A new archival fonds is now available in the Drouin Miscellaneous Collections, one of the 15 tools offered to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers.

Roland-Maynard Fonds – Archives and historical photos

The Roland-Maynard Fonds is an archive containing some 8,190 photos and documents of historical and genealogical significance.

It can be browsed in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections tool at this address (subscription required), under the “14 – Fonds d’archives/” folder.

The Drouin Miscellaneous Collections tool is also home to a variety of historical documents and archives such as old newspapers, judicial and municipal archives, digitized photos, and more! A true goldmine for those with a passion for history.

Drouin Institute blog

In case you missed it, here is Marielle Côté-Gendreau’s most recent article, which deals with the the impact of the calendar on the first names of your ancestors: From Pascal to Noël: The impact of the calendar on your ancestors’ names

Genealogy and history fans should find plenty to read on the Drouin Institute’s blog. Here are some of our best articles:

• Understanding the linguistic variation in your ancestors’ names
• French-Canadian “dit names” and nicknames
• What your ancestors can tell you about your life expectancy
• The first French-Canadian centenarians in Quebec
• Quebec mortality rate under the French regime

The Drouin Institute’s blog is also home to many tutorials and guides pertaining to GenealogyQuebec.com and PRDH-IGD.com, which are must-reads if you are to make the most of the websites.

• What is Genealogy Quebec?
• Genealogy Quebec user guide
• Establishing your ancestry and finding your ancestors using Genealogy Quebec
• Detailed guides for every Genealogy Quebec section
• What is the PRDH-IGD?

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

New baptism, marriage and burial cards are now available under the “Fonds Fabien” folder in the BMD Cards collection, available to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers.

This update adds some 102 000 cards from Ontario and the Outaouais region of Quebec to the collection.
They relate to baptism, marriage and burial records and generally include the name of the subject(s) and their parents as well as the date and the place of registration of the event.

The cards are sorted in a file tree structure under the surname of the subject (the baptized, the deceased, or the groom in the case of marriages).

In many cases, it is possible to find the original parish record on which a card is based using the Drouin Collection Records, also available on Genealogy Quebec.

To illustrate the process, let us find the original record related to this card, which pertains to Patrick Nagh and Albertine Ménard’s marriage :

In the Fonds Fabien cards, a lone “J.” is used in place of the name Joseph, as is the case here for Albertine’s father.

The Drouin Collection Records contain all of Quebec’s parish registers from 1621 to the 1940s as well as many parish registers from Ontario, with an emphasis on those near the border between Quebec and Ontario.

Patrick Nagh and Albertine Ménard’s marriage card indicates that the marriage was celebrated in St-François d’Assise Parish in Ottawa, which happens to be one of the Ontario parishes available in the Drouin Collection Records.

To browse this register, we must first make our way to the Drouin Collection Records (subscription required).

Once in the Drouin Collection Records, you will notice that the various registers are organized in a file tree structure. We begin by opening the Ontario folder, as the marriage we are interested in was recorded in that province. Following that, we must locate the St-François d’Assise parish.

Some parishes are listed under the name of the city they are located in, while others will be listed under the name of the parish itself. In the case of Ottawa’s parishes, they are listed under the city’s name.

St-François d’Assise is found under the Ottawa folder.

Once inside the correct folder, we must navigate to the right year, which will give us access to all the images associated with the register for that specific year. It is important to know that in general, the images are listed in chronological order.
This means that the first image in the folder will contain the first events recorded during that year, which are usually the ones from January. Similarly, the last few images in the folder will hold the records from the end of the year.

Since Patrick Nagh and Albertine Ménard’s marriage was celebrated on the 3rd of April, it’s likely that the marriage record will be found among the first few images.

And so, we were able to find the original document pertaining to a Fonds Fabien card using the tools available on GenealogyQuebec.com.

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

New records are now available on GenealogyQuebec.com! These new documents, from the State of New York and the province of New Brunswick, can be browsed in the Drouin Collection Records.

American records

New American records can now be found in the Drouin Collection Records, a collection that contains over 5 million images of various records and registers from Canada and the United States.

