One of my favourite sections on the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec website is the Massicotte Albums digital collection. It has been available online for a several years. If you have not taken a look at it, now’s the time.
What the collection contains
The Massicotte Albums contain more than 6,000 photos, post cards, and newspaper and magazine illustrations, published from 1870 to 1920.
In this collection, I found a drawing in a newspaper clipping of the Montreal Shoe Manufacturing Company on de La Gauchetière Street. It was here where some of my ancestors worked. This clipping helped me figure out that a few photos of my grandmother were taken in front of that building, and thtat the young people with her were likely colleagues.
Montreal Shoe Manufacturing Company. Image 0002731009. Source: Albums Massicotte, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
In addition to images of buildings — some that are still standing and some that disappeared long ago — you can also find street views and images of events that took place, such as a ship workers strike in 1877.
When the images were published
Note the years indicated in the database are publication dates. You will find many earlier images in the collection, but they were published between 1870 and 1920.
Who collected the images
The collection was amassed by Édouard-Zotique Masicotte, a journalist, poet, historian and archivist who had a strong interest in Quebec history and folklore. He was born in Montreal in 1867.
How to search
While the search engine is in French, the captions are often written in English, and with the tips below, you should be able to easily explore the collection.
Here are three ways to search the collection.
1. Search by keyword
Search the collection by keyword, such as church, hospital, or the name of a street. Enter your keyword in the box next to Chercher 〈Search〉.
Also try the French equivalent. A search of church produced 220 results, while a search of eglise produced 368 results. (I’m guessing eglise includes church and eglise, which may explain the higher number of results, but I can’t be sure.) The keyword search is usually based on the original printed or handwritten caption.
Once you have conducted a keyword search, you can browse the images as they appear in the results presented or you can sort and browse by Année (plus récente) — Most Recent Year — or Année (moins récente) — Oldest Year. (See illustration below.)
You can further narrow down your results by selecting a category in one or all of the sections on the left (see illustration below):
Type d’image — Image type
Sujet — Subject
Lieu representé — Place represented
Date de publication — Publication date
2. Browse the entire collection
When you first open the collection, you will see the beginning of 6,064 results that you can browse, image by image. You can sort by oldest or most recent.
Click on an image to see the information box. Then click on jpg or the image title to see an enlargement of the image.
3. Browse by subject, location, date
Since I always struggle without success to find a way to search by subject, location and date without entering a keyword, I suggest entering a keyword that is rather broad. The keyword that gave me the most results — 4,454 — was Montreal. (Rue for street produced more than 3,000 results. Building produced 190.)
Once I searched Montreal, I narrowed down the results to the decade and/or subject and location, using the filters on the left (as described above in Search #1).
Recommendation
Bottom line: Play with the search engine. Try different keywords.
Follow Genealogy a la carte’s board Genealogy — Visiting Montreal on Pinterest.
