Généalogie et histoire du Québec

In the two previous articles of this series, “Quebec mortality rate under the French regime” and “The first French-Canadian centenarians in Quebec“, we successively mentioned the high mortality which afflicted our ancestors at all ages of life and the scarcity of people reaching extreme ages. Today, we will present some factors underlying these realities.

As a first step, we used the PRDH (What is the PRDH?) database to establish the list of native-born French-Canadians who reached the venerable age of 97 before 1850.

Deaths of Native-born French-Canadians at age 97 and older which occurred before 1850

Thirty-one people accomplished the feat, twenty-three women and eight men. Why such an imbalance in favor of women, when their life expectancy at age 25 is 2.5 years less than that of men?

It is that beyond the reproductive period, when mothers were at a significant risk of dying in childbirth, women have a survival advantage over their partners. We know that part of this benefit is biological because male mortality is higher than female mortality from the very beginning of life, including in-utero. This genetic difference is especially associated with a better resistance of women to biological aging, as well as an hormonal advantage.

Indeed, for example, estrogen facilitates the elimination of bad cholesterol and thus reduces the risk of heart problems; testosterone, on the other hand, is associated with violence and risk taking.

That said, regardless of sex, why do some individuals reach higher ages than their contemporaries? While we know that there is more to it than chance, no explanation of this reality is currently unanimous. The study of extreme cases of longevity does not really reveal much: the “little glasses of gin before dinner” and other recipes of the kind  have no serious basis.

It is tempting to believe, however, that some individuals initially have an advantage over others; Is it not said that the best chance of living old is to have parents and grandparents who have themselves reached an old age?

In this regard, I submit to you the extraordinary family of Nicolas Lizotte and Marie-Madeliene Miville-Deschênes, who married on May 3, 1724 in La Pocatière. Out of the 5 French Canadians who became centenarians before 1850, two of them were born of this couple, and one of their sisters is also part of our above-mentioned list, since she died at 98 years of age!

And it doesn’t stop there! The father, Nicolas Lizotte, died at 98 years old, making him the second oldest French Canadian male who died before 1850. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind being a Lizotte right now!

Bertrand Desjardins and François Desjardins

August 2018

Thanks to the systematic recording of baptisms, marriages and burials by the Catholic church, Quebec genealogists – novices and professionals alike – have access to a detailed outlook of their ancestors’ lives and family connections. Through these documents, researching your ancestry in Quebec is much easier than it is in other parts of the world. But how far back can you retrace your ancestors in Quebec?

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain establishes the city of Quebec along the shores of the St-Lawrence river. 8 years will pass until the city’s first vital events (baptisms, marriages and burials)  start being recorded.

Nowadays, the oldest surviving records are from the City of Quebec for the year 1621.

This register, as well as those from every Quebec parish between the years 1621 and 1940, is available in the Drouin Collection Records with a subscription to GenealogyQuebec.com.

First immigrants

In a previous article, we explored the lasting impact that first immigrants had in the frequency and variation of last names in Quebec. In this context, the “first immigrant” expression refers to the first member of a given family who settled in a region. When trying to research your ancestry in Quebec, your goal is to establish a direct link between generations spanning from yourself to the first immigrant in your family line. This guide, which describes the process of establishing your ancestry using GenealogyQuebec.com, is a must read for anyone interested in researching their ancestors in the province.

When it comes to women, many of these first immigrants are known as “King’s Daughters” (Filles du Roi). The King’s Daughters were single women recruited by the King between 1663 and 1673 in order to populate New France. You will find more information about these fascinating women in this article.

Fichier origine

To go back further than the Quebec parish records, the best resource available is the “Fichier Origine“. The “Fichier Origine” is a free-access directory of civil and notarized records pertaining to the family origins of  immigrants – mostly French – established in Quebec between the early 1600s and 1865.

It contains every individual whose birth or baptism record was traced back to their country of origin. As such, you can use the Fichier Origine to find information predating the arrival of your ancestors in the province.

In addition, you should know that the PRDH-IGD individual files often integrate information sourced from the Fichier Origine. For example, here is Antoine Roy dit Desjardins’ individual file, where the date and location of his baptism were taken from the Fichier Origine.

To conclude, it cannot be overstated how lucky we are in Quebec to have access to such a wealth of historical documentation and information, which makes it possible to research our ancestry all the way back to the early 17th century. This is particularly evident if your genealogical research takes you to another region or country, where the information is unlikely to be as accessible and detailed.

Good luck with your research!

On the 22nd of September 1663 arrive the first of some 1000 King’s Daughters who will eventually establish themselves in Quebec between 1663 and 1673.

Their arrival was timely considering that in 1666, the province counted 719 single males between the ages of 16 and 40, compared to only 45 single women of the same ages. This disproportion was partly due to the fact that New-France was, in its early days, a colony based on the fur trade. Thus, the majority of the population was male.

