Author: Jacques Gagné

Genealogy, Quebec

Quebec Guardianship Records can help resolve brick walls

Jacques Gagné

Tutelle et Curatelle (guardianships) of the region de Montréal 1791-1807 and of Quebec City, 1639-1930

Life was often short in our ancestors’ times. Epidemics swept through communities, tuberculosis took many, and accidental injuries killed others at a young age. Not every parent lived to see children grow to adulthood.

In Quebec, there was a system to ensure that children who had lost one or both parents, as well as people who were unable to care for themselves, had guardians to look out for them. When a parent died, male family relatives and friends would meet together with a notary and decide who that guardian was to be. The notary would write a legal document known as a tutelle et curatelle to make the guardianship official.

These documents can be very helpful to family history researchers. They can help us understand how a family got through a crisis, and they can also shed light on family networks by identifying the uncles, family friends and so on who were present.

To actually read these documents, you may have to visit the archives. Meanwhile, in this article, I will explain how to find the tutelle et curatelle records that are online.

Tutelle et curatelle records are filed separately from other notarial documents at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ). The BAnQ in Montreal alone has more than 300,000 linear meters of these documents, dating from 1658 to 1974, and other branches of the Quebec archives have many more such records.

Definitions

Today, people think of a tutor as a teacher, not a guardian. In this article, we have to understand that both tutors and curators are guardians: tutors are guardians of children, and curators are guardians of young adults.

There were two types of guardianships in Québec:

Tutelle testamentaire – Guardianship governed by a will (testament) issued by a notary in which the surviving parent (father or mother) of the children would assign the guardianship of his or her young children to an adult family member or close friend.

Tutelle légitime – Guardianship governed by the judicial courts, in which full legal tutorship is accorded to the closest adult relative (uncle, aunt, older brother, older sister.) It appears that the majority of guardianships decreed in Québec were this type.

The use of guardianships dates back to the mid-1600s and the first days of the French colony of New France, where the age of majority was 25. After 1783, under British rule, the adult age was 21.

Around 1791, British Laws were implemented in Quebec. The laws governing various judicial jurisdictions were grouped under the general heading of Laws of Canada and among those was one such law governing the tutorship (guardianship) of children and incapacitated adults. The latter dealt with those who could not take care of themselves and needed supervision by others. In 1865, the Civil Code of Lower Canada basically addressed the same issues with slight variations of content.

Searching for the records

If your ancestors lived in the Quebec City region, you are in luck. Familysearch.org has placed online tutelle et curatelle records from 1639 to 1930. Take a look at the wiki page, https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Quebec,_Quebec_Judicial_District,_Guardianships_(FamilySearch_Historical_Records)

You can access the actual records at

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1399459

There are more than 300,000 images and they have not been indexed, so you will need to browse them. They are separated into numbered files by year.

In another, separate database, the BAnQ in Montreal has placed online tutelle et curatelle notarial records from 1791 to 1807. Even within that short time frame, this database contains 22,879 searchable links. In the future, more such records will likely be made available online.

To access this database, go to http://www.banq.qc.ca/archives/genealogie_histoire_familiale/ressources/bd/instr_archives_civiles/tutelle_montreal/index.html

This is what you will see on that page:

Tutelle et curatelle (Tutorships and guardianships)

On this page, click on the blue box on the right side of the page that says Consultation de l’instrument de recherche (Access to the searchable online database.)

The next page will indicate: Nouvelle recherche (New Search), and one line below in the colour blue, Chercher par (research by):

Nom (family name)

Prénom (first name)

Titre (title) – Enter Tutelle

Acte (Tutorship Act) – Enter Tutelle

Date – Enter the date of the date of event.

If your family name was not a common one in Quebec, you can simplify your search. Go to the page https://applications.banq.qc.ca/apex/f?p=148:2::::::  Then, next to Nom, just enter the family name you are researching.

The database includes the following information:

Pupille (First name of child)

Date tutelle (Date of Tutorship decreed (judicial order))

Défunt (Deceased person) In most cases, the name of the father or mother

Tuteur (Tutor), the person described on line 1 and line 2

Autre (Other) – In rare cases in which limited information is available in regard to a particular act of Tutorship

The Next Step in Your Research

Unfortunately, the information obtained in this online database is basic at best. By clicking on Détails on the right hand side of each name, you will access another page indicating the family, first name of the child, and the date of the tutorship.