Civil War Veterans 1890

These records from the State of New York are part of the 1890 American census. More specifically, the records are from the Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties.

The images contain a list of civil war veterans and their widows and include various informations such as the rank, company and the date of enlistment.

Here are the 157 locations covered in this collection :

These documents can be viewed in the Drouin Collection Records under the Registres Divers / État de New York (State of New York) folder (subscription required).

More New York State records

3460 images covering the St. Lawrence and Clinton Counties (Canton, Hogansburg, Norfolk, Schuyler Falls and Postdam) in the State of New York are now available on Genealogy Quebec, under the “Registres Divers” folder in the Drouin Collection Records.

These documents, which contain vital records as well as military archives, add to the numerous New York State records already available on Genealogy Quebec :

You can browse these documents in the Drouin Collection Records, under the Registres Divers / État de New York folder (subscription required).

New Brunswick parish registers

The St-André parish records from the second half of the 20th century have been added to the New Brunswick parish records available on Genealogy Quebec.

This register spans from 1903 to 1993 and can be found in the Drouin Collection Records, among many other New Brunswick parish registers :

You can browse these registers in the Drouin Collection Records under the Registres paroissiaux du nord-ouest du Nouveau-Brunswick folder (subscription required).

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

23 historical newspapers have been digitized and made available on GenealogyQuebec.com!

You may browse these 12 738 new images in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections right now (subscription required).

Here are the newspapers that were added through this update.

The Quebec Gazette (1832 to 1836)
The Inquirer (Trois-Rivières) (1857 to 1863)
The Dominion Illustrated News (Montréal) (1888 to 1893)
The Canadian Jewish Review (1935 to 1939)
Paris-Canada (1884 to 1893)
Midi-Presse (Montréal) (1954)
L’Opinion Publique (Montréal) (1870 to 1874)
L’Obligation (Montréal) (1918 and 1919)
Le Semeur Canadien (Montréal) (1856 to 1861)
Le Trésor des Familles (Québec) (May 1883)
Le Progrès du Golfe (1948 to 1950)
Le National (Montréal) (1892)
Le Charivari (Québec) (1868)
Le Castor (Québec) (1879)
Le Carillon (Québec) (1879)
L’Action Canadienne (November 1915)
La Tribune Canadienne (Montréal)
La Vie Illustrée (Montréal) (1889)
La Semaine (Québec) (1895)
La Minerve (1868 and 1869)
La Chronique de la Vallée du St-Maurice (1929)
Daily Witness (Montréal) (1874 to 1879)
Commercial Gazette (Montréal) (1897)

To browse these papers, open the Drouin Institute Miscellaneous Collections and navigate to the “23 – Journaux anciens/” (23 – Historical newspapers/) folder.

Memorial cards

30 000 memorial cards were added to the Obituary section on GenealogyQuebec.com, adding to the 62 500 cards already available in the section.

Memorial cards search engine from GenealogyQuebec.com

Memorial cards can be searched by name, first name and date.

The Obituary section, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers, is home to most obituary, memorial card and headstone picture available on the website:

• 2.3 million Canadian obituaries from various online sources, spanning from 1999 to today
• 663 000 obituaries from Quebec newspapers published between 1860 and today
• 611 000 indexed headstone pictures from 830 cemeteries located in Quebec and Ontario
• 92 500 memorial cards from various locations in Quebec

The Obituary section can be browsed with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec at this address.

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

New church records are now available in the LAFRANCE, one of 15 tools available to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers.

Original church records for Quebec’s 1918 Catholic marriages now viewable in the LAFRANCE

In June 2019, all of Quebec’s Catholic marriages from 1918 were imported into the LAFRANCE. However, the link to the image of the parish document had yet to be added to the record certificates. Today’s update added this link, allowing you to view the original parish document with a single click.

Click on the link at the top right of the certificate to view the original parish document

Record certificate and original parish document from GenealogyQuebec.com‘s LAFRANCE

Ontario baptism, marriage and burial records in the LAFRANCE

We are happy to announce that we have begun indexing the parish registers of Ontario, more specifically the parishes that border the province of Quebec, as many French Canadian families settled in that region. These records will be added to the LAFRANCE gradually as they are indexed by our team.

