The historical society of the Bellechasse regional county municipality in Quebec (Société historique de Bellechasse) has been inviting people who live in the region to share their family archives, such as old photos, letters, and other historical documents, with a new virtual archival centre.
Since the historical society does not have the space or funds to open a bricks and mortar archival centre, they created the Bellechasse Archives website to preserve local memory.
Pierre Lefebvre, who heads the project, said (in French), “It takes a fireproof building with high security standards and vaults to hold valuable documents or items.”
To find personal archives, two graduate students pursuing their Master’s degree at Laval University in Quebec City, are visiting every town in the region until the end of August.
Once collected, the personal photos and archival documents are sorted, identified, scanned, and processed before returning them to the owners. The scanned files are then uploaded to Archives Bellechasse.
One of the students, Éric Légaré-Roussin, said (in French), “We do not want people to underestimate what they have. Even your grandfather’s personal diary can be an important source of information for an historian.”
A large number of photos and other archival documents are already available on Archives Bellechasse that was launched in May this year.
In the bottom right corner of the home page, you can look at Historical photos (Photographie historiques). In the search box (Recherche simple), I entered the surname, Laliberte, and found three family collections, including the Aline Boutin Fonds with many funeral cards.
Name search
In the same search box, I tried another search. I entered a first and last name, and found more photos. The search feature looks through the collections for the names, provided you select tous les champs — all fields.
The virtual Archives Bellechasse was launched in May 2017 to preserve and promote local memory. The Aline Boutin collection holds many funeral cards.
If there are any English-sounding names in the archives, they are few and far between, and I didn’t find them. I found Francophone names only, which came as no surprise.
One feature I particularly liked is the New (Nouveautés) category in the tabs along the top where you can search for the latest acquisitions and select when they were added, such as the last seven days, 30 days, 60 days, and even up to one year.
The Archives Bellechasse initiative received funding from the Bellechasse historical society ($5,000), the Bellechasse Regional County Municipality ($15,000), Desjardins ($5,000), and Service Canada ($8,000 to hire two students).
This is amazing. It seems there are many of us “French Canadians” who have roots there in Quebec. I am one who wants to learn as much as I can, and this is very interesting. Thank you for your posting and sharing. The facebook page I am fallowing shared your information and it also seems there may be a tour of us headed your way. From Quebec, to Clarence Creek, to northern Michigan USA. …. and who knows from other part we have scattered to… : ) … right back to Quebec to get a bit of our own history. Michele
Glad to hear you enjoyed reading the post. I share other stories and resources on my Genealogy à la carte Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GenealogyALaCarte/ Bon voyage!