Go Directly to the Montreal Protestant Church List
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Records in Quebec have always been recorded and kept as Catholic or non-Catholic. There was no civil registration as there was in other provinces so church records are your main source for births marriages and deaths. Knowing the religion of your ancestors is the first and most important piece of information to find before you embark on any research of this kind. Catholic or non-Catholic is all you need to know to begin. |
Montreal may
not have civil registration indexes, but they have 2 wonderful sets of
Birth, Marriage and Death (BMD) indexes dating from1760-1994 for non-Catholics.
Below are lists of the index films for pre-1900
and for the 20th century stating what's contained
on them and the LDS film # s so you can order them into your local FHC.
At this point I don't know of any Montreal indexes or Church records on-line except the few very early records (1766-1788) that I'm extracting from old Canadian Archive reports |
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When indexing of the church records first began a few decades ago, it began with the smaller project in Montreal - the non-Catholics. For some reason, possibly lack of funds for the project, the indexing of Catholic records never happened. More will be written on researching Catholic church records at a later date. |
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Index of baptisms, marriages and deaths for non-Catholics of Montreal and rural parishes to 1899.
The best tool you will ever use
for tracking down those
Each of the categories (Births, Marriages and Deaths) are divided into 3 sections:
BAPTISMS
DEATHS
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Now What?? Once you're armed with the year, church and folio number from the index, the next step is to order the appropriate church film to view the original record. For this see: including dates of operation, with links to church histories, film numbers and the appropriate Archives. |
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Register of the Anglican Parish of Montreal 1766-1787 84th Regiment of Foot - Births 1779-1787 84th Regiment of Foot - Marriages 1779-1788 |
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marriages and deaths for the 20th century. But there are a few important points you should note: 1. Indexing seemed to slack off during the 1970s so from around 1970 onward the indexes are incomplete. The good news is that there are less films to order, but the bad news is that your relatives may not be in the index. 2. There are many reels per section/decade in the 20th century indexes. This is due to the way in which the indexes have been set up. In the pre 1900 indexes and the 1900-1925 marriages and death indexes the names are on a typed list showing 70 or 80 entries per page. On the 20th century films the indexes are photographs of index cards - giving you only 3 names per page when photocopying. 3. Like many places
in the world, privacy laws rule for the 20th century. Unlike the 19th century,
there are no corresponding church films to accompany the 20th century indexes.
Access to these records is through the various Church Archives and disclosure
of this information is up to the discresion of the individual archivist.
See Researching 20th Century Church Records.
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Montreal Gazette Newspaper Articles: Demolition one step closer, "Quebec won't protect First Church of Christ Scientist as heritage site". By LINDA GYULAI, Montreal Gazette, Saturday, May 20, 2000 Too
many churches to save - Condo developers are licking their chops
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