Trace Your French-Canadian Ancestors to France and Find Records | Jean-Yves Vanier-Verbeek
September 19, 2024 7:00 pm ET – sponsored by the Sault Ste Marie Branch
The session is structured in 4 steps:
- Discover a French ancestor that emigrated to New France
- Identify the date of birth (or baptism), the départment and the parish of origin in France of the French ancestor
- Find the website of the archives départementales (of the place of origin of the ancestor) which
offers digitized records - Find the digitized record of the ancestor in the archives départementales website.
For Step 1 and Step 2, I show the most effective printed and online resources available to search for
French Canadian ancestors and trace the lineage to the first French pioneer in New France. I engage
the participants by asking for volunteers to provide the names of a French-Canadian ancestor they
would like to trace back to France. I then demonstrate how to trace their lineage and locate the
French Canadian records along the way, to finally determine the place of origin in France for their
furthest ancestor.
For Step 3, I demonstrate the various methods to find the website of the archives départementales
which offers digitized records (of the place of origin of the French ancestor found).
Finally for Step 4, I demonstrate how to best navigate the archives départementales websites to
locate the digitized record of the ancestor.
Jean-Yves Vanier-Verbeek
Jean-Yves Vanier-Verbeek, originally from Québec, moved to Alberta in 1995 for an engineering career, with a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration. He left the corporate world 4 years ago to pursue his genealogy passion by volunteering with different genealogical societies and becoming a full-time genealogist. He is currently finishing his second certificate in Canadian records with the International Institute for Genealogical Studies, and has completed a number of courses related French Canadian and Acadian genealogy offered by various societies and organizations in Eastern Canada. In 2021, he started a small business offering genealogical research services with a specialization in French-Canadian, French-American, Acadian & Cajun ancestry. Over the years, he has created family websites and developed genealogy methodology guides. He is currently President of the Société généalogique du Nord Ouest (SGNO) based in Edmonton, Alberta, and host of the French Special Interest Group of the Alberta Genealogical Society’s Edmonton Branch. Jean-Yves is married to Crystal and has a 16 year old daugther Reva Evie.