The following parishes have been partially added as of now:

• Alexandria: 1835 to 1861, 3135 records, mostly baptisms
• Corkery: 1837 to 1861, 959 records, mostly baptisms
• Embrun: 1858 to 1861, 194 records, mostly baptisms
• LaPasse: 1851 to 1861, 408 records, baptisms, marriages and burials

What is the LAFRANCE?

The LAFRANCE, one of 15 tools available to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers, is a detailed index with link to the original document of ALL Catholic marriages celebrated in Quebec between 1621 and 1918, ALL Catholic baptisms and burials recorded in Quebec between 1621 and 1861 as well as ALL Protestant marriages celebrated in Quebec between 1760 and 1849.

LAFRANCE search engine

You can learn more about the LAFRANCE in this blog article.

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

Over 10 000 images of historical and genealogical significance have been added to the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections recently. These can be browsed with a subscription to GenealogyQuebec.com.

Archival fonds

You will find, in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections (more information), a folder titled Fonds d’archives (Archival fonds), containing the genealogical and historical archives of several collaborators of the Drouin Institute. These archives contain documents of all kinds; family genealogies, photos of individuals, buildings and streets, digitizations of historical works, family histories, maps, as well as many other types of documents and archives.

It is truly a gold mine of information and documents for Quebec history and genealogy enthusiasts. This most recent update pertains to the André-Hurtubise, Gaston-Dupuis and Yvan-Beaulieu Fonds. You can consult them in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections under the “14 – Fonds d’archives” folder.

Other documents

Some 2000 images were also added in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, under the “18 – Autres documents” (Other documents) folder.

These folders contain the archives of notary Joseph Dionne dating from between 1741 and 1779 (Dionne_Joseph_1741-1779 folder), as well as a book about the descendants of Guillaume Roux, authored by Sylvain Croteau and André Roux (ROUX_Descendants_of_Guillaume folder).

Comments on the LAFRANCE

A comment field has been added to the LAFRANCE certificates, in which you will find complementary information related to the record. These comments are added by our team during the indexing process of the records. The comment field may be used, for example, to highlight a mistake made by the priest in the record.

The comment field may also be used to bring attention to various details in the record, such as an unusual cause of death.

The LAFRANCE is an index with a link to the original document of ALL Catholic baptisms and burials recorded in Quebec between 1621 and 1861, as well as ALL Catholic marriages celebrated in Quebec between 1621 and 1918. In addition, ALL Protestant marriages recorded in Quebec between 1760 and 1849 are also available on the LAFRANCE.
You can start using the LAFRANCE today by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec!

BMD Cards

In order to facilitate browsing and searching on GenealogyQuebec.com, the Kardex and Loiselle File have been merged into a single collection, BMD Cards, containing baptism, marriage and burial cards from Quebec, Ontario and the United States.

In addition to the Kardex and Loiselle files, this collection contains Ontario BMD cards, BMD cards sorted by cities or families, and death cards organized by family name, provided by the Quebec Family History Society.

You can browse this collection with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec at this address.

New articles on the Drouin Institute blog

The PRDH website is celebrating its 20th anniversary, by François and Bertrand Desjardins

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

The 1741 Montreal city census has just been added to PRDH-IGD.com, thanks to the generous contribution of author and genealogist Marcel Fournier.

In addition, every individual listed in this census has been identified and linked with their PRDH-IGD Individual file.

These 553 new records can be viewed now with a subscription to PRDH-IGD.com.

What is PRDH-IGD.com?

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 the baptism, marriage and burial files, 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, which lists all of the couple’s children.

To learn more about PRDH-IGD, you can read this article on the Drouin Institute blog.

You may also be interested in this article, which explains the similarities and differences between GenealogyQuebec.com and PRDH-IGD.com.

PRDH-IGD and Genealogy Quebec in a library near you!

Several libraries and genealogical societies now offer free-access to Genealogy Quebec and PRDH-IGD, mainly in Quebec but also in the rest of Canada and the United States. Contact your local library or genealogical society to see if free access to the websites is available!

