Thursday, February 11, 2010

A Treasure Chest Thursday for French-Canadian Researchers - PRDH

The University of Montreal's Program de Recherche en Demographie Historique (PRDH) is a virtual treasure chest for anyone researching French-Canadian ancestors in Quebec. It is a compilation of records and reconstruction of the population of Quebec from its beginnings in the 17th century - all presented in English.
The result:  "a computerized population register, composed of biographical files on all individuals of European ancestry who lived in the St. Lawrence Valley. The file for each individual gives the date and place of birth, marriage(s), and death, as well as family and conjugal ties with other individuals. This basic information is complemented by various socio-demographic characteristics drawn from documents: socio-professional status and occupation, ability to sign his or her name, place of residence, and, for immigrants, place of origin."

You can do initial searches on the site to determine if the have records of interest to you.  To view the records and associated compilations it is a fee based access.  Fees for a subscription are based on the number of hits made by the user on the data base. The more you think you will use the database the higher tier you should purchase.  I purchased the 500 click plan at abt $25 .  It is easy to purchase more, if needed, and there is no expiration date for usage.

Below is an example of an ancestor I located on the PRDH website.
Family view of Guillaume Gravel Brindeliere & Louise Legare.

We descend from their daughter, Marie Reine and Gabriel Gagnon.  Anything shown in blue is clickable and leads to more information.  So from this screen I can view:
 - Baptism and marriage record information for Marie Reine
 - Marie Reine's Family record with Gabriel
 - Baptism and death records for her siblings
 - The marriage record and individual records for her parents
 Plus the Family records of the parents origin allowing me to climb further up the branches of our family tree.

2 comments:

Kathleen Brandt, Professional Genealogist said...

Thanks for the resource. I have really enjoyed your blogs.
Kathleen

TCasteel said...

Thank you Kathleen. You comments are always appreciated. Theresa