The new availability of Quebec church records on Ancestry is a huge benefit to all. They are not yet indexed (but will be), but at this point can be browsed through. I just put in the place name of Noyan and find the Angican records there immediately. You have to have some time on your hands to check each one, but what better way to spend a Sunday? ;-) http://content.ancestry.ca/Browse/list.aspx?dbid=1091&path= --Pam (I still have a few hours to kill before the Gators play in the NCAA Championship today) Research Recommendations Drouin Collection Online by Michael J. Leclerc Founded in 1899 by Québec lawyer Joseph Drouin, L’Institut Généalogique Drouin (The Drouin Institute) has been one of the major resources for French-Canadian research for over a century. Among his many activities, Drouin microfilmed records from areas in North America that were settled by the French, including Québec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Illinois and Michigan. He also microfilmed records from areas where French-Canadians later settled in the U.S., such as Massachusetts and upstate New York. All parish registers in the province of Québec, regardless of denomination, were microfilmed by Drouin. These records are the lynchpin for all French-Canadian research. L’Institut Drouin folded in the 1990s and the assets were sold to The American-French Genealogical Society in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Jean-Pierre Pepin of Longeuil, Québec. Pepin spent several years digitizing the Drouin Collection with high-quality scans of the microfilm. The Generations Network has recently made these records available on their Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca websites. Ancestry.com has separated the images into six databases: Quebec Vital Records (Drouin Collection) 1621-1967; Ontario French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967 Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1695-1954; Acadia French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1670-1946; Quebec Notarial Records (Drouin Collection), 1647-1942; Miscellaneous French Records (Drouin Collection), 1651-1941. The records are not yet indexed, but are fully browseable. The various church records databases are organized by location, then by year. The notarial records database is organized by the name of the notary. The miscellaneous records are organized by the name of the record set. The Generations Network has teamed with the Programme de Recherche en Démographie Historique (PRDH) at l’Université de Montréal to index the records. The PRDH will ensure that the French names will not be mistranslated in the index. Work is also in progress for a French-language interface for the databases, to make it easier for Francophones to use. Browsing the database was very easy. In addition to browsing directly to a location, you can search for location names, church name, year, religion, or keyword. Because many of the names are in French, it may be easier for Anglophones unfamiliar with French spellings to browse down to the town. For example, one common problem for Anglophone beginners is that there are two words for saint in French, one for masculine and one for feminine. If the church was named for a male, the word is Saint; for females, the spelling is Sainte. Complicating the search process is the fact that they have used the short form of the words —St and Ste — in the titles of the databases (note that there is no period). Ancestry has also included hyphens between words in the names of the locations, as they apper in the original French. Despite my best efforts I was unable to find some locations using the search box. I browsed to the location and made sure I typed the name character for character as it appeared in their list, but the location still did not appear in search results. For the moment, it may be faster for you to browse to the location rather than search for it. All in all, this is an extremely valuable set of data for those of French-Canadian descent to have access to. Once it is fully indexed and searchable by name it will become the premier online resource for researching those ancestors. You can search it directly from the Ancestry.com or Ancestry.ca homepages by clicking the Quebec Vital Records link. For more information on the Drouin Institute, read my article on NewEnglandAncestors.org at http://www.newenglandancestors.org/education/articles/research/localities/atlantic_canada/the_drouin_institute_659_10816.asp. Pam Wood Waugh pam@woodwaugh.com or 730 Dunhill Drive waughp@yahoo.com Orlando, FL 32825 http://www.woodwaugh.com - Family Lines http://www.rootsweb.com/~qceastwn/ - Eastern Townships of QC Research