“The Voyageur Contracts Database includes data from approximately 35,900 fur trade contracts signed in front of Montreal notaries between 1714 and 1830.”

“It is currently the single largest collection of data regarding the contracts signed by men of the Montreal fur trade. The information collected from the contracts includes: family names, parishes of origin, hiring company, length of contract, destination(s), advances and wages, supplies, conditions of hire, the name of the notary, date of signing, and miscellaneous notes.”

“The Voyageur Database provides a valuable new tool for conducting research. Métis and French-Canadian genealogists will find it particularly useful for charting families across time and space, as will labour and social historians.”

“The database provides information on a group that was mostly illiterate and thus previously difficult to document and write about. The Voyageur Database documents the expansion of a continental system of trade that had a profound effect on peoples and communities, throughout the continent.”