Without any fanfare, the Eastern Townships Archives Portal went online a few days ago. If your ancestors lived in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, this database will become your newest obsession.
Thanks to a $44,000 grant from Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program, the Eastern Townships Resource Centre at Bishop’s University has uploaded online more than 250 years of historical documents.
The database provides searchable archival descriptions from historical societies and archives repositories from across the Eastern Townships. This allows you to dig into the rich history of the region by searching through records such as personal letters and diaries, business records, minute books from organizations, church registers, photographs, postcards, and maps.
Browse the 19th and 20th-century digital images on the new Eastern Townships Archives Portal. Source: www.townshipsarchives.ca.
Digitized images
In addition to the archival descriptions, more than 2,700 documents and photos have been digitized.
Search
By entering a keyword, such as the name of a town or family name, you can explore more than 300 private fonds and collections, which include archival information on Eastern Townships families, political figures and writers, societies and institutions, and newspapers. The United and Presbyterian Churches together provide more than 100 fonds.
For example, enter the family name, Lovell, in the Search box and narrow down the results by selecting Image at the bottom of the menu on the left. Among the images, you will find a photo of the Barnston Band in the 1890s. Identified in the photograph are 17 men of the band, including William Lovell.
Historical societies
To see what is available in a particular repository, such as the Brome County Historical Society, search by keyword or browse by Archival institution in the drop-down menu under Browse in the top-left of the screen. When you find something that interests you, you can contact the institution directly. Descriptions for the archival collections at the Compton County, Stanstead, and Missisquoi Historical Societies are also available on the Archives Portal.
The Eastern Townships Archives Portal is an initiative of the Eastern Townships Resource Centre’s archives department at Bishop’s University. The mission of the archives department is to collect and make available private archival fonds and collections that show the development of the Eastern Townships and its English-speaking communities from the beginning of colonization.
Favour, svp
I would recommend the Eastern Townships Resource Centre archivists make it possible for visitors to the Eastern Townships Archives Portal be able to enlarge the digitized images on the screen or download a larger size. If there is already a way to do so, please let me know.
Start your search in the Eastern Townships Archives Portal here.
Related story: Eastern Townships online archives to continue growing.
