BALSAC: Quebec population database, 1621-1971

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Introduction

The BALSAC database was initiated in 1972 at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) ans has been developed in partnership with Université Laval, McGill University and Université de Montréal. The database is comprised of digitized Québec vital event records (mainly marriage certificates). These records are interconnected using a linkage method based on nominative information that allows for the automatic recreation of genealogical relations and kinship structures in the Quebec population over four centuries. BALSAC covers the entire territory of Quebec, from the beginning of European settlement in the 17th century to the contemporary period.

This is a quite unique infrastructure, both for its genealogical depth and the size of the population it covers. BALSAC is used by scientists in Quebec, Canada to conduct research in social, genetic and biomedical sciences.

Shortname

BALSAC

IDS compatible

Period

1621 - 1971

Territory

Québec, Canada

Category

Family Reconstitution

Contact information

Organisation

BALSAC project

Web Address

http://balsac.uqac.ca

Location

Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada

Postal Address

BALSAC project, Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, 555 boul. de l’Universite, Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada, G7H 2B1

Contact Persons

Hélène Vézina

helene_vezina@uqac.ca

Citation

BALSAC database (2015). url: http://balsac.uqac.ca

Questionnaire
Download questionnaire
The questionnaire was submitted on 20 February 2015 by Jean-Sébastien Bournival.

Scope / Status

Original goal

BALSAC is a database designed for the automatic construction of family histories as well as ascending and descending genealogies. The BALSAC project was initiated in 1972 at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi and the database covers the entire population of Quebec from the onset of European settlement (at the beginning of the 17th century) up to recent years. BALSAC is used in various projects pertaining to historical and social sciences. It is also extensively used in human genetics research (population genetics, genetic epidemiology). The information contained in the database comes primarily from marriage records.

Current status

Completed for marriages until 1965. Under construction for births and deaths.

Sample definition

The whole population is recorded through the marriage certificates from church registers: complete for Catholic records (covering 80-90% of the population), partial for other denominations. For the Saguenay region, all the vital data (births, marriages, deaths) have been recorded.

Geographic area under observation

BALSAC covers the entire province of Quebec in Canada, from the beginning of European settlement in the 17th century to the contemporary period.

Realized parts

Data entry and linkage operations of marriages are completed up to 1965 for the entire province of Quebec (for the period prior to 1800, the marriages in BALSAC were provided by the PRDH at the University of Montreal). For the Saguenay region, the database contains birth, marriage and death records of the entire population (1838 to 1971) and the linkage is completed.

Keywords

demography, church register, civil certificates, population genetics, history, occupations, life course, social science, migration, genealogy, consanguinity, kinship

Sources

From year	End year	Source	Explanation	PDF
1838	1971	Baptisms	For the Saguenay region.	PDF
1621	1965	Marriages from church registers	For the whole province of Quebec.	PDF
1839	1971	Burials	For the Saguenay region.	PDF
1969	1993	Civil marriage certificates	Partly processed.
		Genealogies	Genealogies of all individuals in the database can be reconstructed back to the first immigrants to Quebec.

Collection procedure

• Data colection period: since 1972, still on-going. • Data collection method: Original registers from parishes, microfilmed registers of parishes and digitized registers from the Direction de l’état civil du Québec • Transcription was done by individuals. 1 transcription out of 10 checked by proof reading. 3. Purpose of the transcription is research. • Control methods by researcher: Automated queries are performed regularly on the whole database in order to check for internal inconsistencies. • Data collection staff: Staff hired to perform data entry (around 100 in the past 40 years).

Observations

Units of observation

Unit of observation	Explanation	Number
Individuals		5,000,000
Married couples		2,500,000
Families		2,500,000

Are there any related observations that are not included in the database?

No, there is information about individuals mentioned in the vital records but who were never present in the Quebec territory (Example: an immigrant’s parents at his marriage).

How do the units of observation enter observation?

Individuals enter observation through the first civil record where they appear as subject or as parent.

How do the units of observation leave observation?

Individuals leave observation through the last civil record where they appear as subject or as parent.

Dates estimated

Most dates are exact, some are estimated.

Are some entry or exit dates unknown?

All entries have dates.

Can observations be linked to geographic locations?

Yes

Are the dates and locations of movements within the observation area recorded?

Are all individuals who lived in the households of sample members recorded?

Linkage

• Which sources and units of observation have been linked? - Family reconstitution based on births, marriages and deaths records for the Saguenay region; on marriage records for the other regions. • Documentation of linking (programme, manually) - Programmes developed at BALSAC allowing for semi-automatic and automatic linkage. • What are the rules for linking? - Linkage based almost exclusively on comparison of nominative data. • How each reconstructed person is traceable to the original sources /transcribed data? - Each event contains a link to the corresponding source (parish record). • How is linkage represented in the database? - There is a universal identification number for each person in the database and for each family. A person keeps the same ID number throughout all files. • In the INDIVIDU file, each person is linked to his/her parents (individual’s ID, father’s ID, mother’s ID). • In the COUPLE file, spouses are linked (husband’s ID, wife’s ID). Families are identified by a family number which regroups spouses and their children. • Linkage percentage - More than 90%. • Quality of linkage (own evaluation) - Excellent. • What reference/coding systems have been linked to the data? - HISCO, HISCLASS, Latitude-longitude coordinates.

Variables

Events

Type	Dated	Explanation
Birth	Yes	For the Saguenay region only.
Marriage	Yes	For the entire Québec province.
Death	Yes	For the Saguenay region only.

Variables

Date and place of birth and death (for Saguenay only), date and place of marriage, age, gender, marital status, religious denomination, occupation, consanguinity, place of residence.

Coding / Reference systems

Nearly 63% of all occupations are coded to HISCO, HISCLASS schemes. In terms of frequency, the coded occupations cover 98% of all occurrences in the database.

Locations (including geo-referenced systems): Coded at various geographic levels and georeferenced.

Religion, civil status, etc.: Homemade dictionary for civil status.

Data representation

MsSql

Kinship relations

Recording

The database structure allows for the reconstruction of all individual genealogies and exact measurement of kinship relationships among them. Moreover, canonical consanguinity declared by the spouses in the marriage certificates is recorded.

Depth of information

The database structure and depth allow for the reconstruction of kinship links up to 17-18 generations (10 generations on average).

Comparability

Variables are the same throughout the database.

Publications

1. Main publications about the database itself

BALSAC Annual Report 2013-2014.
Structure of the BALSAC database and content of the main tables.
Un aperçu des méthodes de reconstitution des familles et de jumelage des données du fichier de population BALSAC,

2. Main or exemplary publications on research based on the database

Moreau, C., Bherer, C., Vézina H., Jomphe, M., Labuda, D., & Excoffier, L. (2011). Deep Human Genealogies Reveal a Selective Advantage to Be on an Expanding Wave Front. Science, 334(6059), 1148-1150.
Vézina, H., Gauvreau, D., & Gagnon, A. (2012). Socioeconomic Fertility Differentials in a Late Transition Setting: A Micro-Level Analysis of the Saguenay Region in Quebec. Demographic Research, 30.
St-Hilaire, M., Richard, L., & Marcoux, R. (2014). Individual and familial life courses in Quebec City, 1871-1911: Some considerations on two biographical data-sets. In The dawn of Canada’s century: hidden histories (pp. 322–358). Montreal : McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Bherer, C., Labuda, D., Roy-Gagnon, M.-H., Houde, L., Tremblay, & M., Vézina, H. (2011). Admixed ancestry and stratification of Quebec regional populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(3), 432–441. DOI:10.1002/ajpa.21424

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