Joseph-Edmond Roy was a Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 notary

Civil law notary

Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State...

, editor, historian and political figure.

He was born in Pointe-Lévy

Lévis, Quebec

Lévis is a city in eastern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec City. A ferry links Old Quebec with Old Lévis, and two bridges, the Quebec Bridge and the Pierre Laporte Bridge, connect western Lévis with Quebec City. The Société de transport de...

 in 1858, the son of notary Léon Roy. Roy studied at the Collège de Lévis and the Séminaire de Québec, finally studying law at the Université Laval

Université Laval

Laval University is the oldest centre of education in Canada and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French...

. He became editor of Le Quotidien at Lévis in 1879. Roy was licensed as a notary in 1880 and set up practice at Lévis. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the legislative assembly in 1883 and 1886. In 1885, he married Lucienne Carrier. He was a member of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

, serving as president from 1897 to 1898 and from 1905 to 1906. He also served as a member of the Quebec Provincial Board of Notaries and was president from 1909 to 1912. In 1896, Roy ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons in Bellechasse. In the same year, he was elected to the city council for Lévis and served as mayor from 1896 to 1900.

During the period 1897 to 1904, he published the five-volume Histoire de la seigneurie de Lauzon. Roy also contributed to the historical journal Bulletin des recherches historiques, edited by his brother Pierre-Georges. In 1898, he became editor and publisher for La Revue du notariat at Lévis. From 1899 to 1902, he published the four-volume Histoire du notariat au Canada depuis la fondation de la colonie jusqu'à nos jours, a history of the notarial profession in Canada. In 1907, he became a professor of Canadian geography at the Université Laval. Roy was appointed head of the manuscript division of the archives at Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

the following year.

He died at Lévis in 1913.