The Quebec City municipal archives has digitized and recently made available online more than 70,000 historical records, such as maps, illustrations, architectural drawings, and 30,000 photos.
This major improvement to its website coincides with the temporary move of the city’s 400,000 archival records to a warehouse while the Gabrielle-Roy library, where they were housed, is being renovated.
To ensure the public has online access to a significant portion of the archival collection, three employees have been digitizing records for the last four years.
The documents will be returned to the library when the work is completed in early 2022.
French-only site can be translated
While the website is in French, it can be easily navigated with an understanding of a few French words or by using Google Translate or the Chrome web browser to translate into English or any other language.
Two sections
The two key sections for genealogists on the Quebec City municipal archives website are Pages d’histoire (Pages of history) and Recherche d’archives (Search archives).
Browse some of the digitized photos in the Pages of history section.
The Pages d’histoires are divided into several categories, such as Château Frontenac, postcards, Dominion Corset, and Hockey, enabling researchers to browse a small collection of photos.
These pages translate into manageable English with Google Translate and Chrome. (See translated page below.)
Use Google Translate to translate the website to English. Or use the Chrome web browser to translate, by right-clicking on the mouse.
Search by keyword
To conduct a search of the online archives by keyword, select the Recherche d’archives tab.
Search the archives.
If your ancestors lived in Quebec City, be creative with your searches. Don’t limit the keyword (mot clé) to surnames. Enter the name of a street where they lived or a church where they were baptised, married, or buried.
Start by keeping the keyword search simple. For example, if your ancestors attended St. Patrick Catholic Church, just enter Patrick. If they lived on Conroy street, enter Conroy.
If only interested in photos that are available online, select Photographies et images (Photographs and images) in the Type de document (Type of document) box. (See below.)
Enter a keyword to search historical records.
For photos and images, select “Photographie et images” in the “Type de document” box.
English words can also be effective search terms. Church, for example, results in 142 photos that have church in their title. In contrast, église, which is French for church, produces 500 results. Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Catholic produce interesting results. Also try school (34 results) and the French equivalent, école (324 results).
Note that French accents are not required in keyword searches.
To search all records, online and those available at the archives, select Tous (All) in the Type de document box.
To learn how to use Google Translate, read my blog post, How to easily translate a French website into English.
