Ancestral origins and the genetic heritage of Quebec_regional populations

46 Pages·2012·6.59 MB·English

Social Statistics Speaker Series
McGill University
Montréal, February 29th, 2012
• The BALSAC database
• Genetic demography and the genealogical approach
• Ancestral origins and the genetic heritage of Quebec regional
populations
• Combining genealogical and molecular data
• Combining birth, marriage and death records
• Combining civil records and census data
• Current and future developments of the database
What is the BALSAC population register?
 The BALSAC Population Register was initiated in 1972 at the Université du
Québec à Chicoutimi. It is owned by a university consortium.

 The information contained in the database comes primarily from the vital data
records (births, marriages, deaths) for the province of Quebec.

 It is designed for automatic construction of ascending or descending genealogies,
family histories and individual life courses.

 The overall, long term objective is to cover the entire population of Quebec from
the onset of the settlement (at the beginning of the 17th century) up to recent
years.

Chronological distribution of marriage records
for the Quebec population, 1620-1970
450000
Records to be processed
400000
Computerized records (n = 2 029 441)
350000 Current state of the database
s (Feb 2012):
d 300000
r
o
c  2,1 M marriage records
e
e r 250000
g  0,8M birth and death
ai
arr 200000 certificates
m
f
o 150000  5 M distinct individuals
r
e
b
m  2,5 M families
100000
u
N
50000
0
Period
Catholic vs non Catholic records
 The Catholic church : very good and exhaustive recording of
vital events in parish registers

 Information much less good for non-Catholics
 Virtually 100% of Catholic marriage records contain the name of
spouses’ parents or previous spouse
 For non Catholic records, name of the parents is known in about 23%
of cases for husbands and about 30% for wives (improves with time)
Q u e b e c m a r r i a g e s
• Registre de population du Québec ancien, Programme de recherche en
Before1800
démographie historique, Université de Montréal
• Civil records kept in law courts
1800-1939
• Microfilms of civil records from the Fonds Drouin
• Digitized images of marriage records from the Direction de l’état civil du
1940-1965
Québec
S a g u e n a y b a p t i s m s , m a r r i a g e s , b u r i a l s
1840-1971
• Civil records kept in law courts
The construction of
the database
The B AL SAC 's Fami ly Re co n s t i t u t i o n Sy s t e m:
Re pre s e nt at i o n o f t h e li nkag e pr o ce d ur e s (1)
2%
• The BALSAC record linkage
Automatic linkages system, which processes the vital
9% data records, regroups in a same
family record all mentions
Computer-assisted
manual linkages pertaining to the same married
27% couple.
Impossible linkages (2)
62%
• The decision making process
Complex cases under
draws almost exclusively on
investigation
nominative information contained
in the records.

(1) Linkage operations on 2,4M mentions of couples from Quebec marriage
certificates over the period 1800 -1940.

(2) This category refers to candidates for linkage who are out of BALSAC's
scope, most of these couples were married outside Quebec.
De mo g e n e t ic r e s ear ch wit h
g e n ealo g ical dat a