Two articles in the Montreal Gazette this week are reminders of how finding a church record and determining which church our ancestors attended can be challenging. These articles show how researching the history of a church and its community may help us trace our ancestors’ footsteps to find those elusive records.
Frequent name change
Earlier this week, Montreal Canadiens hockey legend Dickie Moore’s funeral was held at Mountainside United Church in Montreal. The church was new to me, or so I thought.
After I Googled “Mountainside United Church,” I discovered it has changed names over the years as the congregation moved and other congregations were amalgamated — and I also learned the church figures prominently in at least one branch of my family.
Montreal’s Mountainside United Church has had several names during its history. Photo: Jean Gagnon. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Mountainside United Church’s website says the church is a union of four congregations whose roots reach back to a growing, nineteenth century Montreal.
“The original site of Dominion-Square Methodist Church, dedicated in October 1865, was the southwest corner of Dorchester and Windsor Streets. This property was sold in 1912 to establish a church in the residential area of Westmount on the Boulevard between Lansdowne and Roslyn Avenues. The new church, called Dominion Methodist, opened for services in September 1914.”
Tracing the church’s name changes is like following a bouncing ball: “In 1925, Dominion Methodist joined with Douglas Methodist, a church in a business district at St. Catherine and Chomedy Streets. The two congregations, called Dominion-Douglas, became part of the United Church of Canada, which came into being on June 10, 1925.”
And the story continues with more names and amalgamations: Melville Presbyterian Church, St. Andrew’s United Church, and St. Andrew’s – Dominion-Douglas. The 2004 amalgamation with the Erskine and American Church created an even longer name.
Whew! I was confused and you would be too if your ancestors attended one these churches. It’s like following a bouncing ball, from church to church and name to name.
Changing location
The other Gazette article, by columnist John Kalbfleisch who writes about the history of Montreal, was about Christ Church Cathedral that was destroyed by fire in December 1856. Its destruction shocked the city’s Anglicans.
To add to modern-day genealogists’ confusion, this Christ Church Cathedral was on Notre-Dame Street in Old Montreal, not the one on Ste-Catherine Street today in the downtown shopping area.
Services were first held at Christ Church Cathedral on Notre-Dame Street in 1814.
The first Christ Church Cathedral, here as viewed by James Duncan (1852), was destroyed by fire in 1856. Source: McCord Museum of Canadian History, Montreal, M6015.
Soon after the fire, a church committee hired an architect and in 1857 work began on the design for a new cathedral. It opened for worship in 1859.
“But where,” Mr. Kalbfleich asks, “was the congregation’s spiritual home during those two intervening years?” If your ancestor attended that church, you may be wondering the same thing.
The parishoners purchased the Congregational Church of Montreal on Gosford Street facing Champ de Mars and worshipped there until their new church opened.
But the Congregational Church building didn’t stay empty for long. Mr. Kalbfleisch writes, “Since 1840, another Anglican church, Trinity, had stood on St-Paul St. opposite the Bonsecours Market, but after two decades that location was no longer suitable. However, 〈the church on 〉 Gosford St. was.”
So, now the Trinity congregation moved into the Congregational Church until about 1864 before moving to St-Denis Street. The congregation eventually evolved into Trinity Memorial Church in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, which is outside the downtown core.
Congregationalists
So, what happened to the Congregationalists who first owned the church on Gosford? It is likely many moved to other city churches and others moved to other cities.
