The Archives Canada-France website, described as the most important New France database for research, is back online, following a petition signed earlier this year by many in the Canadian historical community.
Now managed and hosted by Library and Archives Canada (LAC), the database is called New France Archives – Archives de la Nouvelle France.
The database contains descriptions and their associated digitized documents concerning New France, conserved in the following archival centres:
- Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer (Aix-en-Provence)
- Archives nationales (Paris)
- Archives départementales de la Charente-Maritime (La Rochelle)
- Archives départementales de la Gironde (Bordeaux)
- Archives départementales des Pyrénées-Atlantiques (Pau)
- Library and Archives Canada (Ottawa)
- Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (Québec)
The documents in this database date mainly from the early 16th century until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, including some documents after this period.
![A View of the Orphan's or Urseline [sic] Nunnery, taken from the Ramparts, Quebec. September 1, 1761. Publisher: Richard Short, England. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-283-9.](https://i0.wp.com/genealogyalacarte.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/New-France_LAC.jpg)
A View of the Orphan’s or Urseline [sic] Nunnery, taken from the Ramparts, Quebec. September 1, 1761. Publisher: Richard Short, England. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-283-9.
In a letter written in April, Dr. Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada, explained LAC was working with the Archives de France “in order to ensure the sustainability of the Archives Canada-France website.”
According to Dr. Berthiaume, the Archives de France had put an end to website operations because “the infrastructure of the latter was outdated and posed security problems.”
Archives France agreed to transfer the data to LAC.
Founder of Electronic New France and initiator of the petition writes on his blog, Curieuse Nouvelle-France, there are some glitches with the new site, such as being unable to organize the search results in chronological order.
You can access the New France Archives here. The website has also been added to the Quebec/New France section in the Genealogy Research Toolbox on this blog.
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