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Parish registers and civil registration
Brief summary
From New France (17th century) until the late 20th century, parish registers (mainly Roman Catholic, later also Protestant and other denominations) were the primary records of baptisms, marriages and burials; the Québec government gradually assumed civil registration duties during the 20th century, completing the transition to centralized civil registers on .
General context 1650–1800
1650–late 18th century: From the New France era, parish priests kept registers of baptisms, marriages and burials; these registers are the principal sources for births, marriages and deaths.
Quasi-civil function: parish registers served as local proof of civil status before a secular civil registration system existed.
19th century
Parishes as de facto authorities: Parishes (especially Catholic) continued to record vital events; civil courts and clerks often received copies of parish registers for official use.
Denominational diversity: With immigration and British rule, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other congregations also kept registers for their members.
20th century and transition to civil registration
Early 20th century: Provincial civil registration expanded for births and marriages while churches remained important record sources for many decades.
: the Directeur de l’état civil began maintaining separate, centralized civil-status registers for contemporary acts.
Where to find these records today
- Pre-1900 parish registers: held largely by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) and regional archival centres.
- Post-1900 civil records: managed by the Directeur de l’état civil of Québec for recent acts and certificates.
- Indexed collections: Drouin Collection, Genealogy Quebec, FamilySearch and other local indexes aggregate parish and civil records.
Key points and research tips
- Catholic dominance: Catholic parish registers are the dominant source through the 19th century.
- Copies required: Churches often sent copies of registers to civil custody, aiding preservation and central indexing.
- Research approach: For pre-1900 events, search parish registers; for 20th-century events, consult provincial civil records and indexed databases.
The Protestant Church Registers
This searchable database contains nearly 60,000 birth, marriage and death records from the Protestant Churches of our region, as collected by the Valentine Project and presented here for your information, free of charge. This database may include records not available through Ancestry.com. Some transcriptions may be more accurate because the transcribers descended from the first Europeans to make the region their home.
Spelling variations
There are many spelling variations found among these records. The Spouse and Mother fields are in the format Surname, Forename. Married women are occasionally recorded under their married name.
Source Documents
Our sources include microfilms held by the Archives nationales du Quebec (ANQ), the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU), and a variety of original church registers. Historically, the churches were required to submit annual copies of their registers to the civil authorities. These civil records are typically what you will see in the microfilms. Detailed Source references for an individual record may be found on our Sources page. Photocopies of all records held are available from us upon request.
Errors and Contradictions
Occasional differences occur between the Civil copies and the Church registers. Where the differences are not reconcilable, both are presented, each cross referenced to the other, for the researcher to ponder.
Because of handwriting, imaging and original document imperfections, errors in transcription are inevitable. If you encounter such an error, kindly report it to us. In this respect, it is our policy to report exactly what the minister wrote, even though he may have erred. So where he wrote Gian Vaugh for the lady we know as Jane Waugh...Gian Vaugh is what you will find here.
The Valentine Project
"As a result of the inevitable intermarriage among the Anglophone settlers in the valley of the Chateauguay, surrounded as they were by the earlier French catholic population, today's genealogists find a massive common interest. Our ancestors typically lived in these communities through the 19th century and beyond."
swquebec.ca
"Our searchable Church Registers Database contains the detailed information extracted from some 60,000 records found in 187 sources among the original Church registers. Many of these sources are not included among archived microfilms or other published resources."
swquebec.ca
"Norman Valentine (1934-2009), Chief Instigator, read every Church record aloud and kept our noses to the grindstone for more than a decade. Shirley Valentine, whose forbearance and cooperation in this can only be observed with awe. Burt Lang, diligent Seeker among Archives, Churches and Burial Grounds. Gina Smith, Genealogist extraordinaire. Warren Sadler, Webmonger, who turned the resulting mass into bits and bytes. Bill Henderson, whose suggestion it was to extend beyond our own researches and include every record in the original eleven microfilms, for which we may never forgive him. We have, since since completing that task, more than doubled that content, mostly from dusty old books, previously ignored."
swquebec.ca