Approximately 98 percent of the immigrants of New France (Quebec) during  the 17th and 18th centuries came from France and the balance from several other western European nations. They came from Austria, Belgium, England, Hungary, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, and the islands of Guernsey, Jersey, and Corsica. Others came from the English colonies in America - mainly from the New England area. A small number of French men also married Indian girls.
Between 1604 and 1765 an estimated 10,126 French immigrants arrived in Quebec. The table below lists the number of French immigrants who settled for an extended period of time or permanently in New France.

Many of these immigrants subsequently returned to France.  Some of those who did return were not accompanied by their adult children who lived, worked, and were married in Quebec. Few of these immigrants were married when they first arrived in Quebec and even less were accompanied with children.  Also, a small percentage of  these  new settlers never married, such as those in religious orders and those who elected to remain single. And, naturally, there was a number of married couples who had no children, no surviving children, or no children who, in turn, married. Consequently, it can be estimated that about 45 to 50% of these immigrants (about 5,000 + or -) are the ancestors of today's French-Canadian population and those with French-Canadian roots. Today, their decendants number over 5 million living in Canada (mostly in Quebec) and over 5 million more living in the United States (mostly in the New England states, New York, Louisiana, and the upper mid-west).

It is statistically possible to state that every one of French-Canadian ancestry has some common ancestors with every one of the other 10 million-plus French-Canadian descendants by their 11th or 12th generation. On the average, statistically, all descendants of the old French-Canadian families share at least 200 or more common ancestors by their 11th or 12th generation. In the 11th generation, if there is no duplication of ancestors, a person's pedigree will have 1,024 individuals, and by the 12th generation, that number doubles to 2,048 individuals. Assuming your 12th generation takes you and another person of 100% French-Canadian ancestry into the early 1700's when the stock of the French-Canadian population was made up of about 5,000 original French immigrants, out of your 2,048 ancestors and the other person's 2,048 ancestors of that period, all of those must come from the base of 5,000, and thus explains the reason for the common ancestry. In this case, many more than 200 ancestors will be in common because 200 is less than 10% of your 2,048 and 2,048 is nearly 50% of the total original immigrants by 1700. One factor which is not considered here is the total population at the time (ca. 1700) but this would not have any significant effect on these figures since most of the progeny (from new births) are descendants of those original immigrants anyways. Other minor factors which would skew these figures would include the immigrants from other European nations, the handful of immigrants from the American colonies and those very few early French-Canadian ancestors who married native American Indians.

In my years of experience in doing French-Canadian genealogy, I have yet to find two persons of French-Canadian ancestry who are not related somewhere down the line. I can conservatively state that all persons of French-Canadian ancestry have common ancestors by the mid-1600's and are thus, at the very least, 8th or 9th cousins. When travelling through Quebec with my family in the early 1980's I used to tell my children that, for all practical purposes, these people are all your cousins.

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This page added January 1, 1999