Place:Québec, Canada

NameQuébec
Alt namesQuebecsource: English spelling
PQsource: Wikipedia (Postal abbreviation)
QCsource: Postal abbreviation
P.Q.source: Wikipedia (former abbreviation)
Que.source: Wikipedia (former abbreviation)
Province du Québecsource: NIMA, GEOnet Names Server (1996-1998)
Québecsource: Getty Vocabulary Program
Québec provincesource: Getty Vocabulary Program
Nouvelle-Francesource: name until 1763 (while a colony of France)
Province of Quebecsource: name while an English colony 1763-1791
Lower Canadasource: name 1792-1840
Canada Eastsource: name 1840-1867
TypeProvince
Coordinates54°N 72°W
Located inCanada     (1867 - )
See alsoNouvelle-Francename while a colony of France (until 1763)
Province of Quebec, Canadaname while an English colony 1763-1791
Contained Places
Administrative region
Abitibi-Témiscamingue ( 1898 - )
Bas-Saint-Laurent
Capitale-Nationale
Centre-du-Québec
Chaudière-Appalaches
Côte-Nord ( 1982 - )
Estrie
Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine ( 1987 - )
Lanaudière
Laurentides
Laval
Mauricie ( 1997 - )
Mauricie–Bois-Francs ( 1982 - 1997 )
Montérégie ( 1982 - )
Nord-du-Québec
Outaouais
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
Border crossing
Lacolle Junction
Borough
Westmount ( 2006 - present )
Census division
Basse-Côte-Nord
Constituency
Wright
County
Gatineau (county) ( 1930 - 1982 )
Former administrative division
Hesse District ( 1763 - 1792 )
Historical county
Abitibi ( 1898 - 1982 )
Argenteuil ( 1855 - 1982 )
Arthabaska ( - 1982 )
Bagot ( 1855 - 1982 )
Beauce ( 1855 - 1982 )
Beauharnois ( 1855 - 1982 )
Bellechasse ( 1855 - 1982 )
Berthier ( 1855 - 1982 )
Bonaventure ( 1855 - 1982 )
Brome ( - 1982 )
Chambly ( 1855 - 1982 )
Champlain ( - 1982 )
Charlevoix ( 1853 - 1982 )
Chicoutimi ( 1855 - 1982 )
Châteauguay ( 1855 - 1982 )
Compton ( 1793 - 1982 )
Deux-Montagnes ( - 1983 )
Dorchester ( - 1982 )
Drummond ( - 1982 )
Frontenac ( 1912 - 1982 )
Gaspé ( - 1885 )
Gaspé-Est ( 1885 - 1982 )
Gaspé-Ouest ( 1885 - 1982 )
Hull ( 1855 - 1970 )
Huntingdon ( - 1982 )
Iberville
Joliette
Kamouraska ( - 1982 )
L'Assomption
L'Islet
L'Île-d'Orléans
Labelle ( - 1982 )
Lac-Saint-Jean-Est
Lac-Saint-Jean-Ouest ( - 1982 )
Laprairie ( - 1982 )
Laval
Lotbinière
Lévis
Maskinongé
Matane ( - 1982 )
Matapédia ( - 1982 )
Missisquoi
Montcalm
Montmagny
Montmorency No 1
Mégantic
Napierville ( - 1982 )
Nicolet ( - 1982 )
Papineau
Pontiac
Portneuf
Richelieu
Richmond
Rimouski
Rivière-du-Loup ( 1930 - 1982 )
Rouville
Saguenay
Saint-Hyacinthe
Saint-Jean ( 1854 - 1982 )
Saint-Maurice
Shefford ( - 1982 )
Sherbrooke ( 1802 - )
Soulanges ( - 1982 )
Stanstead
Terrebonne
Témiscamingue ( - 1982 )
Témiscouata
Vaudreuil ( - 1982 )
Verchères
Wolfe
Yamaska ( 1855 - 1982 )
Île-de-Montréal ( - 2002 )
Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Historical province
Acadia ( 1604 - 1713 )
Inhabited place
Gagnon
L'Isle Verte
Lac-Bellemare
Lac-Masson
Lac-Saint-Charles
Ladysmith
Lafontaine
Notre-Dame-du-Nord
Pine Beach
Rouyn-Noranda
Saint-Antoine
Saint-Denis-Rivière-Richelieu
Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville
Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu
Saint-Philippe-d'Argenteuil
Saint-Romuald
Saint-Émile-de-Montcalm
Saint-Émile-de-Québec
Sainte Aime
Sainte-Sophie-de-Mégantic
St Hyacinthe
St.-Hilaire
Templeton
Touraine
Val-Saint-Michel
Waskaganish
Westmount ( 2006 - present )
Westmount ( 2006 - present )
Westmount ( 2006 - present )
Island
Anticosti Island
Île Jésus
Military base
Valcartier Camp
Region
Québec
Territory
Montréal TE ( 2002 - )
Nouveau-Québec
Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Unknown
Iberville (ste-brigide)
St-Césaire
St-Mathias-sur-le-Richelieu
St-Ours
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Quebec (sometimes  ; French: ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the largest province by area and the second-largest by population. Much of the population lives in urban areas along the St. Lawrence River, between the most populous city, Montreal, and the provincial capital, Quebec City. Quebec is the home of the Québécois nation. Located in Central Canada, the province shares land borders with Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast, and a coastal border with Nunavut; in the south it borders Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York in the United States.

