INFANT-MORTALITY AND CONSANGUINITY IN AN ENDOGAMOUS POPULATION IN QUEBEC

The population registers of the Isle de Coudres in Quebec have been us ed to reconstitute families and their ancestors, and to classify them by the parameters needed to produce a distribution of infant deaths an d to compute coefficients of kinship and consanguinity. The quality of the information obtained is shown by computing the variations between different genealogies, and by studying religious dispensations. Group s consisting, respectively, of related and unrelated individuals were constructed and matched, taking into account the different risks assoc iated with infant mortality. Globally, no significant difference betwe en the mortality of the groups during the first year of life was obser ved. The apparent similarity, however, conceals basic differences betw een the 'related' group and the 'unrelated' control group. In the 'rel ated' group, infant mortality rates were significantly higher for fema les than for males, whereas the opposite holds for the 'unrelated' gro up. In the 'related' group, the proportion of children who died during their first week of life was higher (although the difference was not statistically significant), and first children faced greater risks of dying during their first year of life. The masculinity ratio at birth was significantly lower than in the control group, or in the populatio n as a whole.