Who knew you can combine Montreal nightlife with family history? Well, apparently, the largest genealogy society in Quebec did.
Saturday night, the Société généalogique canadienne-française (SGCF) participated for the first time in Montreal’s annual Nuit Blanche (white night — sleepless night) — and it was so successful they had to turn away people at the door at 11:00 p.m., an hour before closing time.
Source of Demontigny family photo: BAnQ Collection Centre d’archives de Québec. (P1000,S4,D18,P04). Graphic courtesy of La Société généalogique canadienne-française, Montréal.
More than 160 people attended the French Canadian genealogical society’s Nuit de la généalogie at the historic Château Ramezay in Old Montreal — and many were relatively young, in their twenties and thirties.
Suzanne Galaise, general manager of the society, said, “The evening was fantastic. It was a rewarding experience.”
The genealogy event was surprisingly popular, considering there were more than 200 other events and many of the city’s bars remained open until 6:00 a.m.
Every hour, the society’s volunteers helped between 30 and 50 people research their family history. When each person arrived, they received a five-generation pedigree chart to start building their family tree with help from the genealogists on site.
Congratulations to the SGCF for thinking outside the box to interest people in family history.
I first wrote about this event in Montreal’s annual Nuit Blanche inclues a genealogy event.
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