All posts in Genealogy Research

A complete, beginner-friendly roadmap to tracing your French-Canadian roots—from your living relatives back through Québec parish registers to the first immigrant from France.

What PRDH-IGD covers, how its family reconstructions work, what a subscription costs, and how to use it to break through early French-Canadian research.

A practical guide to the Drouin Collection—15 million+ parish register images covering Québec, Acadia, and French New England—and how to access it on Généalogie Québec and Ancestry.

How Généalogie Québec (LAFRANCE + Drouin) and BMS2000 differ, what each covers, and how to use them together to find French-Canadian baptisms, marriages, and burials.

What Québec’s Catholic parish registers contain, how the baptism–marriage–burial (BMS) system works, where to find the records, and how to read them.

Marriage contracts, wills, and estate inventories: how to use Québec’s vast notarial archives to confirm relationships and break through brick walls.

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) offers free parish registers, notarial records, and more. Here’s how to use it for French-Canadian research.

Learn to read old French-Canadian baptism, marriage, and burial records—the standard Latin and French formulas, abbreviations, dates, and handwriting.

Acadian research differs from Québec genealogy. Learn the key records, the impact of the 1755 deportation, and how to trace Acadian and Cajun ancestors.