For example, I entered the name of Smith under Nom. This search resulted in 25 results from 1796 to 1807. I picked one, Enos Smith, and the results obtained online under Détails read as follows:

Nom: Smith

Prénom: Enos

Titre: Pupille

Acte: Tutelle

Date tutelle: 1804-02-07

At the bottom of the page, a box will appear:

> Seul le contenu sécurisé s’affiche (Only the secured information will be posted) >> Afficher tout le contenu (Access to content of file)

The results obtained are precisely the same as the previous page. This most likely indicates that you can only see the full content of the original document by visiting the BAnQ.

For the closest branch of the BAnQ, see

http://www.banq.qc.ca/archives/entrez_archives/centres_archives/index.html

There are 10 branches of the BAnQ across Québec. The repository in Montréal is listed on the website under Vieux Montréal; the archives in Quebec City under BAnQ Québec, the branch in Sherbrooke in the Eastern Townships under BanQ Sherbrooke, and the branch in western Quebec near Ottawa is called BAnQ Gatineau.

Always contact by email the archives branch to confirm whether the record you wish to access is actually stored at that branch. Emails written in the English will be answered in the English language.

I recommend for the initial requests to be sent by email. Once you have obtained the name of the technician assigned to your dossier (file), telephone calls are in order. And once you reach the archives, you may need help locating the tutelle et curatelle files.

Compiled, adapted and researched by Jacques Gagné – gagne.jacques@sympatico.ca

french-canadian, Genealogy, Huguenot, Quebec, Quebec City

The Protestant Churches of Quebec City, 1629-1759

Jacques Gagné

Some 15 or 20 years ago, someone asked me to research and compile a document addressing the earliest Protestant churches in Quebec and find out where the church registers are. Listed here are Quebec City region Protestant missions organized from 1629 to 1759. None of the church registers have survived.

A number of Huguenot merchants from La Rochelle, Bordeaux and Rouen, France were present in Quebec City in September, 1759 when the British army conquered the French forces at the BattIe of the Plains of Abraham. More than a century before those events, Huguenot merchants were members of a small Calvinist church in Quebec City.

1629 – Lutheran Chapel – It is on record that the Kertk (Kirke) brothers, and a small group of French Protestants (Huguenots from France), who captured Québec in the name of King Charles I of England on the 20th of July, 1629, built a Lutheran Chapel in Nouvelle France at the time. David, Louis, Thomas Kertk (Kirke), their wives, plus two other women and an undisclosed number of men worshipped until 1633 in Québec.

1631 – Temple Calviniste – A small community of Huguenots (Reformed Church of France) established a Calvinist Temple in the old city of Québec in the early 1630s or shortly after. The small temple would have been located near the Couvent des Ursulines. Most of the Huguenots at the time in Québec were traders who imported goods from French ports such as Auray, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest, Caen, Calais, Cherbourg, Dieppe, Dunkerque, Fecamp, Le Havre, Honfleur, La Rochelle, Lorient, Nantes, Paimboeuf, Port Louis, Rochefort, Rouen, Royan, Les Sables d’Olonne, Saint Brieuc, Saint-Malo and Vannes. These same Huguenots were also merchants, mainly in the purchasing and exporting of fine furs and selected hardwoods in New France. This small but thriving Protestant community was instrumental in opening-up trade partnerships between Nouvelle France and fellow Huguenot associates in France and other European countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the British Isles.

1759 – Chapel of the Ursulines  – First Anglican Church service in Québec on September 27th 1759 – Rev. Eli Dawson, presiding – Chaplain of the British Forces headed by the late General James Wolfe, Commander in Chief of the British Imperial Army – In attendance were French speaking Huguenots from the Québec region.

 

 

France, Genealogy, Research tips

The National Archives of France

Jacques Gagné

The National Archives of France is not the most advanced institution in terms of its digitized holdings, however, if you are researching French culture and history, you should be aware of it, and it may be helpful if your French ancestors were among the upper classes.

The Archives nationales (France) is making efforts to facilitate its online research process. You can find an introduction to the catalogue online in French, English and Spanish, and access it from there. For English, see http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/en/web/guest/salle-des-inventaires-virtuelle. Also go to http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/en_GB/web/guest/faire-une-recherche

Examples of the archives’ holdings include maps, photographs, documentation from the two world wars, and the records of Paris notaries. In addition, the archives has research centres focusing on topics such as place names and heraldry.

