Extensive online bibliography about history of Montreal an important resource for genealogists

The Université du Québec à Montreal has published an important online bibliography of books, articles, and theses about the history of Montreal that contains 9,684 titles in English and French. If your ancestors lived in Montreal, you must explore this bibliography.

This digital bibliography is the result of bringing together two major works: Clés pour l’histoire de Montréal, a bibliography of almost 4,000 titles, published for Montreal’s 350th anniversay; and the quarterly, Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, that publishes bibliographies of theses written in Quebec universities.

The Université du Québec à Montreal’s online bibliography contains almost 10,000 titles about the history of Montreal.

Although the website is in French as are many of the titles, it is relatively easy to find English documents through keyword searches and the filters.

Keyword search
To find a document, try the keyword search box — Mots clés — at the top of the filters column in the left margin. Type in a word or series of words and click on Rechercher (Search). Irish, for example, will produce a long list of publications that are in English.

A search in the Université du Québec à Montréal’s online bibliography uncovered the title of this book, and a Google search found the book on Internet Archive.

Entering Grand Trunk provided a list of documents about the Grand Trunk Railway, including A History of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, a 62-page booklet published in 1864. In this case, I Googled the book title and author and found an online copy on Internet Archive that I can read.

Another search I tried was Molson to see if any books about the Molson brewery family are listed in the bibliography. Twelve titles appeared.

Filters help narrow down the search
You can narrow down your keyword search by selecting one of the filters — or simply use the filters to see what turns up. The number next to each filter indicates the number of titles.

Here are the filter categories, with my English translation in brackets.

Période (Period)
Aucune (None)
III. Période avant 1642 (Period before 1642)
IV. Période de 1642 à 1760 (Period from 1642 to 1760)
V. Période de 1760 à 1867
VI. Période de 1867 à nos jours (Period from 1867 to “our days”)

Thème
A. Généralités (General)
B. Population
C. Économie (Economy)
D. Société (Society)
E. Institutions publiques, politique et administration municipale (Public institutions, political, and municipal administration)
F. Espace (Space, i.e., buildings, structures, properties, cemeteries)
G. Culture
H. Le monde des idées (Ideas)
I. Divers (Various)

Histoire générale (General history)
Aucun (None)
A. Histoire de Montréal (History of Montreal)
B. Histoire de territoires plus restreints (quartiers, paroisses, etc.) (History of limited areas, such as neighbourhoods, parishes)
C. Histoire d’institutions et de secteurs d’activité (History of institutions and other secteurs)
D. Guides historiques et touristiques (Historical and tourist guides)
E. Histoire de familles (Family histories)
F. Divers (Various)

Instrument de travail (Type of Source)
Aucun (None)
A. Bibliographie (Bibliography)
B. Inventaires de sources (List of sources)
C. Guides généalogiques (Genealogy guides and parish registers)
D. Divers (Various)

Type
Article
Article d’encyclopédie (Article from an encyclopedia)
Chapitre (Chapter)
Ouvrage (A complete work)
Page Web
Rapport (Report)
Thèse ou mémoire (Thesis)

Année de publication (Publication date)
Inconnue (Unknown)
1800
1900
2000

Learning more about the document
Once you have found a title that interests you, click on it to learn more about the document, such as publication date and number of pages. Éditeur indicates the name of the publisher. Citer ce document tells you how to cite the book, article, chapter, or thesis.

To return to your search, click on the line, Retour à la liste des résultats, on the left side of the screen.

Refresh the filters
To start a new search, select Réinitialiser les filtres and then click on Rechercher. If you want to keep the search results you have found, but want to narrow them down further, click on Préserver les filtres courants, i.e., preserve the current filters.

I could write much more about all I discovered in this bibliography, but I recommend you explore it yourself. At the very least, play with the filters to see what appears.

Start your search here.

Thanks to Janice Hamilton for sharing this bibliography with me. Ms. Hamilton writes about her ancestors in her blog, Writing Up the Ancestors.