"Parish" seems to mean the same as "town" does in the US, circumscribing a geographical area.

In the US, a parish is the people who go to service/mass in a particular church. More specifically, it is the people that are registered in that parish. It is not really defined by geographical area. They are always in a town or city.

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Aux États-Unis, le terme « paroisse » semble avoir la même signification que le terme « ville », qui désigne une zone géographique.

Aux États-Unis, une paroisse désigne les personnes qui assistent à la messe dans une église particulière. Plus précisément, il s'agit des personnes inscrites dans cette paroisse. Elle n'est pas vraiment définie par une zone géographique. Elles se trouvent toujours dans une ville ou une cité.

In Québec, both are the same. A parish is the geographical area around a church.

a    village may have only one parish  a larger town will have many 

in the registers only the word parish shows  not the town name

does this help???

Here's a link to "Parish" in Wikipedia.  I think it's a good description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish

Yves

   merci   yves

In Québec, would you say that you live in a parish (like in the US you would say you live in a town or a city) OR would say that you belong to a parish?

well I left Quebec in 1948 but still have contacts

we live in  a town never in a parrish  but in a larger  town you might say  the parrish name  

tothe local residents 

speaking of the location of your residence

where do you live ??I live in southern Ontario 

born in the eastern townships   

now that is another can of worms  ,   it comprises a  very  large number of counties

settled by mostly  by  scottish settlers  and many Loyalists 

 who built the roads and  the bridges by the way

I remember a new member saying the family was from Halifax

now I knew very well it was not N.S 

but the township of Halifax not far from my birthplace 

if you wish more on  the eastern townships  there is a wonderfull article in a publication

Watching the fronteer dissapear  1844-1890  in...  the journal of canadian studies ..... winter 1980-81 pages93 to111

the counties are    Arthabaska Brome Compton Drummond  Megantic  Missisquoi Shefford 

Sherbrooke  Stanstead  Wolfe

since my maternal line has scottish ancestry  from the maritimes  I fnd it most facinating   and  no one knows the origins  and history of the eastern townships

This was very helpful to me to understand what a "parish" means in Québec.

From Wikipedia page about old county names: "Parishes as a land unit division arise from the elevation of municipalities based on religious parish limits (parish municipalities). Quebec's counties were dissolved in the early 1980s and Quebec was then divided into regional county municipalities."

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Cela m'a été très utile pour comprendre ce que signifie une « paroisse » au Québec.

Extrait d'une page Wikipédia sur les anciens noms de comté : « Les paroisses en tant que division d'unités territoriales résultent de l'élévation des municipalités en fonction des limites des paroisses religieuses (municipalités paroissiales). Les comtés du Québec ont été dissous au début des années 1980 et le Québec a ensuite été divisé en municipalités régionales de comté.