Genealogical Dictionary of our Origins

[Description] [Sample] [Introduction (from GDO, vol. 1)] [Version française]

Volume 1 was published in June 1998.

The DGFQ (Dictionnaire généalogique des Familles du Québec, by René Jetté) is a genealogical dictionary published in 1983. It covers French people in the area now called Quebec, and named at that time Canada or New France.  It is the more complete work on the subject and you will see it in any Quebec-oriented genealogical library.  Published by Presses de l'Université de Montréal, it remained nearly unchanged since its is out of press.  There were 32 typos corrected in the reprints of 1985 and 1991, and in 1996, there was a booklet with a set of corrections.

The GDO (Genealogical Dictionary of our Origins) is the result of a long search about sources of Quebec families.  Original target was to gather a few errors found in DGFQ and to put them in a Web page.  Search begun during end of 1995 by reading articles published in Mémoires de la SGCF.  Then, the author consulted other genealogical publications in the Montreal area, mostly from Quebec or France, looking for new corrections.  He added 2 topics to the initial scope: ancestral lines out of Quebec and the first generation of descendants out of Quebec (in particular those back in France and migration to Louisiana).

While gathering this data, notes were taken in view of next volumes and supplements.  In April 1999, material not yet released is estimated to be large enough to form 2 or 3 more supplements, mostly European material.  Since one year, an average of more than one baptism record was located daily.  See Fichier Origine for baptisms only.

GDO Volume 2 (already released in French, not yet adapted to English) covers period 1731-1799 (actually, until 1875).  It includes French ancestors, returns to France, corrections to Tanguay, lost but rebuilt marriages and homonymous couples.

Important: the revision policy was changed.  Because of the huge qunatity of new acts found at this time, instead of an yearly revision that would be obsolete very fast, new material will be presented as supplements.  Thus, no revision is planned for 1999 and there will be 2 or 3 supplements.

For example, I already have many lines from European ancestors married in Quebec between 1731 and 1799.  By the way, this work was used to build the Origine file in this site.  Volumes 3 (Acadia) and 4 (Louisiana, Illinois, Huguenots, etc.) are in early documentation step and references are gathered.  Those volumes will be published when ready.

There are more records to find and some will be included in the next supplements of this dictionary.  Indeed, to avoid delaying publication, the author decided to publish what was found, and later, to publish updates.
 
 

Important: the Web version is dated May 1997.  The printed version has much more data.

This first edition is my reply to the expections of enthousiastic genealogists who wrote me to get their printed copy.  To avoid disadvantaging buyers of that first release, while making available a version easier to read and more complete than a series of web pages, each new edition will include a supplement with additions and corrections found in the meanwhile.

To get an overview of the dictionary, see the May 1997 version.  I will try to publish on this site a list of families included in the dictionary and main works in process.  For now, more supplements are in preparation.
 
 

About the English version.  This is not a full translation of the French version.  The reason is that it contains striked out text from the DGFQ.  With a string replacement, I think the text may become hard to read.  And with a line by line translation, volume 2 would never be published.  Thus, the English version has an introduction in English.  This section has more pages because there are much more definitions which are often obvious in French.  The genealogical part is similar in both versions.  The English version has also a list of abbreviations not found in the French version.