The PRDH data base includes some 3 180 000 certificates of various types, dated from 1621 to 1861. The vast majority correspond to the systematic extracting of information from records of baptisms, marriages, and burials that came to us from the parishes, missions, and Catholic institutions in Quebec that kept registers before 1862. Are also part of the data the 26 000 Protestant marriages recorded before 1850. The certificates were read and transcribed onto magnetic media according to a standard format that reproduces the essential information contained in the documents: type, place of registration, and date of the record; family names, first names, and characteristics of the people cited as the subject of the act, as their parents or as spouses. The documents for the period 1621–1765 include all of the individuals cited, thus including witnesses; beyond, they are generally not included, because it appeared preferable to favour the number of certificates

As the certificates were kept in two copies, one in the ecclesiastical archives, the other in the civil archives, we generally tried to use one or the other to obtain as complete a coverage as possible. In this regard, we consulted the Inventaire des registres parroissiaux catholiques du Québec 1621–1876 (by Pauline Bélanger and Yves Landry with René Jetté, Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1990), which links the two series. It also seems that in the last century, when he was writing his well-known Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes depuis la fondation de la colonie jusqu’à nos jours (Montreal: E. Sénécal, 1871–90), Cyprien Tanguay had access to certificates that no longer exist, especially some concerning the parishes of Sorel, Saint-Augustin, and Petite-Rivière-Saint-François; a search in this dictionary enabled us to add 815 certificates. Their notation, in the context of the dictionary, bears only the basic elements, and it is not possible to judge how true they are to the original texts. Finally, we added 96 certificates, mostly of burials, from the Journal des Jésuites.

Three name censuses of the entire colony were produced, on the instigation of Colbert, in 1666, 1667, and 1681. Mont-Louis and Quebec City were subjected to population counts in 1699 and 1700 and in 1716 and 1744, respectively, and there are partial censuses from after the conquest of Quebec City. All of these documents together cover 13,995 households.

Marriage contracts were often used, especially for the period before 1800, when the corresponding marriage certificate is missing or has gaps concerning identification of either spouse or the birthplace of an immigrant; nearly 4 000 contracts were used in this way. The information retained is sometimes limited to the parties to the contract and their parents or ex-spouses; in these cases, data were drawn mainly from various published inventories or from the Parchemin data base belonging to the Archiv-Histo historical society.



A number of sources were used for the lists of migrants (1,279 certificates). For practical reasons, the PRDH resorted to printed materials for some of these lists, as we did for naturalizations (80 certificates) and testimonies of freedom to marry (443 certificates).

Lists of migrants:

  • Passengers from St-André
    • A. GODBOUT, Les passagers du St-André. La recrue de 1659. Publications de la Société généalogique canadienne- française, no 5, Montréal, 1964.
  • Recruits from La Rochelle
    • G. DEBIEN, "Liste des engagés pour le Canada au XVIIe siècle (1634-1715)", RHAF, vol. VI, no 2 (septembre 1952), pp. 221-233.
    • G. DEBIEN, "Liste des engagés pour le Canada au XVIIe siècle (1634-1715)", RHAF, vol. VI, no 3 (décembre 1952), pp. 374-407.
    • M. GAUCHER, M. DELAFOSSE, G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada au XVIIIe siècle", RHAF, vol. XIII, no 2 (septembre 1959), pp. 247-261.
    • M. GAUCHER, M. DELAFOSSE, G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada au XVIIIe siècle", RHAF, vol. XIV, no 1 (juin 1960), pp. 87-108.
    • M. GAUCHER, M. DELAFOSSE, G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada au XVIIIe siècle", RHAF, vol. XIV, no 2 (septembre 1960), pp. 246-258.
    • M. GAUCHER, M. DELAFOSSE, G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada au XVIIIe siècle", RHAF, vol. XIV, no 3 (décembre 1960), pp. 430-440.
    • M. GAUCHER, M. DELAFOSSE, G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada au XVIIIe siècle", RHAF, vol. XIV, no 4 (mars1961), pp. 583-602.
  • Recruits from St-Nazaire
    • R.J. AUGER, La grande recrue de 1653, Publications de la Société généalogique canadienne-française, Montréal, 1955.
  • Recruits from Nantes
    • G. DEBIEN, "Les engagés pour le Canada partis de Nantes (1725-1732)", RHAF, vol. 33, no 4 (mars 1980), pp. 583-586.
  • Recruits and passengers boarding at Bordeaux
    • A.N.C., Direction des ressources historiques, copie microfilmée des Archives départementales de la Gironde à Bordeaux, Série 6B, Amirauté de Guyenne.
  • Soldiers of the Régiment de Carignan
    • "Rolle des soldats du régiment de Carignan Sallière qui se sont faits habitans de Canada en 1668", Archives publiques du Canada (Archives des Colonies, série G1).
  • Dealers in contraband salt
    • A.N.C., MG1, Archives des Colonies, Série B, Lettres envoyées
    • - vol. 54, ff. 445, 496-497 (1730)
    • - vol. 55, ff. 86-89, 125, 537-538 (1731)
    • - vol. 59, ff. 178-179, 368-371 (1733)
    • - vol. 61, ff. 75-77, 95-96, 253-255 (1734)
    • - vol. 63, ff. 86-88, 105-107, 282-284 (1735)
    • - vol. 64, ff. 57-58, 60-61, 539-543, 573-574, 704-705 (1736)
    • - vol. 65, ff. 434, 652-653, 843 (1737)
    • - vol. 68, ff. 47-54, 117-119 (1739)
    • - vol. 69, ff. 14-15 (1739)
    • - vol. 70, f. 312 (1740)
    • - vol. 71, ff. 230-234 (1740)
    • - vol. 72, ff. 294-296, 336 (1741)
    • - vol. 74, ff. 106-111, 146-148 (1742)
    • - vol. 76, ff. 309-310, 350-351 (1743)
    • - vol. 77, f. 91 (1743)
  • Naturalizations
    • P.G. ROY, "Les lettres de naturalité sous le régime français", B.R.H., vol. XXX, no 8 (août 1924), pp. 225-232.
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  • Testimonies of freedom to marry
    • Rapport de l'archiviste de la province de Québec pour 1951-1952 et 1952-1953, vol. 32-33, pp. 3-159.

Finally, we drew on the hospital sick lists from the daily records of colony hospitals prior to 1700 (1,878 certificates), and extracted other information from the parish registers and the archives of the Quebec City archdiocese: recantations (239 certificates), confirmations (551 certificates), marriage rehabilitations (191 certificates), and marriage annulments (5 certificates).

As baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded at the parish level, , they are used as the reference for any location in the data. To keep things simple, the term " parish " is used to classify all other documents included here, even if they were not in fact a parish record. Note that notarial records are not classified geographically, just being said to be from " somewhere in Quebec ".