Category Archives: Canadian Province

Hiding to read that kind of newspaper?

Readers always loved those stories, but…they would rather not admit it.

Shocking News

Vicky Lapointe, graduate historian from Sherbrooke University, signs a special newspaper blog.  She combs through Quebec old newspapers to present us with crimes and catastrophies, francophones from outside Quebec and some pictures, medicine, history and patrimonial buildings.

It is suprising to see what kind of news would make the paper a century or two ago, how people responded, and yes…what strange crimes were being commited.  I also enjoy reading about events that are now part of history, as they happened.

Read Patrimoine, Histoire et Multimédia

 

To grow a life-size tree, you grow a family

My good friend Joel Bergeron’s grand-father moved to Temiscamingue early in the 20th century.

Their descendants still meet annually at their cousin’s farm.  The most beautiful tree grows on this farm.

It’s painted on the side of the barn; its trunk has their grand-parents’ names at the base.

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Wooden apples sit at the base of the main branches:  each pair of apples represents a couple and another branch on the tree.  Along each branch sits an apple for each child and his or her spouse. From each of these grows a smaller stem that in turn holds apples for each of their kids.

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Every year, the entire family comes to the farm from Ontario, Quebec, where-ever they live… to feed that tree with joy.

Un arbre généalogique pleine grandeur!  C’est celui des Bergeron qu’on retrouve sur la grange d’un cousin.  Les grand-parents se sont installés au Témiscamingue au début du 20e siècle.  Leurs noms sont à la base du tronc.  A chaque embranchement, deux pomme pour un de leurs enfants avec son conjoint.  La branche qui y pousse, contient les pommes des enfants de ceux-ci, et les petites branches, de leurs petits enfants.  Et toute cette famille se réuni chez ce cousin, quelques jours, chaque année, parce que la famille, ça se cultive!

GenWebCanada updates Quebec cemetery listings

Every morning, I read Elizabeth Lapointe’s Genealogy Canada blog, and she never disappoints. Today, she announced that GenWebCanada has updated several cemeteries in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Read the entire blog post here.

The cemeteries in Quebec are:

Huntingdon County

Hillside Cemetery
Labelle County
Chut-St-Philippe Cemetery
Kiamika Cemetery
Lac Saguay Cemetery
Lac St-Paul
Lac Saguay Cemetery
Lac St-Paul Cemetery
Ste-Anne-du-Lac Cemetery
Val Barrette Cemetery
Gatineau County
East Templeton Cemetery
St Raphael Cemetery
Papineau County
Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette Cemetery

LAC explains “dit” names

Perhaps one of the most asked questions about French Canadian genealogy is, “What’s a dit name?” Library and Archives Canada does a nice job on its blog, explaining it.

Friday factoid

Between 1840 and 1930, about 900,000 French Canadians emigrated to the United States.

A paper written in 1999 by professors at the Université de Montréal and Marianapolis College explains why so many French Canadians left Canada and it shows where they settled in New England in 1880 and 1930. “According to the 1980 American census, 13.6 million Americans claimed to have French ancestors. While a certain number of these people may be of French, Belgian, Swiss, Cajun or Huguenot ancestry, it is certain that a large proportion would have ancestors who emigrated from French Canada or Acadia during the 19th and 20th centuries.” To learn more, read French Canadian Emigration to the United States 1840-1930 by Damien-Claude Bélanger and Claude Bélanger.

Kitchener library seeks virtual volunteers for WWI project

The Kitchener Public Library in Ontario is looking for your help. In honour of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, the library’s staff has created soldier information cards about the many courageous men and women of the province’s Waterloo County who served Canada in the First and Second World Wars. These cards were created during and shortly after each war and were compiled using newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, and information contributed by soldiers and their families.

Kitchener Public Library02

The library needs virtual volunteers to transcribe the content of the soldier card sets, making them searchable on the library’s online photograph site. The transcription process will involve copying the information on the soldier card into a text (.txt) file and sending the finished transcription back to staff for upload. If you are interested in volunteering for this project, contact the library at volunteer@kpl.org or telephone 519-743-0271, ext. 275. Read more about the project on the library’s website.

Perhaps genealogy societies should approach their local library to find out if they hold treasures that need to be digitized and posted online. This would be an excellent opportunity to support a library, create a new collaboration, and uncover genealogy gems.