Libraries and genealogical societies tend to rely on suggestions and demand when selecting resources to add to their catalog. As such, the best way to have your local institution provide Genealogy Quebec and PRDH-IGD access is simply to ask them to!

You can do so by calling or visiting the library, and letting the librarian or person in charge know about the websites.
Some libraries even allow you to suggest resources through an online form.

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

43 164 baptism, marriage and burial records from 21 parishes of the Mauricie region have been added to the NBMDS tool, one of the 16 collections offered to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.

These records extend from 1846 to 1999 and were provided by the Société généalogique de Shawinigan. You can visit their website at http://www.histoireshawinigan.org/.

These new records can be consulted right now in the NBMDS tool (requires a subscription to Genealogy Quebec).

What is the NBMDS tool?

The NBMDS tool is an index of Catholic and Protestant baptism, marriage and burial records, mostly from the province of Quebec. The tool contains over 1.2 million records and is divided in 3 sections; baptisms, marriages, burials.

The regions covered by the tool are:

• The Bas-St-Laurent region (1727 to 2011)
• The Laurentides region (1727 to 2011)
• The Outaouais region (1727 to 2011)
• The Mauricie region, specifically the Shawinigan region (1846 to 1999)
• The city of St-Hubert (1727 to 2011)

The marriage section also contains some 120 000 marriage records from the United States and Ontario, dated from between the 17th century and the end of the 20th century.

You will find more information about the NBMDS tool as well as search tips and best practices in this blog article.

Maple Stars and Stripes – French-Canadian genealogy podcast

Want to learn even more about the NBMDS tool? Do not miss a comprehensive overview of this collection in the latest episode of the Maple Stars and Stripes podcast, featuring Bertrand Desjardins and Sandra Goodwin.

Maple Stars and Stripes is a podcast dedicated to the genealogy and history of French -Canadians. 3 other episodes dedicated to the Drouin Institute collections are also available for listening:
Ep. 65: The Drouin Institute’s Lafrance Database and the PRDH
Ep. 72: Drouin Collection Records-part 1
Ep. 73: Drouin Collection Records-part 2

The Forgotten in Genealogy – Clergenealogy

The Drouin genealogical Institute is proud to support the Société de généalogie Saint-Hubert and its brand new website Clergenealogie.org, a free genealogical research website focusing entirely on members of the clergy. Clergenealogie.org currently lists over 128 000 members of the clergy who lived between the 16th century and today. You can explore this incredible database for free by registering at this address: https://clergenealogie.org/newacctform.php

“Some researchers estimate that over 120 000 young women and men in French America have dedicated their lives to religious service from the beginnings of New France to the present day. Their contribution to society is significant; they have worked in the fields of education, health and helping the most deprived (orphans, disabled, elderly, patients with intellectual disabilities, etc …) in addition to their religious functions.

The birth of these people is overwhelmingly recorded in baptismal records. But anyone who tries to follow the lives of these children to reconstruct the story of a family often loses their trace. Their religious commitment, regularly involving a name change, often “separated them from the world”. The vow of chastity they pronounced prevented them from getting married, leaving us with no marriage records to track them. Information about their deaths is often difficult to find, as religious communities sometimes have their own cemeteries and registers. They have become the “forgotten in genealogy”. ”

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

All of Quebec’s Catholic marriages from 1918 have been added to the LAFRANCE, one of the 16 tools available to GenealogyQuebec.com‘s subscribers!

This update represents the addition of 11 167 marriage records to the database.

About the LAFRANCE

The LAFRANCE, one of 16 tools available to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers, is a detailed index with link to the original document of ALL Catholic marriages celebrated in Quebec between 1621 and 1918, ALL Catholic baptisms and burials recorded in Quebec between 1621 and 1861 as well as ALL Protestant marriages celebrated in Quebec between 1760 and 1849.

You can start tracing your ancestors on the LAFRANCE by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec right now!

Finding the original document associated with a 1918 marriage

When you view a marriage certificate on the LAFRANCE, an image of the original parish document is usually associated with it.

In the case of Quebec’s 1918 Catholic marriages, the association between the certificate and the image will be made within the next few weeks. In the meantime, you will need to refer to the Drouin Collection Records to view the original document.

