During a ceremony last week at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the Governor General of Canada Mary Simon invested Jacques Légaré, professor emeritus in demography at the Université de Montréal, into the Order of Canada as a Member
The Order of Canada is one of the country’s highest honours.
If you’ve researched your Quebec ancestors who lived anytime from the beginning of New France to 1849, you’ve probably benefitted from one of the top research tools, the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) or the Research Program in Historical Demography, created by professors Jacques Légaré and Hubert Charbonneau.
PRDH is a demographic study that reconstructs the European population of Quebec. It is housed in the Demography Department of the Université de Montréal.
What is incredible for researchers is that there is a biographical file for each individual that provides the date and location of birth, marriages(s), death, and family and conjugal ties with other people. It also includes migrant lists, early marriage contracts, and census transcriptions.
Once you get back to the late 1700s with your research on the bilingual PRDH website, you can practically leap back in your ancestry.
In the media advisory listing the 42 appointees to the Order of Canada, Jacques Légaré was described as “one of Canada’s leading demographers. Professor emeritus at Université de Montréal, he played a key role in creating the databases for the Research Program in Historical Demography and the Registre de la population du Québec ancien, which solidified his international reputation.
“His work has guided the work of several generations of researchers, while enabling citizens to learn more about their family history by retracing the paths of their ancestors. A renowned communicator, he is known to the general public for his media appearances, where he discusses a range of topics, including population aging.”
The demographic study at the Université de Montréal is currently under the official responsibility of Professor Lisa Dillon, in collaboration with Professor Alain Gagnon.
PRDH is a subscription site, but you can do a first-level search on the public side for free.
