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Who We Are

The French-Canadian Genealogical Society of Connecticut was organized on April 4, 1981, and incorporated the following July. Members pooled their resources to form a research library and assisted one another with their research. In June, 1983, the Society put out the first issue of our Journal, the Connecticut Maple Leaf. Word soon spread among the French-Canadian community and the Society continued to grow. By 1985, the library had outgrown its quarters and needed more room. The following year, the library and Society offices relocated to our current quarters in the old County Courthouse building on Tolland Green. A year later, the Society acquired the Hébert Acadian Collection and began building up its library’s holdings.

The Society is dedicated to collecting, preserving and disseminating genealogical and historical information about our ancestors who settled in Quebec and Acadia and their descendants. At our library in Tolland, you will find numerous resources to trace your family history back to the founders of New France and Acadia. In addition, meetings, seminars and other events provide more opportunities to learn. The Connecticut Maple Leaf, our society's journal, provides valuable articles and information to our members.

 

Our focus is on the genealogy of people of French-Canadian and Acadian heritage who settled in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and throughout New England. However, we also have information about both French and non-French inhabitants of New England and other areas of the United States and Canada. The Library’s access to Ancestry.com allows researchers to consult worldwide records, and a circulating library of history, biography, and fiction related to French Canadians is available to our members.

OUR LIBRARY

Holdings of the FCGSC library comprise approximately 3,000 books in both French and English. These include lists of birth, marriage, and death entries transcribed from Quebec parish records; an extensive collection of books, notes and miscellaneous source materials on Acadian genealogy compiled by the noted Acadian specialist Father Hector Hebert; and a file of birth, marriage and death records of descendants of French-Canadians and Acadians in Connecticut, extracted from local town, parish, and newspaper records. Library patrons have access to Ancestry.com and other online resources.

Use of the library is free to members. Non-members may use the library for a research fee of $5 per day.  

OUR HOLDINGS 

   

(see Holdings page for descriptions)

  • Main Reference Materials

  • Acadian Reference Collection

  • Biography Collections & Dictionaries

  • City Directories

  • Circlating Library

  • Information File

  • Local History

  • Maps

  • Miscellaneous Reference Materials

  • NEHGS Register, 1847 - Present

  • Parish Repertoire Collection

  • Periodicals

  • Report of the Archivist of the Province of Quebec, 1900-1955??   [in French]

  • Special Collections

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