Understanding Quebec Catholic Records

Canada

Quebec

Catholic Records

The main source of genealogical information in Quebec is the Roman Catholic parish records. They typically record baptisms, marriage and burials, and in some cases, confirmations. They are not direct records of births and deaths, the Catholic priests were recording religious events, and births and deaths may or may not be mentioned in the records, but always indirectly. They contain precious information for genealogists like the parents of a child or the spouses, their origin, their age (but not always), and their relationships.

They are written in French, sometimes in Latin, but as they are written according to some rules and in a specific format, it becomes easy to recognize the main parts of each record and the information they contain. You can read this article about Quebec Languages to get started. They are also handwritten, and some priests were not much more educated than their parishioners; their handwriting and spelling may be difficult to read. You can usually get decipher them by reading other surrounding records written by the same hand.

Places

As for the events, the priests were referring to their own "territories" in the records, that is, parishes and dioceses. Unless another type of place is specifically mentioned, like a seigneurie or a city, it should be assumed that the places mentioned are parishes. Many parishes in Quebec have the same name, and it is important to consider the geographical location of each parish, and also the year of their coming into existence, before attributing the origin of a person to a specific parish. People did not travel far in those days, and certainly not forward in time.

Since parishes are communities of people, their size and location evolved, according to the movement, the growth and the density of the population. Parishes started as missions in remote areas, served by the priest of another parish, before becoming a parish of their own. As a parish becomes too large in population, or when the parishioners begin to find that the church is simply too far from where they live, other parishes are detached from the original one. Therefore, the name of the parish in the records does not necessarily reflect the geographical location we would assign to them nowadays.

Events

Baptisms

The following information can be found in baptism records, depending on the time period of the record, and also on the accuracy of the priest and how close he followed the rules.