If you didn’t find any notary records for your Quebec ancestor when Ancestry first introduced its fabulous Quebec Notarial Records, 1637-1935, last fall, now may be the time to take another look. Ancestry has updated the collection.
While there doesn’t seems to be any indication about what the update entails, it appears to include a lot more records, and there are still plenty more to digitize and post online. I just found several records for an elusive ancestor that were not there before.
When you search Ancestry’s collection you will often find only the répertoire — a page from the notary’s index. In that case, you can order a digital copy of the full record from the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec for only 25 cents a page. When placing your order, take note of the notary’s name and city, record number, names of the parties involved, date, and type of record, i.e., will, marriage contract, estate inventory, lease.
Tip: Search for married women by their maiden name.
If you see Bail in Record Type, don’t panic. Bail is French for Lease.
These two blog posts will help you search the collection:
How to find your ancestors in Ancestry’s new Quebec notary collection
Ancestry’s new Quebec notary collection even better than realized
That’s funny, the first time I saw Bail in the Record Type I thought, oh no! Looking forward to seeing what else might be in the records for my ancestors now. I definitely want to get to the archives in person in the next year or so.
So far, it appears that none of my Presbyterian maternal Innes ancestors used a notary while in Montreal 1913 (immigration)-1918 (death)
Gail, are you aware of any “cheat sheet” that translates key legal terms to English?
No, but what a great idea.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Just found the indexed record for my husband’s gg grandparents will and testament in 1880. Have sent off an email to ask if they have any schedule as to when the actual documents will be digitized and depending on the response a trip to Montreal may be in order! So far that’s the only one I have looked up but will get my list out. Who knows what I will find! Exciting!
They can easily scan the document for you for only 25 cents per page. Good to learn you have found a notary your family used.
Just ordered wills for my husband’s gg grandparents from a lovely lady at the office in Sherbrooke. Can’t wait to receive them. Almost afraid to check other names in the family. Could get expensive.
Fabulous!