Citing Quebec "Actes de notaire" from online database

By ChristopherLather on Wed, 03/13/2019 - 14:07

Forums

I am delving into Quebec Notarial records for the first time, and am fascinated by the treasure trove of knowledge they've been providing. Truly breathing some flesh on my ancestors' skeletons of names, dates, and places.

That being said, I am trying to craft these citations to best reflect the fact that the image was viewed online, and in the case of FamilySearch among browsable images.

The basic citation used in my research notes has been something like this:

# Iberville, Québec, Actes de notaire, Jean-Ubald Tremblay, 1851-1892, dossier no. 3394, marriage contract, Gédéon Patenaude and Osite Gamache, 24 June 1862; accessed as “Actes de notaire, 1851-1892,” browsable images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS5X-ZSGY-Q : 12 March 2019) > Film # 008272640 > (beginning at) Image 1711 of 3205.

It seems necessary to add a third layer to this, but the format I've come up with doesn't seem quite right, and I can't help but view as bulky. In this case, what I've come up with looks like this:

Digital Filming Number (DGS) 8272640, microfilm 2372699, filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah: 2004, citing originals in Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Montréal.

I've included the DGS as that seems to be what I'm actually viewing, and am also wondering if it is redundant to also include the microfilm number?

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated!

Submitted byEEon Wed, 03/13/2019 - 16:44

ChristopherLather, you've covered most of the essentials. You ask specifically about the third layer. Given that Layer 1 cites the record you are eyeballing and Layer 2 cites the database-website provider-URL-image, then Layer 3 would provide source-of-the-source data—i.e., whatever your provider cites or whatever identifiers your provider uses in its catalog description.

From that standpoint, EE would

  • include the image number immediately after the URL:date. Reason: the film number is not smaller than the URL; to the contrary, the URL is just one item from the larger roll of film.
  • expand the third layer to identify what film 008272640 represents. Otherwise, looking at the dates for the overall collection, a user might expect all 41 years to be covered on that cited film.

        1.  Iberville, Québec, Actes de Jean-Ubald Tremblay, dossier no. 3394, marriage contract, Gédéon Patenaude and Osite Gamache, 24 June 1862; accessed as “Actes de notaire, 1851-1892,” browsable images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS5X-ZSGY-Q : 12 March 2019), images 1711–1714 of 3205; citing dossiers 2900, 2902–3840, 7 November 1860–2 April 1864, film # 008272640.

Submitted byChristopherLatheron Thu, 03/14/2019 - 08:47

Editor, thank you so much for the reply. Your modifications to my above citation make perfect sense to me. I can see how referencing all of Jean-Ubald Tremblay's notarial acts would be misleading.

My only remaining question is: would it be advisable to also include that the original microfilm is in the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Montréal, Québec as Family Search describes?