M2006.112.18.12.1; II-202851; M2012.69.2.12 © McCord Museum. Three generations of Abenakis © Antoine Desilets. Reference: Archives nationales du Québec, Montréal. Antoine Desilets Fonds, P697, 5948. Image source: McCord Museum.
To mark Montreal’s 375th anniversary, McCord Museum has created Our Amazing Families: Three Centuries of Quebec Documents and History, a project to highlight the economic, social, and family history of Quebec.
Thanks to financial support from Sun Life Financial, McCord Museum will describe, digitize, and publish online 36 sets of family records. Some 400 pages from each private archival collection have been selected for digitization and will be made available online to the public between February 2017 and June 2018.
“The topics range from social justice, to Montreal as an urban city, to family health, and even vacations and leisure activities,” said Isabelle Hudon, executive chair, Sun Life Financial Quebec and senior vice-president, Client Solutions, Sun Life Financial Canada.
Nathalie Lévesque, executive director of the McCord Museum Foundation, said, “We have thousands of photos, engravings, newspaper clippings and artifacts of various types that show us what daily life was like and reflect the mentalities of the time. These archival materials are invaluable in helping us to better understand the social issues and trends that prevailed at various points in our history.”
The first ten sets of family records digitized and published online are: Dessaulles, Papineau, Leman and Béique Families Fonds; Hélène Baillargeon-Côté Fonds; Louis-Joseph Cartier Family Fonds; Honoré Beaugrand Fonds; Casgrain, Forget and Berthelot Families Fonds; Donalda David Fonds; Grignon and Guèvremont Families Fonds; Léontine Poutré and Hercule Martin Fonds; Des Rivières and Taschereau Families Fonds; and Le Moine Family Fonds.
While no English-speaking families are included in the first lot published on the McCord Museum website, I’ve been told there will be some in the future.
