Genealogy à la carte

Curious to know if the building where your ancestors lived in Montreal is still standing and when it was built? Did any buildings in their neighbourhood survive?

CBC has created a fabulous map that shows the existing buildings in Montreal and when they were built, from 1600 to 2015.

Created for Montreal’s 375th anniversary, the map is a terrific tool for genealogists who want to learn more about the neighbourhood where their ancestors lived.

This interactive shows every building on the island of Montreal coloured by its approximate year of construction. According to the map’s designers, “It’s imperfect because it was cobbled together from various data sources, many of them incomplete.”

Search for the neighbourhood
Here’s how I used the map. I know my Young ancestors lived at 52 rue Saint-Alexandre at the corner of de la Gauchetière from the 1860s to 1880s. (I used Lovell’s street directories of Montreal to find the address.) While the building has long disappeared and, as a consequence, does not appear on the CBC map, I could still look for nearby buildings from the same period and earlier that they may have walked by every day.

Using the time filters, I selected 1850-1900 and earlier periods. What appeared was the shape of a large building across the street from where the Youngs lived. By passing the mouse over the building, I saw the current address is 1015 Saint-Alexandre and that it was built in 1861. Then, a search for the address on Google Maps showed me what the building looks like today.

Google Maps
The challenge when using the map is finding a particular street. If you cannot find a street, locate it first on Google Maps and take note of the surrounding streets. Then, return to the CBC map.

Beware of construction dates
The years of construction of buildings were provided by the City of Montreal’s land evaluation office. In some cases, the construction year is not available. And in other cases, the date may not be accurate. Of course, as genealogists, we know it is important to check more than one source.

The interactive map will be updated in the future. It is available in both English and French. The FAQ section provides further information about the contents.

Look before it’s too late
Don’t wait too long to look for a building related to your ancestors. The grocery store my great-grandfather Samuel Dever owned on Prince Arthur Street was torn down as recently as 2015. Fortunately, I own a photo of the store, taken in the 1920s, and I had taken photos of the building a few years ago after it had been converted into a Greek restaurant.

With the CBC map, I can find the corner where the store was located and look for any nearby buildings that would have been standing when my great-grandparents lived there. I found several nearby residential buildings constructed in 1875, suggesting that there were a lot of people in the area looking for a local place to buy their groceries.