To do so, start with the marriage certificate for which you want to find the original document. We will use the marriage of Charles Emile Fillion and Yvonne Boucher on June 18, 1918 in Matane as an example.

We begin by opening the Drouin Collection Records tool and clicking on the “Québec” folder, which contains every parish register recorded in the province of Quebec between 1621 and the 1940s.

It is then a question of finding, within the folders, the parish in which the desired marriage was recorded. In our case, the parish is Matane, as indicated in the marriage certificate. We will find it under the “M” folder.

Opening the 1918 folder under Matane provides us with the list of images pertaining to the Matane register for that year. The images are sorted in chronological order; the first images will contain the January records, while the last few images will contain the December records. Since the marriage we are looking for was recorded on June 18th, we know that it will be found around the middle of the image series.

After browsing through a few images, we are able to find the original document pertaining to Charles Emile Fillion and Yvonne Boucher’s marriage.

New articles on the Drouin Institute Blog

French-Canadian “dit names” and nicknames, by François Desjardins

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team

Two new collections of historical documents were added to the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections, one of the 16 tools available to GenealogyQuebec.com subscribers.

These new documents contain judicial records from the Trois-Rivières region dating back to New France, as well as notarized contracts from the Cornwall region of Ontario.

Trois-Rivières – Judicial records from New France

3909 images of historical judicial documents from the Trois-Rivières region have been added to the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections. You will find these images under the folder “27 – Trois-Rivières (Jurisdiction)”

Here is what you will find in these new documents:

• Royal and Seigneurial Jurisdiction of Trois-Rivières (1655 – 1757)
• Seigneurial Jurisdiction of Cap-de-la-Madeleine (1659-1685)
• Seigneurial Jurisdiction of Batiscan (1662, 1742-1753)
• Champlain District Court of Justice (1762-1764)
• Minutes of the notary Jacques Latouche (1664-1669)

These archives contain details and judgments surrounding the various civil and criminal cases undertaken by these courts over the highlighted periods.

You can consult these documents in the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collectionswith a subscription to GenealogyQuebec.com.

Ontario notarized documents

2673 images of notarized contracts from the Cornwall region of Ontario are now available in the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections, under the folder “26 – Contrats notariés de l’Ontario“.

These notarized documents date from the 1860s to the 1980s. Most of these contracts are wills and letters of administration concerning the estate of a deceased person.

The notarized contracts are sorted under the last name of the person concerned by the contract, in alphabetical order. You can browse these documents in the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections with a subscription to GenealogyQuebec.com.

What are the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections?

The Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous collections contain a mix of images, documents, books, pictures and directories of historical and genealogical significance.

• Fonds d’archive (Archival fonds): Contains various archival fonds obtained from different sources and authors.
• Archives municipales (Municipal archives): Contains the municipal archives of multiple Quebec cities. Can be browsed by city or by type of document.
• Dictionnaire Jetté: The Jetté dictionary is a genealogical dictionary published in 1983. It covers the Quebec population of French origin.
• PRDH: The original 47 PRDH volumes, which contain all Catholic baptisms, marriages and burials from Quebec for the 1621-1765 period. 300 000 records in total.
• Autres documents (Other documents): Contains various archives and documents of historical and genealogical interest.
• Lignes de vie (Lifelines): Contains lifelines organized by family name.
• Journaux anciens (Old newspapers): Contains digitized old newspapers.
• Lignées généalogiques (Genealogical charts): 2358 genealogical charts from the Planète Généalogie website
• Statuts de la province de Québec: A variety of legal documents pertaining to adoptions, name changes and inheritances. The documents are sorted by the subject’s family name.
• Contrats notariés de l’Ontario (Notarized documents from Ontario): 2673 images of notarized documents from the Cornwall region in Ontario, dated from between 1860 and 1990.
• Trois-Rivières (Juridiction):  3909 images of judicial documents (juridiction royale et seigneuriale) from the Trois-Rivières region from the New-France era, 1655 – 1764.

This section is organized in a file tree. The names of the folders are used to identify and describe their content.

You can browse the Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections with a subscription to Genealogy Quebec at this address.

Genealogically yours,

The Drouin team