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.
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.
(This is a 3 part article. Click to read: Part 1, Part 3)
In my previous article, I demonstrated that women are often forgotten in genealogical research: patrilineal lineages are prevalent (Jetté, 1991: 110 ; Drouin, 2015) and women’s presence is often made invisible through the vocabulary used (Cousteau Serdongs, 2008 : 133). This problem is anchored in the patriarchal organization of our society as well as in the reproduction of sexism in genealogical practices. We will now detail the consequences of this omission and the reasons why this problem deserves our attention.
The omission of women in the construction of genealogical lineages is part of a system of erasure and devaluation of women’s accomplishments, as well as appropriation and control of their work and bodies. The consequences are very concrete. Francine Cousteau Serdongs points out that “the lack of knowledge of women’s history from women of one’s own lineage makes it impossible to identify with them [1]” (2008: 138). It might also make it more difficult to identify what shaped one’s family and the role gender played in its formation. Patriarchal values (such as imperatives imposed on women’s appearances or behaviors) are reproduced not only in the public space, but also in the private space as they are often transmitted to children from an early age.
Not knowing about the history of women in our family can prevent us from understanding generational traumas or gendered perspectives as an essential part of our familial dynamic and culture. A better understanding of those issues would certainly play an important role in the deconstruction of patriarchal schemes transmitted in the family and in the consolidation of solidarity between women (Cousteau Serdongs, 2008: 138).
Four generations in one picture, Wikimedia Commons.
The erasure of women in genealogy also tends to go hand in hand with their erasure in the great History. Francine Cousteau Serdongs gives many examples of that phenomenon (2008: 135-136). She mentions the women on the Grande recrue ship and the spouses of famous men, like Charles Le Moyne. This invisibility certainly plays a role in the devaluation of women’s roles and work that is still going on today in our society: if we can’t recognize women’s past realizations, why would we be able to recognize present ones?
Charles Le Moyne and Catherine Primot’s marriage. Source: Record 47196, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com
When we neglect mothers in genealogical research, we also devalue their role and we negate their implication in passing on the heritage, while men, because they pass on their last name, are an obvious part of one’s lineage (Cousteau Serdongs, 2008: 132). To quote Francine Cousteau Serdongs: “In the second generation, women are ignored, allegedly because they don’t have the same last name. Everything happens as if women didn’t have a lineage of their own but were simply helping their spouse have one” (2008: 133). Symbolically, this perpetuates a representation of women as “objects” with no agency (Cousteau Serdongs, 2008: 139-140), when in reality, women were playing an essential and active role in their family and their society.
It is true that women have historically been relegated to reproduction and the private sphere. They were kept out of the public space: the places where decisions were made and power was held. We can find traces of this private/public division since ancient Greece and despite the recent feminist progress, in some ways, it is still accurate today (see Bereni and Revillard, 2009). But even if women were locked up in the private sphere, it was not really a place for them to lead either. Patriarchal values continually dictated how women should act, even in private spaces. Medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, the imperatives about how they should raise their children and clean their houses and the restrictions concerning abortion are all glaring examples of the way women’s work (including their work with children) is controlled and appropriated by men (see Cousteau Serdongs, 2008: 141-142 or Guillaumin, 1978).
Painting of a woman doing laundry
As if it wasn’t enough, the private sphere has also been devalued (see Robert, 2017). The fact that women have been prohibited from giving their last names to their children for a very long time and that even today, we rarely allow them to appear in familial histories contribute to this appropriation of women’s work by men as well as in the patriarchal control and devaluation of the private sphere.
These consequences are even more important for racialized women, who are at the intersection of multiple oppression systems such as racism and sexism. For indigenous women, the erasure of their role in familial history meant the loss of their “Indian status” when they married a non-indigenous man. Their children couldn’t get the status either. This often meant being deprived of certain political, cultural, and social rights and often losing access to their community (see Arnaud, 2014: 213-217). The C-31 law, voted in 1985, allowed women who lost their status because of their marriage to a non-indigenous person to get it back, but their children could only get a non-transmissible status, unlike the children of indigenous fathers. It would take 25 years for this disposition of the law to be changed (Arnaud, 2014: 216). These simple changes in the law were not even enough to give their communities back to these women and children: the communities were lacking space and money and received no support at all to welcome back these people. Women were perceived badly, as if they were upsetting the established order and forcing the hand of their communities: this issue has yet to be resolved.
Native women with their children, Vancouver, 1901, Wikimedia Commons
(Trigger warning: mention of rape in the next paragraph.)
This conception of women as carriers of men’s lineages also contributed to the imposition of chastity and fidelity standards which were used to ensure the identity of a child’s father (Knibiehler, 2012). Outside of Quebec, rape has been used as a weapon of war in many contexts. Women’s bodies were used to “tarnish genealogical lineages” and punish certain peoples. To quote Véronique Nahoum-Grappe, talking about ex-Yugoslavia “rape became, some sort of a victory on war’s front against the collective identity of the enemy, a victorious invasion of their reproductive space” (1996, 153). While, to my knowledge, events of this sort have not been documented during Quebec’s colonization, it is still very possible they happened. In 2014, Statistics Canada reported that indigenous women were three times more likely to be a victim of sexual assault than non-indigenous women (Boyce, 2014).
In conclusion, the omission of women in genealogy contributes to a patriarchal culture which erases and devalues women’s accomplishments as well as the oppression they live under within their societies and families. It also contributes to the appropriation and control of their work and bodies. It is urgent that we find ways to change this situation and work towards a society in which we can all be equals: my next article will detail how we can achieve this in the field of genealogy.
