Happy 407th Anniversary, Québec City!

Photo © David Hook 2008

An anniversary as significant as this one deserves a post on the proper day! According to The Canadian Encyclopedia:

"I arrived there on the 3rd of July," wrote Samuel de Champlain in 1608, "when I searched for a place suitable for our settlement, but I could find none more convenient or better situated than the point of Quebec."  http://tinyurl.com/nc3nhc7

Do you think that he had any clue that this place would become so significant? While it's not the oldest city in Canada (that honour falls to St. John's, NL) it became the political seat of what would become the province of Québec. It was also one of the places where many new immigrants arrived in Canada. Be sure to check out the Library and Archives Canada's database, Passenger Lists for the Port of Quebec City, 1865-1900.

Joyeux Anniversaire, Québec!

Maple Stars and Stripes:Your French-Canadian Genealogy Podcast

Sandra Goodwin is a family historian who is based in the US, and has recently created a site called Maple Stars and Stripes where she shares her podcasts containing tips and ideas on how to research your French-Canadian ancestry both within the US and into Quebec. She has already posted eight podcasts, starting with Beginning French-Canadian Research and, most recently, Jetté’s Dictionnaire. More information is available on the site where Sandra comments on or includes feedback from listeners, including other resources that may be of use. If you have French-Canadian ancestry, the site is worth a look. Or at least a listen!

Huguenots of New France

Huguenots were Protestants of France who were forced to flee France in the 1500s and 1600s. According to the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, they mainly moved to areas of the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and the United States, while a small number moved to South Africa. In his database, Michel Barbeau indexes the 321 Huguenots who fled to Canada, specifically New France (now Quebec.)

NB: While the introductory pages of the website are in both French and English, the individual entries for each person are in French only.

Quebec and Eastern Townships Genealogy

While Marlene will charge you a fee to extract information from the records she has indexed for Quebec and the Eastern Townships, she has made quite a lot of information available for free. More importantly, it's her tips and ideas that can lead you to the information that you need, particularly if this is an area in your family tree that you're having difficulties "climbing" because it's unknown territory.

Her site is described as follows:

Quebec genealogy poses some interesting problems, and these problems are magnified in the Eastern Townships, which were largely settled at first by English-speaking people whose roots go back into the New England states.
In an effort to help clear up some of these problems, I have indexed over 630,000 church, cemetery, census, and newspaper articles. To see where I've been indexing, please look under the green buttons to the left of my page. ...

Here's the link to take a look: Click here