A Timeline of events from 1334-1916
Note: Some dates in Canadian genealogical history are shown in this
chronology because many persons of French descent settled in Canada (especially Quebec).
entries in oldest surviving French parish register begin this year.
||Mennonites arrive in France,
mostly in Alsace-Lorraine region.
||Parish registers rare
until this date when Francis I required priests to keep baptismal records that show date
and hour of birth.
||Protestantismbegins in earnest in
Waldensians executed in towns of Cabrieses and Merindol.
||Paris synod decides that pastors
should keep record of Protestant baptisms and marriages.
||Council of Trent
requires that godparents' names be recorded in baptismal certificates.
||Large-scale migration of
Huguenots begins after St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre occurs in this year.
||Priests required to
record deaths and marriages in parish registers.
||Edict of Nantes grants religious
freedom. Many French Protestant records date from this year, which are arranged by town or
province depending on denomination.
||Parishes required to
make duplicates of parish registers. Many do, but compliance was not universal. Most
registers covering the period prior to 1792 have been turned over to departmental
||Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. Many Protestants flee the country, and some Protestant records are destroyed. Some
French Protestants show up in abjuration records when they renounced Protestantism and
converted to Roman Catholicism rather than face exile or death.
||France loses its
Canadian land holdings to the British in the Treaty of Paris, which ends the Seven Years
War (French and Indian War).
||Fire destroys many pre-1860 civil
registers of Paris. The government has reconstructed 3 million of the estimated 8 million
||Louis XVI signs the
Edict of Tolerance.
||British Parliament enacts
Constitutional Act, which splits Quebec into provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Each
province is to be governed by a legislative council appointed for life, and a legislative
assembly to be elected by the people.
||Civil registration of
births, marriages, and deaths begins in France. Most civil registers 100 or more years old
will be found at departmental archives.
French consuls are assigned the duty of recording births, marriages, and deaths of French
citizens in foreign countries.
Divorce permitted in France during
the period 1792-1816.
||National Archives of Canada holds
records of immigrant settlers and passenger lists for the period 1801-1849. A card index
known as the Miscellaneous Immigration Index covers these records. The index is online at
||The government does a
census every five years. These census typically provide surname, age, occupation,
nationality, and sometimes birthplace, but are difficult to access because they are not
indexed. Census records are also kept strictly confidential for 100 years after
||The government does a census in
1872, because Franco-Prussian War delays census that should have been done in 1871. A
census is then done every five years during the period 1876-1911. These census typically
provide surname, age, occupation, nationality, and sometimes birthplace, but are difficult
to access because they are not indexed.
||Divorces permitted in
France beginning in this year.
|Pre-1900 vital records of Quebec
are in the custody of 9 regional offices of the Archives nationales du Quebec. Records
1900-present are kept at the Ministere de la Justice at Quebec City.
||Census that was to
have been done this year is never accomplished after being postponed by World War I.
Census-taking resumes on five-year schedule in 1921.