For many years, people with French Canadian or Acadian family lineages who wanted to know more about the research process in France have asked me whether the Archives nationales (France) in Paris was the place to conduct a family search. I have always replied that, if your ancestors in France were considered as nobility (familles nobles), yes, the Archives nationales de France is an online address you should consider. To check out the archives’ holdings on the ”bourgeois families” of France prior to the French Revolution, see https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/rechercheconsultation/consultation/pog/consultationPog.action?pogId=FRAN_POG_05&existpog=true&preview=false

However, if your ancestor was from the working class, you should conduct your online searches in the 95 Archives départementales de France. See my article https://genealogyensemble.com/2018/09/23/finding-ancestors-in-french-municipal-archives/

At the bottom of the following Archives nationales page, you will find links to a number of sites related to genealogy in France: http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/web/guest/signets-sciences

For many years the navigation process on the Archives nationales site was burdensome, and results posted from an online search would only indicate the dossier numbers (“fonds”) and a brief description of the fonds, followed by the ”série” (category of fonds) and the ”cote” (shelf  number). If you one wanted additional information on the content of a dossier, you had to send an email to Paris.

As of September, 2018, even if you find your family name, in order to access the biographical material of that family, you must visit the Archives nationales (France) in Paris. To further complicate matters, the Archives nationales has more than one repository in Paris, and you must first determine in which repository the records you want to see are kept. You also need to determine the spelling of the family name in France at the time. For example, my name, Gagné, was spelled Gasnier.

french-canadian, Genealogy, Loyalists, Quebec, Research tips

Tips on Researching Gaspé Ancestors

Jacques Gagné

Over the centuries, Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula has been home to a mix of residents including the Micmac First Nations people, French settlers, Acadians and Loyalists. The Gaspé is surrounded by water on three sides — the estuary of the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Chaleur – so in the past, many Gaspé residents made their living by fishing, however, the fishing industry has changed and suffered in recent years. The interior of the peninsula features mountains, forests and rivers.

If you had ancestors from the Gaspé, the idea of researching their lives might seem daunting. It is a long way from central Canada, and many people in the region do not speak English today. However, there are a number of databases and other resources online, and you can contact the archives there to ask for help.

The attached PDF has links to a variety of resources, including background on the Loyalists who came from the United States after the revolution and settled in the area. The major part of this document lists the notaries who practised in the Gaspé. Their records should help you find your ancestors’ land transactions, business agreements, wills, inventories, and other records.

One of the best researchers to have studied the people of the Gaspé was Michel Émard, a medical doctor, historian and author. This research guide tells you where to find the books he wrote. It also tells you how to contact the main archives serving the area.

Here is the link to the PDF: notaries of the gaspé peninsula guide

french-canadian, Genealogy, New France, Quebec

Bulletin des Recherches Historiques

Jacques Gagné

If your ancestors lived in Quebec between 1640 and 1940, you may find them mentioned in a periodical called Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, published by one of the province’s senior archivists and his sons. Searching this publication takes a little effort, and it helps if you can read some French, but your time may be well spent.

Archivist Pierre-George Roy and two of his sons did their research over several decades and published the Bulletin between about 1920 and 1943. In 1920, Roy was the first archivist at the Archives de la Province du Québec, the precursor of the Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), and he later became senior archivist at the Archives nationales du Québec in Quebec City. His two sons were also archivists.

Roy obtained the majority of his material from notarial documents. His father, Joseph-Edmond Roy, was a notary in Québec City from 1880 to 1911, and other Roy family members were also notaries.

The Bulletin includes a variety of articles including family genealogies, profiles of individuals, amusing anecdotes and accounts of historical interest. Some articles focus on high-profile people such as land owners and civil servants in the days of colonial New France. Others look at Catholic religious orders, laws and the courts, but there do not seem to be many women mentioned.

The articles are not exclusively about French Canadians; they also include Acadian, British, Scottish, Irish, Germanic, American, Jewish, Loyalist and Huguenot families and individuals. Ancestors of at least four members of Genealogy Ensemble are covered in the pages of the Bulletin.

When the BAnQ copied these periodicals, it named the database Le Bulletin des Recherches Historiques 1895-1968, however, it appears that the articles cover the period 1642 to 1942, not 1895 to 1968.

