GeneaNet

It is much harder and more expensive to digitize a national archive than those undertaking the task usually realize, a consultant warned Library and Archives Canada earlier this year.

Éric Méchoulan of the Université de Montréal, hired on a $15,000 contract to advise LAC on issues involving digitization of its collection, produced a report in January outlining the three main challenges it faces.

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Canada’s former chief librarian and archivist is harshly critical of the deal to have a private company digitize our public documents and photos. Ian Wilson says it smack of “desperation” by the federal government.

Further, he says the contents of our archives are “a public good” like historic sites and national parks, and shouldn’t be sold back to us. Library and Archives Canada is already “superb” at preserving documents, he said.

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Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests.

The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World.

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It’s a novel way to teach history. More than 350 students in 21 “welcoming classes” in nine Montreal schools were asked to bring to school an object they considered a family treasure. The youngsters, all about 13 years old and newly arrived in Canada from more than 100 different countries, threw themselves into the project.

They brought photographs, musical instruments, jewelry, the Koran, a painted Russian chess set, a carved Syrian alphabet, a traditional Pakistani dress, a Diabolo juggling toy, and the ability to dance salsa.

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On Friday, May 24, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), in partnership with Library and Archives Canada (LAC), will present Early Exploration Photographs in Canada, the first in a series of installations that will be on display at the NGC over the next three years.

Made possible by a recent agreement between the two institutions, this series is dedicated to making LAC's rich documentary heritage more accessible to the public.

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A time-yellowed, 439-year-old baptismal registry from 16th century France, recently found to contain long-sought clues about the birth and family history of the famed New World explorer Samuel de Champlain, has arrived in Canada to help mark a major milestone in this country’s own birth.

The document that appears to solve a centuries-old mystery about when the founder of New France was born is to be publicly displayed for the first time later this month at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que., directly across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill.

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Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the Census of Canada, 1881 database. This second general census covered the seven provinces and one territory that were then part of Confederation: British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories.

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Canada stopped making pennies in 2012, because they cost about 1.6 cents each to produce, but a rare 1936 Canadian "Dot Cent" struck 77 years ago is expected to sell for more than $250,000 as part of Heritage Auction's April 18-23 CICF World & Ancient Coins Signature® Auction.

"It's one of only three known surviving 1936-dated Canadian cents deliberately made with a small dot under the date on the back of the coin," said Cristiano Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of Heritage Auctions.

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Nova Scotians who want to join the Canada-wide celebration of Heritage Day can explore a new heritage property resource at the Nova Scotia Archives. For the first time, records and photos of pre-1914 built homes, churches, railway stations, bridges and other community structures are available.

"What better way to celebrate this year's Heritage Day theme, Heritage Homes and Neighbourhoods, than to unveil such a spectacular record of Nova Scotia's built history," Communities, Culture and Heritage Minister Leonard Preyra said in a news release.

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The Government of Canada created documents specifically for new arrivals from China. This research tool provides access to 98,361 references to Chinese immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1885 and 1949. The names were extracted from three different series of records.

Access to the Database

The house at the end of the snow-covered cul-de-sac in an isolated neighbourhood seemed an odd place for a museum.

But that’s what police officers found inside — hundreds of antiques, rare books, pieces of art carefully displayed, part of a trove that included a suit of armour, a large oil painting of a seascape, old marriage certificates and papers associated with the historic schooner, the Bluenose.

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Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is now home to the first complete and authorized version of the Bible to be printed in Canada.

This Bible consists of two volumes and was published around 1832 or 1833 by John Henry White in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. LAC held no copies of this item before, and only five copies are known to exist in library collections: three of these are in Canada, while the other two are in the United States.

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James Eugene Carrey was born on January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey (1927-1994), a musician and accountant.

His mother was of French, Irish, and Scottish descent and his father was of French Canadian ancestry (the family's original surname was Carré).

Jim Carrey's Family Tree

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the Census of the Northwest Provinces, 1906 database. In 1906, the Canadian government called for a special census of the Prairie Provinces (Manitoba, and the two newly created provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta).

Previously, users could search only by geographical information such as province, district and sub-district. It is now possible to also search by nominal information such as name, given name (s) and age for an individual.

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