But what exactly is a King’s Daughter?

“King’s Daughters” is used to refer to the single women recruited to emigrate to New-France between 1663 and 1673. What distinguished these women was the fact that the King himself took them under his wing, paying for their travel and settlement in the colony as well as providing them with a dowry in expectation of their impending marriage.

Often orphans and of modest origins, and frequently raised in urban settings, these women were not adapted to the harsh living conditions present in New France.

King’s Daughters list

The Programme de recherche en démographie historique has identified and indexed all of the King’s Daughters who married in Quebec. The complete list can be viewed at this address.

Using PRDH-IGD to learn more about the King’s Daughters

The PRDH database, accessible to the public via subscription, contains every Catholic individual who has lived in Quebec between 1621 and 1849, including of course the King’s Daughters. Through the PRDH’s unique database structure, it is possible to explore these women’s lives in greater detail.

You will find a more detailed explanation of the structure of the PRDH’s database in another article, but in short, you have to know that it contains three types of files:

Record Certificate –  It is a transcription of the relevant information contained in a baptism, marriage or burial record.

Individual File – It is a file centralizing all the information available on the individual

Family File – It is a file centralizing all the information and all the individuals pertaining to a family unit (parents and children)

You can use this structure to your advantage in order to learn about the King’s Daughters and, perhaps even more importantly, find out if you’re descendent from one.

Is there a King’s Daughter in your family tree?

The PRDH-IGD database can be used to confirm – or disprove – the presence of a King’s daughter in one’s ancestry.

Since the PRDH’s data stops in 1849, it is necessary to begin by retracing an ancestor to a date prior to the year 1849.

To do so, you may want to use a genealogical research website such as GenealogyQuebec.com, which will provide you with all the tools and resources necessary to trace back your ancestry.

The process of using the PRDH to explore your ancestry and more specifically discover if you are descendant from a King’s Daughter is rather simple. To demonstrate it, we will use Joseph Valade and Marie Lafond Lagrenade, married in montreal on the 20th of November 1820.

We begin with a search for Joseph Valade in the PRDH database, using the built in search engine.

This search allows us to find Joseph and Marie’s marriage record.

From this record, we can access to the couple’s family file.

From this point, we will go up the family tree in an attempt to find a marriage in the 1660s. If such a marriage is found, chances are it will belong to a King’s Daughter. To go back a generation,  click on the word “Family” which can be found under the husband’s parents’ names in every PRDH family file.

We finally make it to a couple married in the 1660s. Thanks to the list compiled by the PRDH, we can confirm that the bride is indeed a King’s Daughter.

Looking at her individual file only provides further confirmation, as we learn that she originates from La Rochelle, which is a common place of origin among King’s daughters.

And so, are you descendant from a King’s Daughter?

Lifespan is a topic that undoubtedly fascinates us. Cases of extreme longevity are regularly featured in the media, where individuals with extreme lifespans sometimes become symbols of national pride for their fellow citizens.

French-Canadiens are no exception. The case of Pierre Joubert, born in 1701 and erroneously believed to have lived to the ripe old age of 113 years old – as was featured in the Guinness Book of Records – was cited by Joseph-Charles Taché, a senior official in charge of Canada’s 1871 census, as an exemple of how French-Canadians formed “a population that, more than any other, perhaps, offers numerous examples of high longevity“.

The problem is this topic, in an historical context, is prone to a lot of myths and exaggerations, so much so in fact that a majority of high longevity claims end up being proven false. The ages declared at the time of burial were particularly inaccurate, especially in the case of elderly individuals. Most people being illiterate, the documentation relative to a person’s birth wasn’t necessarily available or used, and the accuracy of the deceased’s age in the burial record was not considered important, being mostly an approximation.

Thankfully, the wonderful information compiled by the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH), publicly available on the PRDH-IGD.com website, allows us to mitigate the issue of inaccurate ages in burial records. By linking the birth and death dates available through baptism and burial records, it is possible to accurately determine an individual’s age at death.

Thanks to this compiled data, it is possible to establish clear trends in the shifting of the mortality rate over time, as well as track the apparition of the first centenarians in the province.

This table identifies the 10 individuals born in Quebec that have reached the age of 99 years old before 1850:

We can see that the first five French-Canadian centenarians were women. While Marie-Élisabeth Dechavigny, one of the very first inhabitants of the country, reached the age of 99 years old in 1748, it is only in 1825 that we see an individual reach the 100 year mark. Not only that, Marie-Louise Plante is believed to have lived to the very respectable age of 107 years old!

François Parent is the oldest French-Canadian male listed in the PRDH database(1621-1849), dying at the age of 99 years old in 1834; no French-Canadian man reached the age of 100 years old before 1850, and as such, the first male French-Canadian centenarian still remains to be identified!

Bertrand et François Desjardins

April 2018