Québec City Genealogy & Local History Research

Québec City is a beautiful place that I hope everyone gets a chance to visit at one point in their lifetime. Here are a collection of links that might prove useful to you if you are doing family or local history research for this wonderful place. Be aware! Some of these links may only be available in French. You can have them translated using Google Translate.

• La Société historique de Québec
• Ville de Québec - Archives
• The Québec City Tourism office offers a list of 18 sites (physical and virtual) for history and heritage. They also offer a list devoted to English, Scottish, and Irish heritage of Québec City
• Members of the Quebec Family History Society have access to the Norma Lee Collection which pertains to Québec City
• They Walked with Champlain at Québec: a list of the first settlers who established themselves in Québec City in the early 1600s

There are many, many more resources that pertain to the province of Quebec, so be sure to explore those as well as the ones above!

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!

"Baptism record that appears to solve mystery of Samuel de Champlain's birth arrives in Canada."

Happy Victoria Day, Everyone!

I find myself with some down time today and an important discovery to share with those of you who enjoy learning more about Canada's history.

The title of today's post is taken from an article in the Ottawa Citizen on Saturday, May 18 about an amazing find by of the baptismal certificate of Samuel de Champlain, explorer and founder of Quebec City.  It confirms that he was Protestant by birth, Huguenot to be specific, and you can see the document and others about Champlain at the Museum of Civilization starting May 29.

Fédération des familles souches du Québec

The Fédération des familles souches du Québec or FFSQ is a "non-profit organization dedicated to giving a unified voice to Québec’s family associations. It defends their collective interests before private and public authorities" amongst other goals. They offer a newsletter, library, and links to all their member family associations, like the Association des Gauthier d'Amérique Inc. which is how I learned about the group and all they have to offer.

Research is most easily done through their links and publications in French, so if you need some help with translation, don't forget the online translation (machine translation only) available at Google translate.

New Online Resource: Immigrants to Canada

Taken from Global Genealogy's Global Gazette:

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce the launch of an online database, Immigrants to Canada.

The database contains Canadian immigration records held at LAC, many of which relate to immigrants from the British Isles arriving in Quebec and Ontario; also included are references to settlers in other provinces. Through this new database, researchers can access references to lists of immigrants and other types of records created before 1865, such as declarations of aliens and names of some Irish orphans.

You are invited to visit the database.

The contributions of many LAC staff were instrumental in the success of this project, and their efforts are much appreciated.

Sylvie Tremblay
Acting Head, Canadian Genealogy Centre
Client Services Division, Library and Archives Canada

Quebec City Is 400 Years Old!

That's right, and in honour of the occasion, Genealogical.com has published Companions of Champlain: Founding Families of Quebec, 1608-1635. From their website:

Drawing on primary and reliable secondary sources, this work provides readers with a concise historical overview of the founding of Quebec and French-Canadian culture. It also supplies readers with the research tools necessary to link their family lines with those of the original 18 pioneer families who inhabited Quebec during the lifetime of the city’s founder, Samuel de Champlain.

Now, based on a comment I've seen about this book on Dick Eastman's blog, the s&h fees are quite high compared to the price of the book, so I'll repeat my suggestion that I posted as a comment there: Make this title a suggested purchase to your local public library. If it's not the type of purchase they'll typically make, try requesting it from that same public library as an InterLibrary Loan! You may have to wait a while especially since it's a new publication, but it may be worth it.

The families covered in this title are as follows: Amiot/Amyot, Boucher, Bourdon, Cloutier, Cote/Coste, Couillard/Couillart, Delaunay, Desportes, Giffard, Guyon, Hebert, Juchereau, Langlois, Marsolet, Martin, Nicolet, Pinguet, and Tardif/Letardif.

Ships Passenger Lists Indexing Project

The Nanaimo Family History Society is in the process of indexing all the Passenger Lists for the ports of Quebec City and Montreal from 1900 to 1921 when this format was "discontinued for a time in favour of the form 30A." The group and its volunteers are doing a remarkable amount of work, and they are now able to accept volunteers from outside of Nanaimo. The full description of the project and the information are available from the NFHS website.