                                       Dave Bradshaw   
                                       Fidonet 163/545.6
                                       Internet af598@freenet.carleton.ca 


                  FRENCH CANADIAN LADIES FOUND IN OLD DROUIN

     This is a project that I felt needed doing, so I did it.  It has
taken months of work, and sometimes great resolve to continue to the
end.  There are approximately 45,000 names listed in the file.  I had
used the Old Drouin for many of my wifes French Canadian ancestors along
with many of the other standard indexed works such as Jette, Tanguay,
the newer Drouin sets and the PRDH.  However, I kept coming back to Old
Drouin asking myself why wasn't there any index by women.  There wasn't,
and so the project was started.

     This ASCII condensed printer file is not an index of all the
information that is contained in the first two of three book set of what is
known as Old Drouin, only a portion of the information.  The organization
of the data on a given line is in the following order.

     Daughters Surname
     Daughters Other Surnames or dit Names
     Daughters Given Name or Names
     Fathers Other Surnames or dit Names
     Fathers Given Name or Names
     Mothers Surname
     Mothers Other Surnames or dit Names
     Mothers Given Name or Names
     Page Number where the entry can be found
     * Indicator Drouin has a correction of the data.

     If you are familiar with the layout of the Drouin book then you will
recognize that all the data is from the area of the middle of the page. 
Perhaps an example of a typical entry on page 493 would be useful at
this point.

FLUET Francois-Louis        Bonhomme-Beaupre Anne-Felicite       Lorette
      Louis et Marguerite-       Noel et Felicite Hamel      30 Oct 1731
        Agnes Chevalier                     (page 140)

In the above,
      daughters surname would show as Bonhomme
      daughters other surname would show as Beaupre
      daughters given name as Anne-Felicite
      fathers given name as Noel
      mothers surname as Hamel
      mothers given name as Felicite
      page number would be 493

or for one which fills all entries from page 611

GRENIER Antoine         Morare-Laforme Louise                     Quebec
   Jean et Anne Ricard     Francois                          23 Nov 1772 
                            et Angelique Loisy-Desrochers      
                            (voir Mourand, page 986)
In the above,
      daughters surname would show as Morare
      daughters other surname would show as Laforme
      daughters given name as Louise
      fathers other surname as Mourand
      fathers given name as Francois
      mothers surname as Loisy
      mothers other surname as Desrochers
      mothers given name as Angelique
      page number would be 611

     Throughout the database, entries have been processed as they
show in the book, entries such as M.-Francoise, M.-Anne, etc. have been
typed with the abbreviation as shown.  Entries with no parents showing
have the missing fields filled with hyphens.  Entries with only a single
name have hyphens in all missing fields.  Native Indian names with the
"8" character are typed as found.  Any situations where there are more
than three surnames, such as found on page 709 under Houe and on page
743 under Benoit have one of the surnames followed by a "\" to separate
the second surname.
      
     I used the 1985 edition of Drouin and had three sets of Drouin
corrections and addendums to entries in the books, a set headed 1978,
another headed 1979 and a final headed 1985.  An alpha indicator at the
right side of an entry indicates that there is a correction or addendum to
the book.  The alpha entries consist of the letters A through F used in the
following way.
      A  indicates 1978 correction
      B  indicates 1979 correction
      C  indicates 1985 correction
      D  indicates both an A and B
      E  indicates both a B and C
      F  indicates both an A and C

     In the few cases where the corrections and addendums show as a true
addendum, that is, there was no entry in the book to replace information,
then I have picked up the relevant new information from the addendum and
put it into the sorted file.  Not doing this would have meant that new
information might have been missed because nothing would have been found
for it in the book.

     Each individual record is indexed and the entire file is sorted in
the sequence shown below.
     Daughter surname
     Daughter dit surname
     Father dit surname
     Father given name
     Mother surname
     Mother given name

     The effect of the sort, brings together all people with the same
surname and groups together all daughters born of the same parents as
well it also brings together situations where the same daughter might
have married more than once.  The file takes no account of the male line
other than the entry of the Father.

     It goes without saying that to use the file, you need access at a
copy of Old Drouin.  The file can either be printed out, or as most of
us do, use a program like LIST to search and read the file on the
screen and then perhaps print out the information.    To use the file, go
to the surname you are seeking, then look to the right side for the names
of the parents.  Having located them, their daughter(s) names will be shown
to the left of the father's given name.  The page numbers on the right side
will indicate the page in Drouin where the entry can be found and from that
entry the marriage data and a male line backward can be traced.  Any page
numbers with a letter following indicates that there is a correction for
the entry found on that page.  Entries of other names or dit names is there
for completeness of data and may be of use if the surname was also used a
dit name.  It is always a good idea to look under the dit name for any
entries as well.  I did not change anything I found in the Drouin book and
it is possible that an entry for a second daughter to have had the dit name
shown first and the surname second. If so, the sort would place it in a
different area.

     During the building of the file some discrepancies came to light.

     There are a number of pages where a marriage is printed twice,
once on the bottom of a page and again on the top of the following page. 
I have picked up only one of the two entries in that the data is
identical.

     Sometimes spelling varies, from how a person shows on one page to
how the same person shows on another page.  The surname field of a
daughter, or mother may be spelled differently on the page where the
father and mother married.  I did not attempt to correct any of these
types of differences.

     While I have attempted to do a credible job in the typing of the
data, the possibility of error is always there.  Any such errors, it is
hoped will not have materially affected the sort order so that a
particular entry cannot be found.

     No accents have been recorded both because I neither a French keyboard
nor a software program to create the characters and because of the
possibility that some printers might not be able to reproduce them
accurately.
 
     Any distribution of the file must have this README file attached
to it, to ensure a proper understanding of what the data represents.
  
     I retain the rights to the originally created file and NO permission 
is given for anyone to make a profit from this file.  The file is free 
for the general use of genealogists everywhere.

     If you think the finding aid is useful, great, send me message saying
you think so, if you don't like it, don't use it, and hang on to your
message.  Good researching with the file.    

Dave Bradshaw
1436 Appleton Dr.
Gloucester, ON.
K1B 3X7
Canada

also at Internet af598@freenet.carleton.ca   and at Fidonet 1:163/545.6
