Vol. 65 No. 1 (2017)
Article

Intergenerational Analysis of Patronymic Transformations in the Quebec (Canada) Population Since the Seventeenth Century

PDF
  • Marc Tremblay
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2016.1223122

Published 2017-01-02

Keywords

  • surnames,
  • French,
  • Channel Islands,
  • North America

Copyright (c) 2016 American Name Society

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Surnames may undergo several transformations over time. Thus, patronymic distributions observed in a population at a given time may hide changes that occurred previously, the extent of which can be estimated with intergenerational data. Using a corpus of 5,100 deep-rooted ascending genealogies from the Quebec (Canada) population, this study compares contemporary surnames with those of founding ancestors in each paternal line and identifies various patronymic mutations occurring over multiple generations. On average, paternal lines go back eight generations. About one-third of all paternal lines presented at least one orthographic difference between the contemporary and the original surnames. Many surnames were transformed several times in a single paternal line, and some changes were different for a given surname along different lines. Most changes occurred among the first generations following that of the founding ancestors. Regional comparisons also show important variations.

PDF

References

  1. BALSAC. 2016. BALSAC population database. <http://balsac.uqac.ca/english> (accessed July 2, 2016).
  2. Bouchard, Gérard, Raymond Roy, Bernard Casgrain, and Michel Hubert. 1995. “Computer in Human Sciences: From Family Reconstitution to Population Reconstruction.” In From Information to Knowledge. Conceptual and Content Analysis by Computer. Ed. E. Nissan and K. M. Schmidt, 201–226. Oxford: Intellect.
  3. Charbonneau, Hubert, Bertrand Desjardins, Jacques Légaré, and Hubert Denis. 2000. “The Population of the St-Lawrence Valley, 1608–1760.” In A Population History of North America. Ed. Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, 99–142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  4. Cheshire, James, Pablo Mateos, and Paul A. Longley. 2011. “Delineating Europe’s Cultural Regions: Population Structure and Surname Clustering.” Human Biology 83(5): 573–598.
  5. Darlu, Pierre. 2004. “Patronymes et Démographie Historique [Patronyms and Historical Demography].” Annales de Démographie Historique 2004(2): 53–65.
  6. Darlu, Pierre, Gerrit Bloothooft, Alessio Boattini, Leendert Brouwer, Matthijs Brouwer, Guy Brunet, Pascal Chareille, James Cheshire, Richard Coates, Kathrin Dräger, Bertrand Desjardins, Patrick Hanks, Paul Longley, Kees Mandemakers, Pablo Mateos, Davide Pettener, Antonella Useli, and Franz Manni. 2012. “The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods.” Human Biology 84(2): 169–214.
  7. Desjardins, Bertrand, Alain Bideau, Guy Brunet, Hubert Charbonneau, and Jacques Légaré. 2000. “From France to New France: Quebec Family Names, Past and Present.” The History of the Family 5(2): 215–226.
  8. Dipierri, José, Alvaro Rodriguez-Larralde, Emma Alfaro, Chiara Scapoli, Elisabetta Mamolini, Germano Salvatorelli, Graziano Caramori, Sonia De Lorenzi, Massimo Sandri, Alberto Carrieri, and Italo Barrai. 2011. “A Study of the Population of Paraguay through Isonymy.” Annals of Human Genetics 75(6): 678–687.
  9. Duchesne, Louis. 2006. Les Noms de Famille au Québec: Aspects Statistiques et Distribution Spatiale [Family Names in Quebec: Statistical Aspects and Spatial Distribution]. Quebec: Institut de la Statistique du Québec.
  10. Gagnon, Alain, and Evelyne Heyer. 2001. “Fragmentation of the Québec Population Genetic Pool (Canada): Evidence from the Genetic Contribution of Founders per Region in the 17th and 18th Centuries.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114(1): 30–41.
  11. Henripin, Jaques. 2003. La Métamorphose de la Population Canadienne [The Metamorphosis of the Canadian Population]. Montréal: Les Éditions Varia.