To find out whether any of your ancestors is mentioned in the Bulletin, start by scrolling through the 818-page PDF of the index. The volume number is underlined and the second number is the page number. Here is a link to the index: http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2656928

Once you have found your family’s name in the index, the next step is to go to the database that includes the actual volumes of the Bulletin. Open http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/ and, on the right hand side, put in your search terms: Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, as well as the volume number in roman numerals and the name of the month the issue appeared in French.

For example, according to the index, the name Bagg appeared in volume 49, page 59, so the search term is “Bulletin des Recherches Historiques XLIX Fevrier” You may have to guess the month, depending on the page number. Then scroll down to find your ancestor. You can also find hard copies of this publication at la Societé généalogique canadienne-française (https://www.sgcf.com/) in Montreal.

The language level of the magazine is not difficult, and you can use Google Translate or a similar online tool to help with the translation.

Here are links to a few samples of the Bulletin that I found interesting:

http://collections.banq.qc.ca/jrn03/dn2087/src/1935/02/164865_1935-02.pdf

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2656928

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2656964

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657360

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2656957

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657519

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657338

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657158

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657205

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657158

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657534?docsearchtext=Braillard%20de%20la%20Madeleine

http://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657523?docsearchtext=Braillard%20de%20la%20Madeleine

Genealogy, New France, Quebec, Research tips, Resources Outside of Montreal

Seigneuries of the Charlevoix and the Saguenay

Jacques Gagné

Beginning in 1535, long before the establishment of Nouvelle France by Samuel de Champlain, Europeans traded goods for furs with the indigenous people in the region referred to as the Royaume (kingdom) du Saguenay (1535-1842).

For centuries, the fur traders had complete control of the Saguenay River and the Lac-Saint-Jean regions of Quebec. Because the fur industry was so dominant, farming was forbidden in the Lac-Saint-Jean area until the 1850s.

The Charlevoix refers to the area of boreal forest along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, northeast of Quebec City, including present-day towns such as La Malbaie. The Saguenay River, which flows south from Lac Saint-Jean, enters the St. Lawrence near the village of Tadoussac.

 

Mouth of the Saguenay River at Tadoussac; Janice Hamilton photo

The attached research guide lists the fur trading companies that operated in Nouvelle-France and Québec, from the first such company established in France in 1614 to the Hudson Bay Company in 1854.

In 1835, 1,830 young farmers from the south shore of the St. Lawrence and the Charlevoix region signed a petition sent to Governor Archibald Acheson of Gosford, requesting access to lands in the Lac-Saint-Jean region. When Acheson and later governors did not react to the petition, many young Quebecers moved to the New England States and other parts of the United States in order to seek jobs.

In the late 1850s, the fur trade declined and the fur trading companies lost their political influence. Finally, the Lac-Saint-Jean and upper Saguenay areas were opened to agriculture, however, by this time, the seigneurial system had been abolished across Quebec.

This 23-page PDF includes a list of the seigneurs and business leaders who controlled the Charlevoix and Saguenay areas for almost two centuries. It lists regional cemeteries and briefly describes the counties and towns in the area. It includes a list of the fur trading companies that operated in the region and a list of the notaries who prepared documents such as business contracts and wills. At the end of the guide you will find contact information for the archives and historical societies found in these regions.

See the research guide here: seigneuries of charlevoix, chicoutimi and saguenay

 

 

french-canadian, Genealogy, New France, Online learning, Quebec, Research tips, Resources Outside of Montreal

Jacques Gagné’s Research Interests in 2018 and 2019

Jacques Gagné

2018 was a busy year for genealogy researcher Jacques Gagné, so if you missed any of his posts, here is a recap of his work and a look ahead to 2019.

For many years, Jacques was a volunteer researcher at the Quebec Family History Society, so he has a broad knowledge of genealogical records in Quebec. He is particularly knowledgeable about resources at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), finding notarial records, searching for ancestors in France and anything to do with the Huguenots.

He is now on the far side of 80 and his eye sight is not what it used to be, so the amount of research he has accomplished for Genealogy Ensemble is all the more impressive. He is passionate about what he does and he just keeps pushing ahead. The list of projects he would like to do in the future is almost as long as the list of his past achievements.

