A number of genealogists have been fortunate to find at least one of their ancestors in the bilingual Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB). Each biography is well researched and sourced with several references. The sections in the dictionary on Acadians in the 19th and 20th centuries, War of 1812, Fenians, and World War One are also a goldmine for family historians.
Last week, one of DCB’s most important contributors, historian Micheline Dumont, was invested as a Member into the Order of Canada in Ottawa for her role in teaching about the history of women, research in that field, and writing.
A photo of Ms. Dumont with Governor General Julie Payette at the investiture appeared in a Radio-Canada report.
In the Governor General’s announcement, Ms. Dumont is described as a trailblazing researcher who has studied the history of women in Quebec. She was professor emerita at l’Université de Sherbrooke, where she taught history for nearly 30 years.
Ms. Dumont said, in French, to Radio-Canada, “It’s a mistake to think that women have not been in the story. They were in history, but we did not see them.”
The DCB, initiated in 1959, is a collaboration between the University of Toronto and Université Laval. Fifteen volumes have been published with more than 8,400 biographies of individuals who died or whose last known activity fell between the years 1000 and 1930. The entire print edition is online, along with some additional biographies to the year 2000.
A list of the biographies Ms. Dumont has written about men and women is available on the DCB website.
