A Canadian Family

Genealogy, Family History & Vintage Postcards

Welcome – Soyez Les Bienvenus!

Welcome to my blog ~ ~ A Canadian Family ~ ~ home of the online magazine -  A Festival of Postcards  – and lots of genealogical & historical information about my mostly Acadian & French Canadian ancestors, as well as other special topics such as  The Iroquois of Kahnawa:ke  The Forestry Industry of  Eastern Canada and … well … anything that strikes my fancy! If you have something to say, don’t be shy. I always love to hear from readers!

Evelyn Yvonne Theriault (Mtl., Quebec)


January 14, 2012 Posted by | . | | 22 Comments

Universite de Montreal – Tradition and Tragedy

The Universite de Montreal  began as a regional branch of Quebec City’s Catholic Universite Laval, but came to encompass the Ecole Polytechnique (engineering) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Business). Nowadays it’s a secular institution. This postcard depicts the Art-Deco main building which was designed in the early twentieth century by famed architect  Ernest Cormier.

 

Sadly, in 1989 the  Ecole Polytechnique was the site of the Montreal Massacre in which 14 female engineering students were shot to death by a deranged gunman.

Of Possible Interest: Read more »

January 26, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Extracts: Primarily Native American Marriages of Quebec & Ontario (Grooms – J)

Main Index: Native American Names of Quebec and Ontario (Marriage Documents)


Jacco/Jacko/Jaco, Adolphe | Vincent, Georgette

Married: April 21st, 1945 Oka | Kanesatake | L’Annociation Parish

Jacco/Jacko/Jaco, Alexandre | Leclerc, Cecilia

Married: October 11th, 1909 Mattawa | Nipissing | Ste-Anne Parish

Jacco/Jacko/Jaco, Antoine | Makons, Mami

Married: June 12th, 1884 Maniwaki | Gatineau | L’Assomption-de-la-B.V.M. Read more »

January 22, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Did You Get My Postcard? | Immediacy, Intimacy & the Time/Space Compendium of Remediated Semi-Public Correspondence

Regular readers of A Canadian Family know that I began collecting vintage postcards as a means of enriching and extending my own understanding of the local and social histories that are part of my family’s personal history. In fact, the Festival of Postcards was first conceived as a collaborative effort by family history bloggers to encourage the use of postcards as a visual resource, but morphed into a Festival of family historians and deltiologists and we all benefited from the mix.  The Festival is in hiatus  at the moment  but I’ve come across a postcard-related blog that is one of the best I’ve seen in awhile so I’d like to share it with you right now.

“Did you get my postcard?” serves as a public platform for an interesting project by a group of graduate students in media studies at Montreal’s Concordia University. It’s built around Dave’s private postcard collection. These researchers started from the premise that private  collections can be mined for their “personal, historical, geographic and autobiographical potential”. They designed a project where they would experiment with the combination of a traditional medium (postcards) with modern technology. The technical term for this  is remediation  and an example would be the posts which combine  Dave’s postcards with audio tracks

Family historians may want to take a look at that use of technology as well as the “Where On Earth?” section which uses Google Maps to portray the places where the postcards originated. Others may be more interested in the section on digital postcards and the use of postcards to promote social justice. Read more »

January 14, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

History of Montreal Harbour – Cold Storage Plant (1922)

History of Montreal -

Montreal`s Cold Storage Plant was inaugurated in 1922. Read more »

January 11, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Main Index: Native American Names of Quebec and Ontario (Marriage Documents)

Research Problem:  The life history of  Quebec and Ontario natives can be  notoriously difficult to trace. The first – and perhaps greatest – layer of difficulty (for genealogists) is the late adoption of  western surname usage  (stable family names handed down from male parent to child). This has led to given individuals in certain time periods carrying multiple surnames (native only, native and westernized, westernized).

The second layer of difficulty is that Native surnames were transcribed phonetically which led to spelling variations  in various official documents (e.g. between different church registers, census documents, border crossings etc.).

A last difficulty is the varying  quality of the different indexing projects which makes it difficult to access the primary documents (microfilmed records) and cross-check with other indexes.

Goal: To create a Master Cross-Index of Names carried by Natives in Quebec and Ontario during the 18th/19th and 20th centuries sorted by surname variations AND first names.

Phase I: A. Transcription of names from marriage registers of parishs that have been associated with Native American populations in Quebec and Ontario. B. Creation of a Master Index that sorts  those individuals by various surnames and first names. Timeline: 2011/2012

Work to date

Extracts:Primarily  Native American Marriages of Quebec & Ontario (Grooms – A)  Additions January 15, 2012

Extracts: Primarily Native American Marriages of Quebec & Ontario (Grooms – B/C)

Latest additions January 23rd, 2012

Read more »

January 6, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , | Leave a Comment

Primarily Native American Marriages of Quebec & Ontario | Grooms H/I

Main Index: Native American Names of Quebec and Ontario (Marriage Documents)

Updated Jan/8/12

Hackett, James Martin | Arquette, Hilda Marie

Married:   1950s Akwesasne | Ahkwesáhsne | St-Regis Parish

Haientoaive, Louis | Kariwentha 

Married:   October 5th, 1903 Akwesasne | Ahkwesáhsne | St-Regis Paris

Hamel, Clovis | Meloche, Couranna

Married:   May 29th, 1917  Kahnawa:ke | Caughnawaga | St-Francois-Xavier Parish

Hamelin, Bernard | Cross, Bernice Read more »

January 5, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , | Leave a Comment

Ste-Anne-de-la-Pocatiere – Au Martinet Hotel/Motel | 1960s postmark

vintage motel, hotel, Quebec postcard, Canadian Family

Index: Vintage Postcards – Quebec

English translation of text on reverse of postcard – complete meals served 24 hours per day and year-round. Read more »

January 4, 2012 Posted by | . | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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