Quebec Notaries for English Population: Kingsey, Ulverton, Wickham & Grantham.

Question

Hello Wikitree'ers,

I'm looking for information on notaries that would have served English residents of the townships of Kingsey, Durham (now partly, Ulverton), Wickham & Grantham, Drummond (now), Quebec.  In addition to deeds, I'm looking for marriage contracts for a William Wadliegh (Wadley) & extended family, circa 1800-1815.

Were there particular notaries that would have served these communities or would the residents have to use who was available?  Could a resident of, say Three Rivers judicial district, use a notary from St. Francois judicial district?  I ask this, because I'm aware that a Leon Lalanne served English residents of St. Francois, especially Loyalists.  It might be possible that Wm. Wadleigh sought out a notary like this if Wm. was himself a Loyalist.

Thanks in advance.

Nace

Answer 1

Hi Nace,

Most often the notaries used were chosen by proximity to the residence of one of the parties.  Unless there were none around, in which case people went further afield.

For the Eastern Townships in this period I only find one whose acts are available online with BAnQ, specifically stated to have exercised in the area.  This was Samuel Gale, who exercised in the judicial district of Bedford. his acts are available online.  

There are 2 others who are stated as having exercised in the district of Arthabaska, Dominique L'Horty and Étienne Légaré

Comments

Hello/Bonjour Daniella,

Thank you/Merci for responding & for the link to Samuel's "acts".  I went thru his records & only saw a few instances of him being involved with two of the towns I mentioned, Durham & Grantham.  Still, he did work in two different judicial districts, Bedford & Three Rivers, & I'd wondered if that were possible.... apparently so.

May I ask how you were able to determine which notaries practiced/exercised in particular areas?

By the way, I found on Family Search, notarial records for Three Rivers (Trois-Rivière) judicial district:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2563597?availability=Family%20History%20Library

There doesn't appear to be any indexes, so it would be even more vital for me to determine which notaries tended to serve the initially mentioned English townships.

As to the Arthabaska judicial district, I was unaware that that district covered these towns or some them.  Regardless, Family Search does not appear to have records covering the early 1800's for Arthabaska:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&query=%2Bkeywords%3AArthabaska%20%2Bkeywords%3Ajudiciaire

All for now.  Thanks again/merci.

Nace

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hi Nace,

BAnQ has data on when and where notaries exercised, which is how I knew.  The ones I pulled up are the ones whose acts are available online from there, it's certainly not an exclusive list.  They are progressively adding these notarial acts in full, but it takes time to do it right.  I'll have to do some hunting to see if I can find any more names of notaries who are likely candidates.  Some notaries covered quite a large territory.

I am familiar with the FamilySearch notarial acts links, I only go there when BAnQ doesn't have them online, as it is extremely time consuming to try to find specific notarial acts in FS records.

I suggested Arthabaska as it is actually not that far from Drummond (born in the area myself).  The modern judicial districts do not necessarily correspond to what existed back then, but acts could be stored there.

Am trying to find a list of notaries, will let you know if I do find it.

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Found a list of notaries, there are literally hundreds of them, will take time.

Meanwhile, I took a chance on the name Wadleigh, found the following 3 listings , all later than the man you refer to, but since you asked for extended family, and the locations appear to match, thought you would be interested.  Click on the underlined names to have it expand.  One of them is missing so little data available.