Canadian Studies: Canadian demography and statistics

The PRDH data base includes some 2 400 000 certificates of various types, dated from 1621 to 1849. The vast majority correspond to the systematic extracting of information from records of baptisms, marriages, and burials that came to us from the parishes, missions, and Catholic institutions in Quebec that kept registers before 1850. Are also part of the data the 26 000 Protestant marriages recorded before 1850. The certificates were read and transcribed onto magnetic media according to a standard format that reproduces the essential information contained in the documents: type, place of registration, and date of the record; family names, first names, and characteristics of the people cited as the subject of the act, as their parents or as spouses. The documents for the period 1621–1765 include all of the individuals cited, thus including witnesses; beyond, they are generally not included, because it appeared preferable to favour the number of certificates