Drouins Compile Large Quebec Genealogy Database
2366 Microfilm Rolls Give Data for 37 Million French Canadians
Sep 12, 2009
The Canadian government did not begin to register birth, marriage and death records on a consistent basis until the 1990s. All researchers had to work with were church records, the majority of them kept in Roman Catholic parishes. The baptism records do not always give a birth date and burials often were noted by the funeral date instead of the death date. Fortunately, gravestone inscriptions often give birth and death dates.
Drouin Genealogical Institute
Joseph Drouin, a lawyer, began compiling family data from both Catholic and Protestant church records in the latter 1800s. His son Gabriel took over this massive genealogy endeavor in 1938, continuing to microfilm and index records from church archives and other sources.
The 2,366 microfilms of the Drouin Collection include vital records covering almost 350 years and mentioning about 37 million names. Of these, 8 million records date before 1850.
The collection remained the property of the Institute until Gabriel’s death in 1980. It was then sold to genealogist Jean-Pierre Pepin, who created The Drouin Institute, which was dedicated to preserving the collection intact in Quebec.
Range of Genealogy Data
Included in The Drouin Collection of vital records are the ancestors of some of Canada’s most famous French-Canadians, including Pierre Trudeau, William Shatner, Celine Dion and John Labatt. There are also records for ancestors of people whose families moved elsewhere. These include Hillary Clinton, Madonna and Angelina Jolie.
Both Catholic and Protestant church records were searched in Quebec for these baptisms, marriages and burials. The collection also contains information from notaries and from some other select documents of genealogical value. Also searched were church records from Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and various New England states.
The records are hand written and often difficult to read.
Putting the Drouin Genealogy Collection Online
Recognizing its historical significance, Ancestry.ca secured the right to host the Drouin Collection online. It launched the original images – more than 12 million in total – in 2007, and in partnership with the University of Montreal indexed the collection to make it searchable online in French or English, by name, date, place, church or institution, and religion.
Archives directors and veteran genealogists have called the Drouin Collection the largest and most valuable French Canadian family history resource available. Family researcher Desmond Ireland said of the online version that “They’ve taken genealogical research out of the library and brought it to my personal computer.”
Access to Online Drouin Collection Births, Marriages and Deaths
Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca databases are available only to paying subscription members.
The Drouin Collection was temporarily taken off line in 2009 because of a legal dispute between the Ancestry parent company and the Drouin Institute over the terms of their contract. The judge ruled that they could go back online as soon as some indexing irregularities were rectified.
Source:
Material developed by this article’s writer for genealogy seminars given in Quebec City in 2009.
 |
 |
