Obituaries & Headstones: 3.6M Quebec Death Records

The Obituaries and Headstones tool brings together the Drouin Institute's collections of obituaries, memorial cards, headstones and cemetery records. It provides access to millions of historical records from Quebec and Ontario, including online obituaries, newspaper obituaries, memorial cards and photographs of headstones. These collections help researchers locate burial information, identify relatives, confirm dates of death and explore Quebec cemetery records through a single searchable resource.

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What You'll Find in the Obituaries and Headstones Tool

The collection is divided into four complementary databases. Each includes its own search engine and provides access to a different type of historical record.

Online Obituaries

This collection contains 2,750,000 Canadian online obituaries published from 1999 to the present. These records often include information about the deceased, surviving family members and funeral arrangements.

Newspaper Obituaries

This collection includes 1,295,000 obituaries published in Quebec and Ontario newspapers from 1860 to the present. These historical notices are an important resource for documenting deaths and expanding family history research.

Newspaper obituary published in Quebec

Memorial Cards

This collection contains 100,000 memorial cards published between 1860 and the present. These commemorative documents usually include the deceased person's name, birth and death dates, and may contain additional family or funeral information.

Quebec memorial card available in the Obituaries and Headstones collection

Headstones and Quebec Cemeteries

This collection includes 740,000 photographs of headstones from 830 cemeteries in Quebec and Ontario. These records help confirm burial locations, verify dates of birth and death, identify family relationships and explore a comprehensive Quebec cemeteries list.

Headstone photographed in a Quebec cemetery

How to Search the Obituaries and Headstones Collection

Each collection includes its own search engine, allowing you to search by surname and other available criteria depending on the records being consulted.

The % character can be used as a wildcard to search part of a surname. For example, searching for Lar% will return surnames beginning with Lar, including Larivière, Laramée and Larue.

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