Quebecois Project Reliable Sources

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Sources fiables du Projet Québécois

Most of the sources for this region and era are only in French. Beware Googletranslate, which can make hash out of the language used at the time.

La plupart des sources pour cette région sont uniquement en français. Méfiez-vous de Googletranslate, qui peut faire des erreurs monumentales de la langue d'époque.

Note: for links to many of the sources cited here, see Québec Resources page, which also contains other sources relevant to this era.

Note: les liens pour plusieurs sources citées ici se trouvent dans la page Ressources Québec, qui contient d'autres sources relatives à l'époque.

Reliable Sources / Sources Fiables

• Parish records: baptisms, marriages, burials, and other acts such as confirmations, recantations... These are available through various providers.
  • Registres paroissiaux: baptêmes, mariages, sépultures et autres actes tel confirmations, abjurations... Disponibles par divers fournisseurs.

• Notarial archives: marriage contracts, wills, etc. Very few of these are on-line unless provided by a genealogy service. Those that survive are kept at BANQ (Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec/Québec National Library and Archives), and are only available in certain central libraries on microfilm.
  • There also exist indexes for these, one which is incomplete is available on-line for free at BANQ, consisting of downloadable PDF's in 27 volumes plus an index for the first 8 volumes. It covers more than just pre-1700s. Volumes 1 through 11, parts of volumes 13, 14, 18, 26 and 27 are for pre-1700. Citation format for these: <ref name=notaries>[http://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2431906 BAnQ Notarial acts index ''Inventaire des greffes des notaires du régime français'', par Pierre Georges Roy et Antoine Roy; 27 Vol + index 1-8]</ref> There are also various records at BANQ searchable through the Search tab and then by name, to which they add records regularly, but not limited in time. And finally there is an index called Parchemin which is not on-line but can be accessed from libraries that are part of its network.

• • Note that some notarial acts in their entirety or nearly so are currently being made available on-line by BAnQ, they are being added to the Actes notariaux, Nouvelle-France / Notarial Acts , New France page

Actes notariaux contrats de mariage, testaments, etc, peu d'entre eux sont disponibles en ligne sauf lorsque fournis par un service généalogique. Ceux qui survivent sont gardés au BANQ (Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec/Québec National Library and Archives), et ne sont disponibles que dans certaines bibliothèques centrales sur microfilm.

Il existe aussi des index, un d'entre eux qui est incomplet est disponible gratuitement au BANQ, consistant de PDF's téléchargeables en 27 volumes plus un index des 8 premiers volumes. Il couvre plus que les actes d'avant 1700. Volumes 1 à 11, des parties des volumes 13, 14, 18, 26 et 27 sont pré-1700. Format de citation: <ref name=notaries>[http://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2431906 BAnQ Notarial acts index ''Inventaire des greffes des notaires du régime français'', par Pierre Georges Roy et Antoine Roy; 27 Vol + index 1-8]</ref> Il y a aussi divers actes au BANQ qu'on peut trouver par la fonctien Recherche et par nom, auquels ils en ajoutent régulièrement, ne sont pas limités dans le temps. Et finallement il y a l'index Parchemin qui n'est pas en ligne mais disponible dans les bibliothèques faisant partie de ce réseau.

À noter que certains actes notariaux dans leur entièreté ou presque sont régulièrement mis en ligne par le BAnQ, ceux-ci sont ajoutés à la page Actes notariaux, Nouvelle-France / Notarial Acts , New France page

• Les familles pionnières de la Nouvelle-France dans les archives du Minutier central des notaires de Paris, Présentées et annotées par Marcel Fournier, Auteur Jean-Paul Macouin, Société de recherche historique Archiv-Histo, 2016. (Les textes de ce livre numérique peuvent être librement reproduits mais avec l’obligation d’en citer la source et l’auteur) PDF on numerous notarial acts in Paris archives for pioneers to the colony, can be cited in full, proper attibution of source required to do so. Minutier central de Paris Citation format de citation: <ref name=paris>[https://www.sgq.qc.ca/images/_SGQ/BD_web_libre/Actes_notaries_des_pionniers_de_Paris.pdf Les familles pionnières de la Nouvelle-France dans les archives du Minutier central des notaires de Paris, Présentées et annotées par Marcel Fournier, Auteur Jean-Paul Macouin, Société de recherche historique Archiv-Histo, 2016. pg ]</ref>

• Fichier Origine, by Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie (Québec federation of genealogical societies) https://www.fichierorigine.com/index.php
  • Contains data on immigrants to the colony and their known family in France. Indexed. Contient des donnés sur les immigrants et leur famille connue en France. Indexé.

• The Drouin Collection
  • Available from many sources, these are photographs of the original documents. Institut Généalogique Drouin (Drouin Genealogical Society) has an on-line service with database indexing these records, which are mostly viewable from the index item (membership required for moderate fee); Drouin Institute also published in printed form multiple volumes both by male and female names, available in libraries.

