Tracing French-Canadian Ancestors and Learning Their Stories
We begin with an overview of colonial New France and the pioneer ancestors. We review naming customs such as dit names. We demonstrate how to trace U.S. immigrants to their parishes of origin in Quebec. We introduce the wonders of Catholic parish registers and show how to decipher baptism, marriage, and burial records with minimal knowledge of French. We examine censuses and notarial papers and introduce the major websites that offer record images, indexes, and trees containing the stories of your French-Canadian ancestors.
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Intro Dialogue
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Humble Beginnings: The Colony of New France
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Naming Patterns
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Tracing U.S. Immigrants to Their Native Parishes in French Canada
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Catholic Baptismal, Marriage, and Burial Records
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Colonial, Provincial, and National Censuses
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Notarial Records: Personal Details of Individuals and Families
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Building Families and Lineages
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French-Canadian Records on Ancestry and FamilySearch
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French-Canadian Family History Websites
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Outro Dialogue