Canada, Quebec Notarial Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Collection History
In Québec, notaires (notaries) have registered contracts since 1626. These include deeds, wills, marriage contracts, and other records. The persons involved in the contracts received the originals. The notaries kept copies. The copies are called "minutes."

Each document in a notary's minutes gives at least the name of the notary, the date and place the document was prepared, the names and addresses of the persons involved, and the names and addresses of the witnesses. The ages and relationships of the witnesses and the persons involved are sometimes included. Notarial records are usually listed by the name of the notary and the dates he functioned. They are not normally indexed by the names of the persons involved in the contract.

Notarial records are first sent to the judicial archives, but they are eventually deposited in the branches of the Archives Nationales du Québec.

How to Use the Collection
Notarial records for each notary are usually arranged chronologically, so records of most value to the family historian are mixed with other written agreements, including conveyances of land and other property, bonds for the payment of money, and deeds of partnership, to name just a few. Some early marriage contracts were prepared by priests and may not be in the notarial records.

In order to ease your search it may be valuable to narrow down the time period and possible location that are covered by the records you are looking for. This online collection is set up in a browse format and so you may have to browse through several records before finding the records relevant to your search.

Collection Content
Notarial records contain a variety of acts, there can be found in this collection:

• Marriage Contracts • Wills • Deeds • Inventories • Agreements and Settlements • Transfers of Property • Donations • Legal documents • Guardian records • Indenture records

Collection Description
The Quebec nortarial records in this collection are images of bound documents, for the most part handwritten in French. Most of the records begin with a page that gives the date and time, the name of the notary, and the parties involved.

Population Coverage
Most legal contracts in Quebec had to be noterized by a notrary. So the majorty of such documents can be found in collections of notarial records. Alothough, marriages were often preformed by the Catholic church and were sometimes not noterized, so when looking for marriage contracts it is advisable to check church records as well.

Collection Reliability
These documents are generally reliable as far as the information was know to the particiepents in the creation of the documents were aware.

Sources of Information for This Collection
"Quebec nortarial records, 1800-1900" database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org).Quebec nortarial records, la Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (divers endroits).