La contribution des immigrants d’origine germanique au peuplement des régions de Lanaudière, de la Mauricie, de la Montérégie, de Chaudière-Appalaches et du Bas-Saint-Laurent

The author points out that European settlers from countries other than France, the United Kingdom and Ireland contributed to the initial non-Indigenous peopling of Quebec. A number of these other settlers were born in regions or countries whose main language was German. He explains that the best known are probably the remanents of the 30,000 German mercenaries who came to Quebec during the last quarter of the eighteenth century to fight with the British against the American revolutionaries. Using genealogical data spanning over three centuries, the author aims to track these immigrants of Germanic origin and measure their contribution to the peopling of five Quebec regions (Lanaudière, Mauricie, Montérégie, Chaudière-Appalaches and Bas-Saint-Laurent). Results show that Germanic ancestors are found in the genealogies of all five regions. They represent between 0.9 percent and 1.5 percent of all immigrants and they explain a little less than 1 percent of the regional gene pools but up to 2.7 percent of paternal lineages.

Cahiers québécois de démographie

Vol. 39

no. 2

179-200

Automne 2010

fr