• Familysearch
  • Has photographs of original documents also, unindexed, for free

• PRDH University of Montréal, Programme de Recherche en Démographie Historique (Historical Demographic Research Program)
  • A research program done by U de Montréal, indexing individuals and families, on-line site (membership required) is now managed by Drouin Institute, since the program finished some years ago. PRDH also exists in multiple volumes found at libraries

• BMS2000, http://www.bms2000.org/ , pay site that gives access to original documents, mostly after this time period but do have links to early data. (membership required)

• Société de généalogie de St-Hubert: Les oubliés de la généalogie, le clergé/ The forgotten of genealogy, the clergy. Database of clergy, including priests, nuns, monks, from New France days to modern times. Registration required, free/gratuit.
  • Clergénéalogie.org

• Space page: SOURCE: Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec/Québec National Library and Archives multiple documentary sources from BAnQ (free PDFs)

Reliable Sources with Conditions

• Francogene: Denis Beauregard's website cites sources, but on-line in a fragmentary fashion only, the full source citations are only available in CD-Rom or other purchaseable media. Francogene is a good site to use for clues but should always be checked against other, more explicit sources.

• Dictionnaire généalogique des familles Canadiennes, (DGFC) by l'abbé Cyprien Tanguay, 1887. Tanguay did his research in the mid-1800s, and had access to original sources which are no longer available due to deterioration or loss of records, but he does have errors. Tanguay, space page

• Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec, (DGFQ) by René Jetté. More recent than Tanguay's work, Jetté still has some errors, although much fewer than Tanguay. There exist addendums to the original work correcting some earlier data. Available in libraries and some on-line services.

• Census data
  • There are 3 main censuses that enumerated the population of the colony by name, done in 1666, 1667 and 1681. There are other interim partial censuses also, but these are the main ones. The 1666 and 1667 ones are known to have large gaps in them, people known to be present in the colony are often absent from one and present on the other, ages are often estimates by the census takers. Benjamin Sulte transcribed them in his works, with errors/omissions on his part also. The original documents can be viewed at the government of Canada website also.

• Ship lists with passengers
  • Navires venus en Nouvelle-France listing the ships that came to New France and their known passengers and crew, by year and ship (in French). Due to the state of records of the era, known to be incomplete.

• 18 Our French Canadian Ancestors, Thomas J. Laforest, translated from the work of Gérard Lebel Nos ancêtres, can be found at FamilySearch (multiple volumes)
  • FamilySearch catalog with links to individual volumes. Given the state of research, these can be referred to but preference is given to original sources, this being a secondary source.

Unreliable Sources

• A tree without sources is insufficient as a source for WikiTree profiles.

• Geneanet trees: Geneanet trees are user-contributed trees, many of them unsourced. A tree with precise dates and places will usually be a good guide of where to look for primary records. Please take the time to look for the source and check it for yourself. Do not cite the Geneanet tree as your only source: it is courteous to give credit, however when the tree exists in multiple copies on the net you may not be crediting the original builder. When a tree does present sources, please take the time to look up the original sources. Give credit.

• Other user-contributed trees: FamilySearch, Ancestry, Geni, MyHeritage, Rootsweb, WikiTree, the Peerage, family association websites, etc. See Geneanet trees.

• Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015 (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/) which is included among the sources on Ancestry.com, but is totally unreliable. It distills mostly correct information from other sources without attribution, but it also includes an alarming amount of completely bogus garbage. Problem stems from multiple data merges in their databases.

• Published databases containing information of uncertain origin: There are a number of "records" collections available on websites such as Ancestry and MyHeritage (and in some instance formerly distributed on CD-ROM) that do not identify their information sources and in fact are built in whole or in part from doubtful publications and user-contributed content. These include the "Family Data Collection" and similar sources associated with Edmund West, the "Ancestral File," the "Millennium File," the "Pedigree Resource File," and "U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900."

• Find A Grave memorials: Most pre-1700 memorials come without an actual burial place and burial details, and are in fact reconstructed from family trees. They show a picture of the cemetery gate often, rather than a gravestone, which is in any case extremely rare to find, most people not having had one in this era. These cannot be used as sources.

• genealogie.quebec info (François Marchi's website): This site uses a wide range of sources, including a lot of user-contributed, and unverifiable, information. Any information attributed to "courriel de X..." should be disregarded. Some of the contributors can be found on other genealogy sites (Geneanet) where it is clear that they collected their data from online trees. The most often cited sources on his site are Tanguay and census data, which are available elsewhere more directly.

• NosOrigines: Nos Origines is user-contributed. If the Nos Origines pages have sources, look for the sources instead, don't use Nos Origines as the source. They often give source citation as PRDH with no further detail.

• Attention! This page is not trustworthy in FamilySearch:FamilySearch baptisms Note: These are all based on 1681 census which was completed in November 1681, they ascribe a month of birth to all children noted on the census for which a baptism wasn't found by the author (unknown who this auhor was), to be disregarded as a source, use the census itself.

Notes

G2G question on this subject