissonneault Nathalie Lagassé Gaston Moore Audrey Champagne Rachel Bouffard
A big thank you to our 4,410 participants!
60% off on the Drouin Institute online boutique
If you aren’t one of our 10 lucky winners, we still want to give you an opportunity to save money! Enjoy 60% off all purchases on the Drouin Institute boutique with the code DROUIN2021! This offer is valid until March 15th, 2021.
To benefit from this promotion, simply enter the code DROUIN2021 on checkout.
The Drouin Institute online boutique includes all the books and CD-ROMs produced by the Drouin Institute, more than 4,000 items. The boutique is also home to various directories and books from historical and genealogical societies across Quebec, Ontario and the United States.
You may use the search function to find books pertaining to a specific region, family, individual or subject.
Here are some of the collections available on the boutique.
The Patrimoine national (National Heritage) collection contains various directories of parish records, cemeteries, death notices, memorial cards, censuses and more.
⚠️ Note: This guide pertains to Genealogy Quebec’s legacy tools, which are no longer updated. Please refer to this guide for the most up to date way to use the website.
On the site, you will find over 50 million images and files that will allow you to retrace the history of your family in Quebec and the surrounding area. These documents are divided into several tools. In order to get the most out of the website, it is important to know which tool to refer to depending on the nature of your research.
Your first search on Genealogy Quebec
Whether you are looking for an individual in particular or want to trace an entire line, your first search on the site is likely to be on the LAFRANCE.
The LAFRANCE contains millions of births, marriages and deaths from Quebec, Ontario, Acadia and the United States from 1621 to the present day. It is with these records, and specifically marriages, that you will be able to trace your ancestry.
Tracing a lineage on Genealogy Quebec
To trace a lineage, you will have to begin by finding a marriage belonging to that line on the LAFRANCE. If you are looking for your own lineage, your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents’ marriage is a good place to start.
The parents of the spouses will generally be listed in a marriage record. By searching for the parents’ names in the LAFRANCE, you should be able to find their marriage and, as such, go back one generation in the line. Thus, you can trace an entire lineage through the chain of marriages of the individuals forming it.
The names of the groom’s parents are listed in the marriage on the left. Searching for them in the LAFRANCE allows us to find their marriage. By repeating the process, we can go back to the first immigrant of a lineage in Quebec territory.
You will find a guide detailing this process at this address.
Tip: Can’t find the marriage you are looking for? Try limiting your search queries to the last names of the spouses, or try different variations of the search such as the first name of the husband and the last name of the wife, or the last name of the husband and the first name of the wife. By doing so, you limit the risk of the record being excluded from the results of your search, which can occur when one of the search queries does not match the information contained in the document.
Advanced search and other types of documents
In addition to its collections of births, marriages and deaths, Genealogy Quebec offers a multitude of tools containing documents of all sorts.
For example, all obituaries, tombstones and memorial cards on the site can be found in the Obituary section.
Genealogy Quebec also allows you to search for births, marriages and deaths that may not be listed in LAFRANCE by using the Connolly File, NBMDS, and BMD Cardscollections.
You can find a detailed list of the tools and their contents on the Tools page.
Tip: We recommend that you keep your searches vague, and refine them if necessary by adding one piece of information at a time. When the first or last name you are looking for is unusual, it is seldom necessary to add more information to a search.
The more detailed a search, the more likely it is to omit the result you are looking for, as all the search queries must match the document. For example, your first search could start with the last names of the spouses. If the number of results is too high, you may add an additional variable such as a first name or a year.
The Drouin Institute, in collaboration with the Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie, is happy to announce the second edition of its yearly contest, in which you can win a yearly subscription to Genealogy Quebec, 1000 PRDH-IGD hits, or $200 to spend on our online boutique. Participating is free, quick and easy!
How to participate
To enter the contest, simply create or log in to a Genealogy Quebec account between February 22nd 2021 and March 8th 2021, 3:00 PM EST. You do NOT need to purchase or have an active subscription on the account to be eligible for the contest.
If you do not have an account on Genealogy Quebec, create one (no credit card required). This should take you no more than a minute.
If you already own a Genealogy Quebec account, log in to it between February 22nd 2021 and March 8th 2021, 3:00 PM EST to ensure your participation in the draw. That’s all!
10 winners will be drawn at random on March 8th 2021 at 3:00 PM EST.
Make sure the email address associated with your Genealogy Quebec account is valid! If you are drawn as a winner, you will be contacted via that email address. You will then have 48h to claim your prize. If necessary, a second draw will take place on March 10th at 4:00 PM EST in order to allocate unclaimed prizes to new winners.
An annual subscription to Genealogy Quebec gives you access to the entire website and all its tools and collections for a period of 365 days. Genealogy Quebec is a subscription-based research website regrouping all the collections and tools developed by the Drouin Institute over the course of its existence.
The website’s 15 tools and collections amount to over 47 million images and files covering all of Quebec as well as parts 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. You will find more information about the website on the Drouin Institute blog.
1000 PRDH-IGD hits (Can$79.99 value)
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 1849, as well as a genealogical dictionary of families. The PRDH-IGD database contains over 2,500,000 records.
