Les Archives de la Ville de Québec is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and will mark the occasion with several outdoor exhibits and on-site lectures in the provincial capital.
A one-minute video about the anniversary, featuring an actor portraying Winston Churchill, is available to watch, in French, on YouTube.
There is, unfortunately, no mention of a special digitization project among the anniversary plans.
Quebec City’s municipal archives preserves millions of pages of historical documents covering the 19th and 20th centuries, along with precious artifacts, including a document signed by Louis XIV in 1688.
In the online archives, you’ll find a large number of digitized photos. There are also many index “cards” to documents, which aren’t available online, but which will help you with your research on site.
The archives’ website is in French, but it is easy to search. Simply enter your search term in the Mot clé (keyword) box and then click on Rechercher (search), which appears underneath.
To test the search engine, I entered “Sheppard.” I wanted to see if there were any photos of the street, rue Sheppard, where I lived in the late 1970s while attending university.
Much to my delight, I found a few photos of the apartment building in the Sillery neighbourhood where I lived with a Francophone family until 1977.
June 5, 1980. Source: Archives de la Ville de Québec, F03-IC-N083792.
If you have ancestors who lived in Quebec City and you know where they lived, went to school, or attended church, you may find a photo that will interest you. Most photos appear to have been taken in the 1900s.
Les Archives de la Ville de Québec is located on the third floor of the Gabrielle-Roy library at 350 rue Saint-Joseph Est.
