The Society for the Preservation of the Heritage of Pointe-Claire, located in the western part of the island of Montreal, announced an initiative to provide transcriptions of notarial records related to Pointe-Claire for a fee.
The notarial records (actes) include land grants and sales, hiring contracts, estate inventories, wills, and marriage contracts.
The society said, “Transcribing these deeds has been a colossal undertaking, representing seven years of full-time work. The original deeds, written in quill pen, are hard to read and these transcriptions now make them readily accessible.”
So far, paleographer Jules Guérard has transcribed 3,600 records from 1672 onward.
Search for family names
Genealogists curious to know if their ancestors’ notarial records are among the transcribed collection can search family names at the bottom of the society’s web page about this initiative. The search results list the type of notarial records, the people concerned, the name of the notary, and the date of the record.
There is also a great deal of information about the Pointe-Claire pioneer families, Pilon, Brunet, Charlebois, Larocque, Legault, Blondin, Saint-Denis, Valois, Jamme dit Carrière, Lanthier, Neveu, Cardinal, Perrier, Daoust, Boileau, Brisebois, Dubois, Aumais, Malette, Sauvé dit Laplante, Demers, and Mitchell.
The transcribed records cover an area that is larger than today’s city of Pointe-Claire. In the 1600s and 1700s, Pointe-Claire extended to Dorval and Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield. The transcriptions also include some notarial records from neighbouring parishes.
About 2,700 transcribed notarial records, mostly in French, are available to purchase through the society’s online store. Prices range from $20 for up to 70 lines to $90 for up to 315 lines. Lengthier records are, not surprisingly, more expensive.
The notarial records were obtained from the Parchemin database.