                 Jacques Gagné

Jacques’ work is actually a collective effort. He does all the hard work of exploring the Internet and putting together the research guides, while Claire Lindell and Janice Hamilton (me) revise them, edit the introductions and post everything online. I took a year off between the spring of 2017 and April 2018, which is why there is a gap in his posts.

The major research guides posted in 2018 focused on one main theme: the seigneuries of Quebec. From the time New France was created in the 1600s until the mid-1800s, most land in Quebec was owned by a few individuals known as seigneurs. They were usually French aristocrats, wealthy merchants or military leaders. Most ordinary Quebecers were tenant farmers living on the seigneuries. Jacques identifies the seigneurs and seigneuries in each region, and the notaries who practised there. He also includes a list of cemeteries in each area and repositories for archival material and other resources.

Another post from 2018 was a list of notaries who practised in the years after Quebec came under British rule, between 1760 and 1848. He also put together research tips for finding Huguenot ancestors in France, tips for searching at the BAnQ and French municipal archives, and a heads up on a wonderful online resource, the New France Archives from Library and Archives Canada, nouvelle-france.org.

Jacques has been hard at work for several months on a new series of guides for 2019 on the merchants, ship owners and fur traders of New France. This series looks at the men who did business in New France. Many of them were born in France but married and died in North America, and some were also notaries or played other important roles in the new world. The series includes a post about their ports of departure and their trading partners back in France, as well as background on the trading companies they were associated with.

He is also working on a new series of posts updating his old research guide to the Irish Catholic churches of Quebec (https://genealogyensemble.com/2014/05/20/irish-catholic-churches-of-quebec/). Meanwhile, guides to ancestors in the Charlevoix and Gaspe regions, and more tips on searching in France are coming soon.

If you missed some of Jacques’ past compilations, or are having trouble finding something you noticed several months ago, our blog has several features that makes searching easy.

On the right hand side of the screen, under the Geneabloggers logo and before Categories, there is a Search box. Enter any terms that you might think will take you to a post you are trying to find, such as the name of a region, as well as Gagné. (It will work without the accent.) If you find an article of interest and open it up to its full length, you will find suggestions for related articles at the bottom of the page.

You can also look down that column on the right of your screen until you come to Jacques’ name (it is the fourth name in the list) and click on it. You can then scroll backwards through all his posts. When you get to the bottom of a page, click on Older Posts.

Finally, below all the authors’ names on the right is a search function called Archives. It brings up all our posts from each month.

Thank you for following us since 2014, and good luck with your research in 2019.

France, Genealogy

BnF Gallica

Jacques Gagné

As one of Europe’s most important countries, it is not surprising that France has a wonderful national library, and that this institution has a growing online presence. The website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France found at www.bnf.fr (or www.bnf.fr/en for the English version) leads you to the catalogue and tells you how to access the library’s many collections, including antiquities and works published in Paris in the 16th century.

Gallica https://gallica.bnf.fr is the BNF’s vast digital library, free to all through the Internet. Intended for use by all readers, including the casually curious, students and academics, this site includes medieval manuscripts, illustrations from the natural sciences, maps and photographs.

It might not seem obvious how Gallica could assist with your family history research, but you just need to stretch your imagination. The Patrimoine équestre collection, for example, focuses on horses, which were part of our ancestors’ everyday lives. (See https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/sciences/patrimoine-equestre)  And as France was once a colonial power with a presence from the Caribbean to Polynesia and Africa, the maps on this site could prove helpful if your ancestors were sailors or merchants. (See https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/cartes/les-ameriques-en-cartes)

Another aspect of Gallica is a bilingual site called la France en Amerique, or France in America, created in collaboration with the Library of Congress. (See https://gallica.bnf.fr/dossiers/html/dossiers/FranceAmerique/fr/default.htm) In addition, if you are looking for a biography of a French ancestor dating back to the 12th century, BNF Gallica is the place to go. I discovered this by chance.

I was searching online for Jean Allaire, a Quebec City merchant who arrived in New France in 1658. He was associated with François Perron (Péron), a leading merchant in La Rochelle and Québec City. Google took me to the Dictionnaire Allard, also known as the Dictionnaire de Dauphiné, on BnF Gallica. (See https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k39393d/f12.item.zoom)

A dictionnaire in France can be a source of biographies, at least in the more expensive versions. For most of the 44 ancient provinces of France prior to 1789-1799, Bnf Gallica has posted dictionaries of important residents.

