Canadian Counties

Is there a resource somewhere on the internet that will identify the
original Counties in Canada via a map or that will identify the original
Counties that villages were once identified with ? For instance the city of
Sorel is on the sousthern bank of the St. Lawrence River. Was it associated
with the county of Vercheres? I have many cities and villages going back
into the 17th century where I have having trouble locating where they were
on a map and identifying the County they were associated with. Can someone
identify a resource for me? Thank you Dennis Vaillant

Denis Beauregard...

There is no such thing as "original counties". The counties have
changed over the years and the current mapping is not the same as
it was 100 years ago. Moreover, it is no more used for administration
purposes so that one has to use the 1971 version which was the last
one used in a census.

Also, counties are different depending on the use. The borders depend
on elections (changed every 8 or 10 years and different for provinces
and federal elections), census (until 1971). Before MRC, they were
used to divide judicial districts in Quebec for example. MRC are
Municipalités régionales de comté, mistranslated to county.

I found one copy on the net of a complete listing for divisions for
many census (I think it was from 1951 to 1991 or 2001) and I presume
it was a mistake from the webmaster. No idea if it is still there
but there were a huge number of files.

I have a reference list on my site for Quebec only. I will eventually
have one for whole Canada and USA when I will find the time to