When you search for a marriage in the PRDH, you may find a link to a marriage contract instead of the marriage itself. The clue in the record below is the format of the date, 1738-07-04, which is in italics. Normal print is a marriage record; italics indicate a marriage contract where no marriage has been found.
A click on the date brings you to the index for the marriage contract.
With that information, a search on Ancestry.ca’s Canada, Notarial Records, 1637-1935 for Pierre Mataut reveals that there is an entry in the repertoire.
That gives us the document number, 578.
It also gives you all the information you need to order this record from BanQ. See Gail Dever’s how-to post at http://genealogyalacarte.ca/?p=20640.
Once you have your marriage contracts, listen to Maple Stars and Stripes episode 79 with Suzanne Sommerville to learn how to read and interpret them. Happy hunting!
I never noticed the italicized date, usually recognizing that the “certificate” was for a contract because of the notary’s name. Thank you for this small hint.
The same thing applies to birth/baptism and death/burial records. Normal text indicates birth and death. Italics are for baptism and burial.
Very useful I now have lots of new homework to do! My grandmother was of 100% French Candia and Acadian extraction and I have documented all of her lines back to France using the PRDH as a secondary source. Now to start adding lots of meat onto the bare bones framework I have to date!
In literal terms it doesn’t mean there was no marriage but rather the location and date of the marriage is unknown…this couple had 2 children, I doubt they were born out or wedlock
Thanks for the clarification, Muriel. I should have said “where no marriage RECORD has been found.”
I thought I replied to this. Here it is again, just in case. It’s not that the location of the marriage contract is unknown but that it was not determined by the PRDH staff who did not check the full record. The name of the notary is a clue to where the contract was written because each notary served a different area. Also, sometimes the contract could have been written by a priest or commandant at a distant fort or post and hand-delivered to a notary to be officially recorded. And as for missing marriage records, we have to remember that many disappeared between the time of the original act and the present. Contemporaries of the couple could certainly have had access to the original or a copy given to the couple but which has since been destroyed by fire, flood, insects, etc. We are truly fortunate so many have survived in the New France archives and churches.