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Cap-de-la-Madeleine was formed in 1855 under the name of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine-du-Cap-de-la-Madeleine. It was renamed Cap-de-la-Madeleine in 1918 and merged with Trois-Rivières in 2002. Cap-de-la-Madeleine is a former city in Quebec, Canada at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River and the St. Lawrence River. It was amalgamated into the City of Trois-Rivières in 2002. Population (2006 census) 33,022. Cap-de-la-Madeleine was founded March 20, 1651. The establishment was named by Jacques de La Ferté, who was abbot of Sainte-Madeleine de Châteaudun in France. The city is famous for its basilica, Basilique Notre-Dame du Cap, dedicated to Our Lady of the Cape. The Basilica receives thousands of pilgrims and visitors each year. Pilgrims are drawn to the site because it is considered to be the place where two miracles were performed by the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first being the Miracle of the Ice Bridge (1879) and the other being the Miracle of the Eyes (1888). The first official pilgrimage occurred in 1883 and consisted of roughly 150 people who traveled to the location by foot.[3] The site is considered the first pilgrimage site in North America, excluding Mexico. During World War II the Royal Canadian Air Force built and operated No. 11 Elementary Flying Training School as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan [4] in Cap-de-la-Madelaine. The school opened on 14 October 1940 and closed on 11 February 1944. The airfield was located in what is now a residential area of near rue Saint Maurice and rue de Grandmont. The inhabitants call themselves Madelinois and Madelinoise. Other interesting sites Fort Saint-François: built 1660 and late abandoned with no visible traces remaining on what is now Notre dame du Cap Sanctuary Fort du Moulin-à-Vent: built between 1649 and 1653; now a residential area
[edit] Research Tips[edit] French names for placesBecause 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. [edit] Local government structureThe 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,
[edit] CensusesCensuses were taken throughout the 19th century in Quebec (or in Lower Canada or Canada West before 1867). Surprisingly most of them have been archived and have been placed online free of charge by the Government of Canada (both microfilmed images and transcriptions). All can be searched by name or browsed by electoral district. The contents vary. Those of 1825, 1831 and 1841 record only the householders by name, but remaining members of each household were counted by sex and by age range. From 1851 through 1921 each individual was named and described separately. The amount of information increased throughout the century, and in 1901 people were asked for their birthdate and the year of immigration to Canada. Unfortunately, enumerators were required only to record the birthplace province or country (if an immigrant). Specific birthplaces have to be discovered elsewhere. The links below are to the introductory page for the specific census year. It is wise to read through this page first to see what will be provided on a specific census, and what will be lacking. Links to the records follow from these pages.
[edit] Other Sources
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