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Available for consultation at the Lanaudière Genealogy Society, the Ferland Database of marriages of the Lanaudière region, is the creation of a reputable genealogist, the Notary Joseph Alexandre Norbert Ferland. This data is a transcription of all the marriage records of the district of Joliette, from the civil archives kept at the Joliette Court House. J. A. N. Ferland, Notary, 1874-1952 Joseph Alexandre Norbert Ferland was born October 27th 1874 in Ste-Elisabeth, formerly in the county of Berthier, and died July 9th 1952, in the city of Joliette. His parents were married in Ste-Élisabeth, although the family was originally from the Richelieu-Verchères region. The Ferland family lived on the "Rang Sud" of the Bayonne River. The oldest of a family of four boys, Norbert became an orphan at the age of nine. After the death of his father, his mother never remarried, and Norbert, who remained a bachelor throughout his life, always looked after her. The second son of the Ferland family married in Joliette, and later established his household in Three-Rivers, while the third son of the family selected the priesthood, and was named Vicar in the diocese of St-Boniface, Manitoba, and later on in Saskatchewan. The youngest of the Ferland boys joined him there, and established himself on a farm, west of Saskatoon. Once done with his studies, Norbert settled his Notary practice in Ste-Émilie de l'Énergie, from 1903 to 1915, and later on, established himself in Joliette. He lived with his mother untill she died, and then moved on to St-Viateur street, and later on, to St-Pierre street. Finally, he spent the later years of his life at the St-Eusèbe Hospice in Joliette, where he died, still unmarried. One can safely say that the man had very little family in the region, but he certainly had built himself a huge genealogical family. Father Hector Geoffroy had a profound admiration for Norbert Ferland and his work in genealogy; as a token of appreciation, he had his thumbstone, in the Joliette cemetery, inscribed with the designation "Généalogiste réputé" (reputed genealogist). Unfortunately, his earnings from the notarial practice were scarce, because everyone who showed up at his door were soon involved in lenghty discussions about ancestral lineage, cousins and so forth, and most of them had very little time or interest for that type of discussion! Using the copy of the civil records, kept at the Joliette Court House, he did a complete transcription of all the marriage records of the district of Joliette. He made notes in small notepads and whatever piece of paper he could find. Some family ancestral lines were found on pieces of wallpaper, which gives an idea of the kind of life the man was leading at the time. Later on, with the help of his secretary, his notes were transferred to small cards for better classification. Whenever there was a death, you would be sure to find him at the funeral parlour, where he was able to meet with other members of the deceased family, including members who had left the region. On Sundays, you would find him on the church square, and he was present at all marriages, in order to gather as much information as humanly possible. He would visit the sick in the hospital, enquiring about their families, brothers and sisters, trying to find out who had left the region and migrated to the United States or somewhere else. In so doing, he created a gigantic data file of vital information on the families of the Lanaudière region. He had numerous contacts all over the province, in Rimouski, as well as Quebec and other regions as well. He was a member of the "Société Généalogique Canadienne-Française" of Montréal, where he would sometimes travel by bus, to their library, in order to complete his research. In fact, he became a pilar among the genealogists of his time, at a time when doing genealogical research was extremely difficult and very little was readily available to the researcher. In his will, he specified that his card-index was to be kept within certain city limits of Joliette. The "Clercs de St-Viateurs" were the appointed keepers for many years. Untill 1975, Father Médéric Robert was in charge; later on, Father André Valois took over, and with the help of volunteers, he worked on adding information, such as the whereabouts of people having left the region, creating an "external file", and an index sorted in order of female spouses. When the S.G.L. heard about the will of Notary Norbert Ferland, it sought the guardianship of this treasure, and were awarded the safekeeping of it, according to the will and testament. The administrators of the SGL wanted to create an external copy of that file, which contained over 60,000 marriages, at the time. As members of the Society and volunteers, Lise Bouthillier and Denis Charest entered all the information contained on the index cards in a computer based genealogical software call "Brother's Keeper". The transcription and corrections took approximately four years to complete. Unfortunately, the hand written copy of the Ferland database was destroyed when a fire wiped out the premises of the Lanaudière Genealogy Society. Thankfully, it had been backed up of Brother's Keeper (BK5). But the additions of Father Valois had not been completely transferred at that time, and whatever had not been transcribed was lost in the fire. When the database completed by the volunteers was remitted to the Administration Committee on October 25th 1998, it included 172,468 names and 93,848 marriages. Actually, more additions were included in the file, such as the non-catholic marriages, and the marriages of St-Didace, which was not part of the Joliette district in 1935. More information from outside sources such as the Internet, has been gradually added, and the database now contains 106,013 marriages and approximately 196,000 individuals.
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