What makes PRDH-IGD unique is how these records are connected to one another through genealogical links, which we refer to as Family Reconstructions. In addition to baptism, marriage and burial files, the PRDH-IGD contains individual and family files.
Any individual mentioned in a BMD record from the database is attributed an individual file. Similarly, any married couple mentioned in a BMD record gets their own family file.
PRDH-IGD subscriptions work by using “hits”. A “hit” is used every time a record certificate, an individual file, a family file or a couple file is viewed. The original search that leads to the result list is free. You will find more information about the structure of the database at this address.
$200 to spend on our online boutique (Can$200 value)
The Drouin Institute online boutique includes all the books and CD-ROMs produced by the Drouin Institute, more than 4,000 items. It also offers directories and books from various historical and genealogical societies in Quebec, Ontario and the United States. If you choose this prize, you will receive a credit of $200 to spend on any item(s) in the boutique.
Rules
To be eligible for the draw, you must own a Genealogy Quebec account that was either created or logged in to between February 22nd 2021 and March 8th 2021, 3:00 PM EST.
This contest ends on March 8th 2021, 3:00 PM EST, at which time the winners will be chosen at random.
The 10 winners will be contacted by email one hour after the draw (March 8th 2021, 4:00 PM EST), and will have until March 10th 2021, 4:00 PM EST to claim their prize. Once this date has passed, the unclaimed prizes will be subject to a new draw, and can no longer be claimed by the original winners.
48 hours after the initial draw, if necessary, a new draw will be done to award the unclaimed prizes to new winners. They will also have 48 hours to claim their prize. This process will be repeated until the 10 winners have been selected and have received their prizes.
The 10 winners will be announced publicly on our Facebook page and via our newsletter once the 10 prizes have been distributed.
Are excluded from this contest: Any employee or representative of the Drouin Genealogical Institute and the people with whom they are domiciled. Any institutional account (library, society, museum, school, etc.).
Any litigation respecting the conduct or organization of a publicity contest may be submitted to the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux for a ruling. Any litigation respecting the awarding of a prize may be submitted to the board only for the purpose of helping the parties reach a settlement
It is prohibited to create multiple Genealogy Quebec accounts in order to increase your chances of winning the draw. Individuals creating more than one account for this purpose will be disqualified.
In order to select the 10 winners, a list will be produced from those eligible for the draw. Each individual in this list will be assigned a specific number (1, 2, 3, and so on). A random number generator will be used to generate a list of 10 numbers, and the individuals associated with these numbers will be the winners of the contest.
A paid subscription to Genealogy Quebec, either current or previously active, is NOT necessary to participate in this contest.
If you have any questions or need help, please contact us at contact@institutdrouin.com.
Over 500,000 newspaper obituaries from Ontario, Quebec and the United States have been added to the Obituary Section, one of 15 collections available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
Here is a list of the sources (place or publication) of these new death notices:
Brockville, Ontario
Chesterville, Morrisburg and Winchester, Ontario (mostly 2003 to 2007)
Evening Citizen, Ottawa, Ontario (1949)
Journal de Montréal, Quebec
Journaux de Tampa Bay, Florida (2000s)
Valleyfield, Quebec (2000s)
La Nouvelle, Ontario (2001)
Le Carillon d’Hawkesbury, Ontario (1980s and 1990s)
Le Droit d’Ottawa, Ontario (21st century)
Le Quotidien de Chicoutimi, Quebec (1999 to 2006)
Le Reflet, Lachute, Quebec
Massena Observer, New York (2002 to 2005)
Northern Times, Kapuskasing, Ontario (1990s and 2000s)
Ogdensburg and Watertown, New York
Ottawa Citizen, Ontario (1990 to 2018)
Cornwall Standard Freeholder, Ontario (1904 to 2017)
Sudbury Voyageur, Ontario (1980s, 1990s and 2000s)
The Glengarry News, Ontario
The Vision, Prescott Russell County, Ontario
Women Dixon Institute, Cornwall, Ontario.
Ontario death notices from the Cayer Collection (1960 to 2010)
These death notices are indexed by the first and last name of the subject as well as the date of death. You may browse them with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec at this address.
Please note that the original document is missing for some obituaries. The missing images will be added as soon as possible.
The Obituary section
This section contains most of the obituaries, memorial cards and headstones available on Genealogy Quebec. It is divided in 4 sub-sections:
Internet obituaries, which contains over 2.5 million obituaries published online from 1999 to today.
Newspaper obituaries, which now contains 1,250,000 newspaper obituaries published between 1860 and today.
Tombstones, which contains more than 710,000 pictures of headstones from hundreds of cemeteries in Quebec and Ontario.
Memorial cards, which contains tens of thousands of memorial cards published between 1860 and today.
These collections are indexed and can be explored using a search engine.
You may browse these documents as well as tens of millions images and files of genealogical and historical relevance by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec.
To conclude, we would like to thank Généalogie et Archives St-Laurent and particularly Norbert Lussier, who is to thank for this incredible collection of obituaries.
Six historical newspapers have been added to the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