  12. Jacob, Roland. 2006. Votre Nom et Son Histoire. Les Noms de Famille au Québec [Your Surname and Its History. Family Names in Quebec]. Montréal: Les Éditions de l’Homme.
  13. Jacob, Roland. 2015. Votre Nom et Son Histoire. Les Noms de Famille au Québec. Vol. 2 [Your Name and Its History. Family Names in Quebec. Vol. 2]. Montréal: Les Éditions de l’Homme.
  14. Kerr, Don, and Roderic Beaujot. 2016. Population Change in Canada. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
  15. King, Turi E., Stéphane J. Ballereau, Kevin E. Schürer, and Mark A. Jobling. 2006. “Genetic Signatures of Coancestry within Surnames.” Current Biology 16(4): 384–388.
  16. Longley, Paul A., Richard Webber, and Daryl Lloyd. 2007. “The Quantitative Analysis of Family Names: Historic Migration and the Present Day Neighborhood Structure of Middlesbrough, United Kingdom.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97(1): 31–48.
  17. Lucchetti, Enzo, Miro Tasso, Irene Amoruso, and Gianumberto Caravello. 2011. “The Border Effect in Surname Structure: An Italian-Slovenian Case Study.” Human Biology 83(3): 393–404.
  18. Martinez-Cadenas, Conrado, Alejandro Blanco-Verea, Barbara Hernando, George B. J. Busby, Maria Brion, Angel Carracedo, Antonio Salas, and Cristian Capelli. 2016. “The Relationship between Surname Frequency and y Chromosome Variation in Spain.” European Journal of Human Genetics 24(1): 120–128.
  19. McInnis, Marvin. 2000a. “The Population of Canada in the Nineteenth Century.” In A Population History of North America.” Ed. Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, 371–432. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  20. McInnis, Marvin. 2000b. “Canada’s Population in the Twentieth Century.” In A Population History of North America. Ed. Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, 529–599. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  21. Morin, Yves-Charles. 1996. “The Origin and Development of the Pronunciation of French in Québec.” In The Origins and Development of Emigrant Languages. Ed. Hans F. Nielsen and Lene Schøsler, 243–275. Odense: Odense University Press.
  22. Morin, Yves-Charles. 2002. “Les Premiers Immigrants et la Prononciation du Français au Québec [The First Immigrants and the Pronunciation of French in Quebec].” Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 31(1): 39–78.
  23. Parkin, Harry. 2015. “The Fourteenth-Century Poll Tax Returns and the Study of English Surname Distribution.” Historical Methods 48(1): 1–12.
  24. Picard, Marc. 2007a. “Les Noms de Famille du Canada Français: Origines et Évolution [Family Names of French Canada: Origins and Evolution].” Glottopol, Revue de Sociolinguistique en Ligne 9: 6–21.
  25. Picard, Marc. 2007b. “On the Development of German Surnames in French Canada.” Names 55(4): 379–386.
  26. Picard, Marc. 2012. “On the Translation of French-Canadian Family Names in English.” Names 60(3): 150–155.
  27. Prost, Michel, Gilles Boëtsch, Marilena Girotti, and Emma Rabino-Massa. 2008. “Surname Analysis in Biological Anthropology: Alpine Populations in the 17th and 18th Centuries.” Human Biology 80(4): 377–391.
  28. Roman-Busto, Jorge. 2015. “Influence of Changes in Political Barriers and of Geographic Distance on Kinship Inferred from Surnames and Migration Data in Olivenza, Spain, and Surrounding Portuguese Areas.” Human Biology 87(2): 122–131.
  29. Solé-Morata, Neus, Jaume Bertranpetit, David Comas, and Francesc Calafell. 2015. “Y-Chromosome Diversity in Catalan Surname Samples: Insights into Surname Origin and Frequency.” European Journal of Human Genetics 23(11): 1549–1557.
  30. Tremblay, Marc. 2014a. “Les Origines Régionales Ancestrales au Québec [Ancestral Regional Origins in Quebec].” Cahiers Québécois de Démographie 43(1): 133–161.
  31. Tremblay, Marc. 2014b. “Regional Borders and Territorial Ancestry: A Genealogical Analysis.” In Grenzen in Genealogie en Heraldiek/Frontières dans la Généalogie et l’Héraldique (Frontiers in Genealogy and Heraldry). Ed. Jan T. Anema, Rob J. F. van Drie, Roelof K. Vennik, and Bob P. M. Kernkamp, 359–368. The Hague: Stichting De Nederlandse Leeuw.