How to find your ancestors in Ancestry’s new Quebec notary collection

I’ve been busy — researching my ancestors in one of Ancestry’s latest collections, Quebec, Canada Notarial Records, 1626-1935. It is available on Ancestry.ca and available elsewhere if you have an Ancestry world subscription.

What a collection! Quebec’s notary records are unique in North America, and you can learn so much about your ancestors when you find these legal records, such as marriage contracts, wills, estate inventories, leases, property sales, and mortgages.

But perhaps you have already looked at the collection on Ancestry, found your ancestor’s name, and then wondered how to see the actual notarial acte.

What you see on Ancestry are digitized images of repertoires and some of the original actes. A repertoire is a notary’s register, organized chronologically as acts occurred. These repertoires are typically one-line descriptions of a notarial act. The entry provides the names of the parties concerned, the type of act, the date, and the number of the act. The name of the notary appears at the very top of the Ancestry page when you view the record.

Finding your ancestors’ notarial records
Here are some tips to help you find a copy of the actual act.

1. Enter every name you know
What makes this online collection terrific is that you can search by name. Search for every family name you know. Don’t assume because they didn’t have much money or a business, they never needed a notary. Chances are many of them did. Until Ancestry put these repertoires online, you had to know the name of a notary your ancestor used, go to the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) in person, request the repertoire or index book, and review the pages one by one. In some cases, the notary act was available in Archives des notaires du Québec des origines à 1935 (Quebec notaries archives from the beginning to 1935) on BAnQ’s website. Now, you can search many of the repertoires on Ancestry.

2. Search maiden names.
Women are almost always identified by their maiden name in Quebec notarial records. So, search for both men’s and women’s names.

3. Don’t be misled by the location
When you search for a name, the results will provide you with the Record Place — the jurisdiction where the original record was created. That is not the case with Ancestry’s record collection. For some reason, many of the Montreal notaries are placed in Quebec City. So, don’t ignore a record because it appears to be in the wrong place.

4. English and French
You will find records in English and French. The language of the notarial act often depends on the language of the concerned parties. For example, if a seller and buyer both speak English, the act will probably be written in English. If the seller who contracted the notary is French and the buyer is English, the act will likely be in French.

5. Not all repertoires are available online
Be aware that not all of the repertoires have been digitized. At the bottom of the description of the collection, Ancestry says, “Additional records will be added at a later date. See the full list of sources or the browse menu for details on which records are currently included in the database.”

6. Répertoire and Acte
If you see Répertoire in the Images Available column (see image below), that likely means you will only be able to see online the one-line entry in the repertoire book.

If you see Acte in the Images Available column, jump for joy. This means, you can find the digitized image by clicking on View Record where you can see both the repertoire entry and the actual act. Jump for joy again.

You can also look at the act on BAnQ’s website. Here’s how to do so.

When you see Acte in the results, click on the image under View Images. Look for the entry that interests you. Take note of the names of the parties concerned, the type of act, the complete date of the act, the number of the act, and the notary’s name.

7. How to find the document — the Acte — on BAnQ’s website
Next, if you have seen Acte in the Images Available column, go to Archives des notaires du Québec des origines à 1935 (Quebec notaries archives from the beginning to 1935) on BAnQ’s website to find actual act. (Again, this same act is under View Record on Ancestry.)

Search for the notary’s name (nom) by clicking on the appropriate letter. (You can also search by district or region.)

If you see an asterisk beside the notary’s name, such as d’Odet d’Orsonnens and Daigle in the image below, click on his name to see the digitized records. Then, in the left margin, choose the appropriate date. Finally, search for the act that appears in chronological order.

8. How to find a notarial record that has not been digitized
If the notary’s name does not have an asterisk beside it, you must look at the acts on site at BAnQ. If it is not possible to visit in person, send an email to BAnQ, asking if you can order the record. You may have to hire a researcher to look for the document for you. Make sure you indicate the names of the parties concerned, the type of act, the complete date of the act, the number of the act, and the notary’s name. BAnQ replies to queries in English and French and often within 24 to 48 hours.

If the notary you are looking for is not listed in the BAnQ’s Archives des notaires du Québec des origines à 1935, you can search for these notaries’ records through BAnQ’s archives catalogue, Pistard. As for how to search and use Pistard, that is a good topic for another day.

Now that you have found a notary your family used, you may want to browse the collection on Ancestry or on BAnQ.

See also Ancestry’s new Quebec notary collection even better than realized.