This particular dictionary addresses the ancient province of the Dauphiné. At the time of the French Revolution, Dauphiné was divided into three modern-day Départements: Drôme, Hautes-Alpes and Isère. According to Fichier Origine (/www.fichierorigine.com), 26 pioneers from Drôme, 27 settlers from the Hautes-Alpes  and 70 pioneers from the Isère settled in Nouvelle-France.

Similar regional dictionaries covering other parts of France can be found on Gallica, and in them you may find information about your very distant French ancestors in France. For example, I discovered that my family name, which was Gagné in New France, was Gasnier in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it appears to have been Garnier in the 14th and 15th centuries. This is information I obtained through BnF Gallica and other free online research tools.

Genealogy, Quebec, Research tips, Resources Outside of Montreal

Townships of Pontiac, Gatineau Counties, plus the Township of Hull

Jacques Gagné

Prior to the arrival of the first European settlers, the area around the Gatineau hills of Quebec, north and west of Ottawa, was the home of the Anishnabe Algonquin First Nations people. Between about 1800 and 1900, western Quebec was settled by British, American, Irish Protestant, Scottish, Irish Catholic, French Canadian and Germanic families. The Germanic settlers had a strong presence in this region. To my knowledge, there were few Loyalists or Huguenots.

Prior to 1845, people and goods were transported primarily by barge along the Ottawa River, which separates Quebec and Ontario. The steamboat that operated on the Ottawa River between Montreal and Ottawa could not manage the rapids between Carillon and Grenville, so in 1854, the Carillon and Grenville Railway, a short 12-mile-long portage railway, was organized.

Prior to 1845, when they purchased land, finalized business deals or wrote their wills, the settlers of western Quebec likely dealt with notaries from Montreal, and perhaps those in Vaudreuil and Rigaud. The section of this compilation that lists notaries begins in 1845, since the Judicial District of Hull was a late-comer among judicial districts across the province.

Today, this region is well served by two superb archives and four regional genealogical societies. Contact details for all these places can be found in the attached compilation.

BAnQ Gatineau – Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

LAC – Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa

OGS – Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society

SGO – Société de généalogie de l’Outaouais

Gatineau Valley Historical Society

Pontiac Archives (genealogy society, located in Shawville, QC)

See: Townships of Pontiac and Gatineau Counties plus the the township of Hull

The contents of this 23-page compilation are as follows:

Page 1  the settlers (including farmers, businessmen, militia officers, politicians)

Page 3  the counties in 1791

Page 4  the townships in chronological sequence

Page 11 regional cemeteries

Page 13 Outaouais region (a list of cities, towns, villages)

Page 14 description of notarial records

Page 15 the notaries

Page 22 area archives and genealogical resource centres

 

 

France, Genealogy, New France, Quebec, Research tips, Resources Outside of Montreal, United States

Research Help for French Louisiana Sources

Jacques Gagné

There were strong ties between Quebec and Louisiana in the 18th century. Louisiana was then part of New France, having been established by the French to block the British from expanding their influence westward in North America.

Many settlers who went to the southern part of the United States originated from the same regions in France as the French Canadians and the Acadians. But few Quebec historians or genealogists have focused on the links between the families of New France and those who settled in Louisiana.

An example of someone with personal links to both places was Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, Marquis de Vaudreuil (1698-1778). His father was of noble descent, from the Languedoc region of France, and Pierre was born at Quebec, where his father served as governor-general of New France. Pierre served as governor of Louisiana from 1742 to 1753, and he was the last governor-general of New France, between 1755 and 1760.

Historian Mélanie Lamotte wrote an article about primary sources in North America and France for the early modern history of Louisiana when she was studying at the Cambridge University in the U.K. She currently teaches at Stanford University, and her  Stanford website describes this article, “A Guide to Early Modern French Louisiana Sources” as providing “much-needed guidance on identifying and using French Louisiana sources. It lists the sources available and investigates their nature, details of access, state of preservation, as well as their state of digitization. It also suggests potential uses and interpretations that might be gleaned from such source material.”

You can download Lamotte’s 26-page guide from either of these two sites:

http://stanford.academia.edu/M%C3%A9lanieLamotte

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/260104/Lamotte-2016-Collections_A_Journal_for_Museum_and_Archives_Professionals-VoR.pdf?sequence=1