French-Canadian Databases (National Institute)

The beauty of these is that you can interrogate the databases in various ways, and all documents answering the selection criteria are proposed to you. As the databases are setup in different ways, minimal training is required before use.

PRDH database has been discussed before. It is was first published in book form with entries up to 1765. Available on CD-ROMs or online on the PRDH website.

The Fichier Origines - This is not about marriages, but most often about births. It is a database of information on the first Québec settlers from 1621-1865, available at Fichier Origines and also published in book. The original is with the SGCF. It is continually updated. Some of the information in this file is not often found elsewhere, and is the result of a collaboration between Canada and France looking for documents in France for the French settlers.

BMS2000 - This tool is a collection of close to 3 million marriages, baptisms and sepultures compiled by various genealogical societies and updated on a yearly basis. This information is available from participating genealogical societies and on the BMS2000 website.

MSSS/ISQ/SGQ - Marriages and deaths consolidated index. See the Généalogie Québec website.

Parchemin - Database of notaries of Québec from 1635-1800. It is an almost complete inventory of notarial minutes. Marriage contracts, sales of goods, wills, inventories after death, etc.. Have been collected, deciphered, checked and the essential transcribed in a digital searchable format. The development is still ongoing. It presently contains 3,5000,000 documents. There are 42,991 acts transcripted on the SGCF website.

Chronica - This is a collection of all the large publications of original documents in early Québec first published by the Archivist of the province of Québec. Chronica-1 to Chronica-6 are available. Chronica-7 is available on DVD. See the Chronica website for more details.

Thémis - This is a database of the judiciary archives of Québec. Thémis-1, Thémis-2 and Thémis-3 have been scanned and is available on CD-ROM. The “Guide des archives judiciaires” mentions this database is very helpful in locating documents. See the Thémis website for more details.

Rapport de l'Archiviste de la province de Québec, 1920-1964 - Provides access to the text. There are indexes of people and places, as well as articles indexed by subject. See the BAnQ website.

Canadian Census Records - Available for the years 1825 to 1921―early census recorded head of household only. These have been digitized and are available at:


 * Library and Archives Canada - Censuses


 * FamilySearch - Historical Record Collections - Canadian Censuses


 * Ancestry.ca Canadian Census Collection

Published Monographs Fournier, Marcel, and Micheline Perreault, Bibliographie des ouvrages généalogiques au Québec 1990-2000 (Saint-Foy, Québec: Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie, 2002).

Fédération des familles-souches québécoises, Répertoire des ouvrages généalogiques publiés par les associations de familles (Sillery: Fédération des familles-souches québécoises, 1997).

Faucher-Asselin, Jacqueline, and Diane Duval, Bibliographie des ouvrages généalogiques au Québec, 1980-1990 (Sainte-Foy, Québec: Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie, 1997).

__________________________________________________________________________

Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about these courses or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

We welcome updates and additions to this Wiki page.