Audrey Pepin
[1] Quotes which were originally in French have been translated by the author of this article
Bibliography
Arnaud, Aurélie. (2014). Féminisme autochtone militant : quel féminisme pour quelle militance? Nouvelles pratiques sociales, vol. 27, no. 1, p.211-222.
Baillargeon, Denyse. Compte-rendu de Yvonne Knibiehler, La virginité féminine. Mythes, fantasmes, émancipation. Paris , Odile Jacob, 2012 221 p. Recherches féministes, vol. 25, no. 2, p.191-193.
Bereni, Laure et Revillard Anne. (2009). La dichotomie “Public-Privé» à l’épreuve des critiques féministes: de la théorie à l’action publique. Dans Genre et action publique : la frontière public-privé en questions, Muller, P. et Sénac-Slawinski, R (dir.). Paris : L’Harmattan. p. 27-55.
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
Guillaumin, Colette. (1978). Pratique du pouvoir et idée de nature : 1- L’appropriation des femmes. Questions féministes, no.2, p.58-74.
Jetté, René. (1991). Traité de Généalogie. Montréal : Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 716 p.
Knibiehler, Yvonne (2012). La virginité féminine. Mythes, fantasmes, émancipation. Paris : Odile Jacob, 221 p.
Nahoum-Grappe, Véronique (1996). Purifier le lien de filiation : Les viols systématiques en ex-Yougoslavie, 1991-1995. Esprit, no. 227 (12), p.150-163. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24277272
Robert, Camille. (2017). Toutes les femmes sont d’abord ménagères. Histoire d’un combat féministe pour la reconnaissance du travail ménager. Montréal : Éditions Somme toute, Coll. « économie politique », 178 p.
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.
Over 1.7 million marriages dating from 1850 to today have been added to the LAFRANCE, one of the 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers. These marriages were transferred from the NBMDS and Connolly File collections.
Search results from the LAFRANCE showing some of the new records
Here are the locations and periods covered by these marriages:
1,450,000 Quebec Catholic marriages from 1919 to today
80,926 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
17,002 miscellaneous Quebec marriages from 2018 and 2019
Name standardisation and the resemblance function
The LAFRANCEhas a significative advantage over the other tools available on Genealogy Quebec, as its search engine is equipped with name standardisation and the resemblance function
When searching in the LAFRANCE, name standardisation ensures that a name is associated with all of its variants. For example, a query for an individual with the surname Gauthier will prompt the search engine to look through the database for any mention of the name Gauthier as well as any of its variations, such as Gautier, Gaulthier, Gotier, etc. Thus, it isn’t necessary to manually search for multiple variants of a name when using the LAFRANCE, unlike on the NBMDS and Connolly tools.
Standardisation of the Lavoie surname in the LAFRANCE
In addition to name standardisation, the LAFRANCE is equipped with the resemblance function, which allows you to search for a name and any other name that resembles it with a single query. The resemblance function differs from name standardisation because it not only includes all of the variants of a name, but also all of the names that are similar to it in terms of pronunciation and spelling. For example, a search for Gauthier, which will include all of the variants listed earlier, will also include the names Gonthier, Vauthier, Gouthier, Authier as well as their numerous variations.
Centralization
A fairly obvious benefit of adding these records to the LAFRANCE is having more documents centralized in a single tool. This allows our subscribers to carry out more efficient and rapid searches on the site, without having to jump around between collections. With that in mind, we plan to transfer a large number of documents to the LAFRANCE in the months to come.
Corrections
We took the opportunity presented by this transfer of records to systematically correct them. As such, the names of the parishes associated with the records have been standardized, numerous name entry errors have been corrected, and all duplicated records have been deleted. Therefore, the copy of these records which is currently in the LAFRANCE is of much better quality than the one previously available on the website.
In conclusion, the standardisation of names, the resemblance function, and the correction and centralization of these records has made them much easier to search and access on the site.
More about the LAFRANCE
In addition to these newly added records, the LAFRANCEcontains ALL of Quebec’s Catholic marriages from 1621 to 1918, ALL of Quebec’s Catholic baptisms and burials from 1621 to 1861, ALL of Quebec’s Protestant marriages from 1760 to 1849 as well as over 68 000 additional BMD records from 1861 to 2008. You will find more information about the LAFRANCE on the Drouin Institute’s blog.
You may browse the LAFRANCE as well as tens of millions of documents of genealogical and historical significance by subscribing to Genealogy Quebec today!
Finding the original document associated with a record
For now, the marriages added to the LAFRANCE through this update are not linked to the original document from which they are sourced. However, as a Genealogy Quebec subscriber, you have access to all of Quebec’s parish registers up to the 1940s in the Drouin Collection Records. Therefore, you can find the original document associated with a record if it dates from before the mid-1940s.
To illustrate the process of finding a document in the Drouin Collection, we will use the marriage record of Clovis Desjardins and Corinne Dufour, celebrated in St-Sauveur-Des-Monts on February 4th, 1925.
Clovis and Corinne’s marriage as presented on the LAFRANCE
First, we head over to theDrouin Collection Records tool, where Quebec’s parish registers are located. You will notice that the registers are sorted by location. As the document we are trying to find was recorded in Quebec, it is in that folder that we will carry out our research. The collection that interests us, that is, the civil copy of all of Quebec’s parish registers up to the 1940s, is found under the Fonds Drouin folder.
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 St-Sauveur-Des-Monts, the parish and the city bear the same name.
Once inside the parish’s folder, we must navigate to the correct year, which will give us access to all the images associated with that 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 the year, which are usually the ones from January. Similarly, the last few images in the folder will be those from the end of the year. As Clovis Desjardins and Corinne Dufour’s marriage took place early in the year in February, we can expect to find it among the first images of 1925.
And with that, we were able to find the source document associated with one of the newly added LAFRANCE marriages.