Between 1534 and 1763, Quebec was called Canada and was the most developed colony in New France. Following the Seven Years' War, Quebec became a British colony: first as the Province of Quebec (1763–1791), then Lower Canada (1791–1841), and lastly Canada East (1841–1867), as a result of the Lower Canada Rebellion. It was confederated with Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in 1867, beginning the Dominion of Canada. Until the early 1960s, the Catholic Church played a large role in the social and cultural institutions in Quebec. However, the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s to 1980s increased the role of the Government of Quebec in l'État québécois (state of Quebec).

The Government of Quebec functions within the context of a Westminster system and is both a liberal democracy and a constitutional monarchy. The Premier of Quebec, presently François Legault, acts as head of government. Québécois political culture mostly differs on a nationalist-vs-federalist continuum, rather than a left-vs-right continuum. Independence debates have played a large role in politics. Quebec society's cohesion and specificity is based on three of its unique statutory documents: the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the Charter of the French Language, and the Civil Code of Quebec. Furthermore, unlike elsewhere in Canada, law in Quebec is mixed: private law is exercised under a civil-law system, while public law is exercised under a common-law system.

Quebec's official language is French; Québécois French is the regional variety. The economy of Quebec is mainly supported by its large service sector and varied industrial sector. For exports, it leans on the key industries of aeronautics, hydroelectricity, mining, pharmaceuticals, aluminum, wood and paper. Quebec is well known for producing maple syrup, for its comedy, and for making hockey one of the most popular sports in Canada. It is also renowned for its culture; the province produces literature, music, films, TV shows, festivals, folklore, and more.

Contents

History

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Quebec#History.

How places in Canada are organized

Hierarchically

Alphabetically

Research Tips

French names for places

Because French is the one official language of Québec, WeRelate employs the French names for places within the province. Many placenames will be similar to their counterparts in English, with the addition of accents and hyphens between the words. The words "Saint" and "Sainte" should be spelled out in full. Placenames should be made up of four parts: the community (or parish, or township, or canton), the historic county, Québec, Canada. You may find placenames red-linked unless you follow these conventions.

Local government structure

The Province of Québec was made up of counties and territories. Counties in Québec were established gradually as the land was settled by Europeans. Each county included communities with some form of local governement (often church-based). Territories referred to the undeveloped sections under the control of the government in charge of the whole province at the time. The communities included townships and/or cantons, depending on the English/French makeup of the county concerned, and also included ecclesiastical parishes with somewhat different boundaries which could overlap with local townships or cantons. Ecclesiastical parish registers have been retained and are available to view (online through Ancestry). Since the 1980s many small townships and parishes are merging into larger "municipalities", often with the same name as one of their components.

Beginning in 1979 the historic counties of Québec were replaced by administrative regions and regional county municipalities (abbreviated as RCM in English and MRC in French). Regional county municipalities are a supra-local type of regional municipality, and act as the local municipality in unorganized territories within their borders. (An unorganized area or unorganized territory is any geographic region in Canada that does not form part of a municipality or Indian reserve. There is a list in Wikipedia.) There are also 18 equivalent territories (TEs) which are not considered to be RCMs. These are mostly large cities with their suburbs, but include 4 very large geographical areas where the population is sparse.

The administrative regions (above the RCMs in the hierarchy) are illustrated on a map in Wikipedia. The regions are used to organize the delivery of provincial government services and there are conferences of elected officers in each region. The regions existed before the change from historic counties to regional county municipalities.

The above description is based on various articles in Wikipedia including one titled Types of municipalities in Quebec

NOTE: WeRelate refers to Québec communities as being within their historic counties because this is the description which will be found in historical documents. FamilySearch and Quebec GenWeb follow the same procedure. However, it is always wise to know the current RCM as well in order to track these documents down in local repositories and also to describe events which have taken place since 1980.

Because the former or historic counties and the modern regional county municipalities can have the same names but may cover a slightly different geographical area, the placenames for Regional County Municipalities or "Territories Equivalent to regional county municipalities" are distinguished by including the abbreviation "RCM" or "TE" following the name.

Historic counties (which were taken out of use in about 1982) were made up of townships or cantons. The two words are equivalent in English and French. Eventually all the Québec cantons in WeRelate will be described as townships. Many townships disappeared before 1980 with the growth of urbanization.

If the word parish is used, this is the local ecclesiastical parish of the Roman Catholic Church. Parish boundaries and township or canton boundaries were not always the same.

The WeRelate standard form for expressing a place in Québec is township/canton/parish, historic county, Québec, Canada,
or local municipality, administrative region, Québec, Canada for places established after the changes of the 1980s.

Other Sources

  • FamilySearch Wiki Information for the province and for indivdiual counties, and places within counties.
  • The Drouin Collection: explaining its history and purpose in a FamilySearch Wiki article
  • The Drouin Collection provided by Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca (pay websites).
  • Genealogy Quebec in French, the website of the Drouin Institute. (also a pay website) with more databases than are on Ancestry.
  • Quebec GenWeb (English version--for the most part)
  • The Quebec Familiy History Society is the largest English-language genealogical society in Quebec. Most of their services are members only, but their Bulletin Board has useful tips for everyone. These may change from time to time.
  • The CanGenealogy page for Quebec. An overview of available online sources with links written by Canadian genealogist Dave Obee.
  • La Mémoire du Québec online. Édition 2017. "Le dictionnaire des noms propres du Québec." In other words, an up-to-date gazetteer of places in Québec organized as a wiki. Each entry is a timeline.
  • Eastern Townships of Quebec Connector. A blogpost with links to many websites dealing with Quebec genealogy, particularly for those who don't speak French well. All parts of Quebec are mentioned.
  • Google "translate French to English" for those words and phrases you can't quite remember from schooldays.

The Talk Page

Notes on the "Talk Page" accompanying this article.


This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Quebec. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.