(This is a 3 part article. Click to read: Part 1, Part 2)

In my previous article, I detailed the consequences of the erasure of women in familial histories. Fortunately, although the patriarchal bases of this erasure are well rooted in our society, they can be rethought and subverted. Now that we know this problem exists, what can we do? How can the genealogical community help, to the extent of its practice, build a society that is closer to the gender equality ideal?

Two women practicing archery, 1942. Source: BAnQ digital archives.

First, we can change our vocabulary. In the first part of this article, I  stressed that, often, the terms that are used in genealogical research seem to forget about women (Cousteau Serdongs, 2008 : 133). This issue is of great importance : according to numerous authors, language, words, shape our interpretation of reality (it is the subject of the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis, see Whorf, 1978. On the link between linguistics and women’s condition, see Yaguello, 2002). Francine Cousteau Serdongs (2008: 134) therefore suggests that we should create a non-sexist genealogical vocabulary as well as a more neutral numbering system.

Secondly, we can review our way of doing genealogical research. Cousteau Serdongs (2008: 134) suggests that we should create search tools which facilitate the search for one’s female ancestors by separating them from their husbands: although there are some exceptions, for example the Féminine (Women series) in the Great Collections of the Drouin Genealogical Institute, most search tools will list a couple under the man’s name.

In the Drouin Institute’s Women Series, couples are listed according to the bride’s surname and first name. Source: La Féminine (Women series), Drouin Institute’s Great Collections, GenealogyQuebec.com

On an individual level, Cousteau Serdongs invites genealogists to take interest in their matrilineal line, traced from mother to daughter, to publish their research and to try and reunite descendants from uterine pioneers in associations (2008: 143). This lineage could even be highlighted by a new tradition of last name’s transmission, as suggested by Pierre-Yves Dionne. In his book De mère en fille : comment faire ressortir la lignée maternelle de votre arbre généalogique (From Mother to Daughter : How to bring out the maternal line of your family tree) (2004), he suggests that we could pass on the name of a common female ancestor to subsequent generations of girls.

Dionne also presents in his book his own process of reconstructing his matrilineal line: it can therefore be used as a reference for anyone who wishes to do the same. Judy Russell (Clyde, 2017b) also makes some suggestions for those who struggle with finding their female ancestors: for example, to search in divorce, school, or churches registries.

We also need to think about the future: to make sure that women will not be ignored or left in the background of tomorrow’s research, we can recognize the value of their perspectives and make them visible today. Some women have already started, like the American genealogists who participated in the study of Amy M. Smith (2008). One in particular explained how she was keeping a diary for her descendants, so that they can understand her life and her points of view (M. Smith, 2008: 93). This ensures her life will be documented for future generations to read. This practice also represents women as subjects of their own story, rather than objects in a man’s story.

Westmount Catholic Women’s Club, 1943. Source: BAnQ digital archives.

Multiple feminist genealogical practices are already applied by researchers. In future articles, I will have the occasion to explore in depth the ways in which genealogy can help bring the experiences of women to light or subvert the division between the public and the private sphere, a division which plays a primordial role in patriarchal oppression (see Bereni and Revillard, 2009). We have in front of us a world of possibilities to make genealogy more feminist: it is up to us to get involved!

Audrey Pepin

Bibliography

Bereni, Laure et Revillard Anne. (2009). La dichotomie “Public-Privé’’ à l’épreuve des critiques féministes: de la théorie à l’action publique. In Genre et action publique : la frontière public-privé en questions, Muller, P. et Sénac-Slawinski, R (dir.). Paris: L’Harmattan. p. 27-55.

Clyde, Linda. (2017b, 3 mai). Where to Look to Find Your Female Ancestors. Family Search [Blog].  https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/where-to-look-to-find-your-female-ancestors

Cousteau Serdongs, Francine. (2008). Le Québec, paradis de la généalogie et « re-père » du patriarcat : où sont les féministes ? De l’importance d’aborder la généalogie avec les outils de la réflexion féministe. Recherches féministes vol. 21, no. 1, p.131-147. https://doi.org/10.7202/018313ar

Dionne, Pierre-Yves. (2004). De mère en fille : comment faire ressortir la lignée maternelle de votre arbre généalogique. Sainte-Foy: Éditions MultiMondes ; Montréal: Éditions du Remue-Ménage, 79 p.

M. Smiths, Amy. (2008). Family Webs: The Impact of Women’s Genealogy, Research on Family Communication. (doctoral thesis). Graduate College of Bowling Green State University.

Reny, Paule et des Rivières, Marie-José. (2005). Compte-rendu de Pierre-Yves Dionne De mère en fille. Comment faire ressortir la lignée maternelle de votre arbre généalogique. Montréal, Les Éditions Multimondes et les éditions du remue-ménage, 2004, 79 p. Recherches féministes, vol. 18, no. 1, p.153-154. https://doi.org/10.7202/012550ar

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1978 [1971]). Linguistique et anthropologie essai. Trad. de l’anglais par Claud Carme. Paris: Paris Denoël/Gonthier. 228 p.

Yaguello, Marina. (2002 [1978]). Les mots et les femmes. Paris: Éditions Payot. 257 p

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.