This article concentrates on 5 different areas of Quebec (Beauce, Terrebonne, Charlevoix, Rimouski and Sanguenay) where hereditary disorders occur at varying rates and for a variety of specific disorders. They investigate how frequent or rare these genes and/ or mutations are in present day populations, keeping in mind the geographic migrations of the founding population. The population is unique because not only did the "founder's effect" occur, but the French-Canadians kept very in-depth genealogical records (mainly through Catholic Church supported baptismal and marriage records and the Church's encouragement of large families), and also due to their historical isolation after their "founding" due to political changes in Europe and the US.

"Because of the structure and demographic history of its population, Quebec, which developed from a small pool of founders and whose rapid expansion was primarily the result of natural increase, constitutes a remarkable laboratory for population genetics studies. The genealogies that can be reconstructed for this context possess levels of completeness and depth rarely obtained elsewhere." Thoughts: these 5 populations are different than the usual studies I have come across which tend to focus just on the areas north of the St. Lawrence River (Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean) where the genetic disease rate is astronomical in comparison to the large immigrant-centered cities of Montreal and Quebec City. The study's authors note their weaknesses as: their relatively small sample size (must have skewed their results), also did not take in the nature of recessive genes in these populations.

Initial population has to be large enough to avoid founder effects and stochasticity, as well as remain dense enough to support the survival of individuals.