French Genealogical Research Centre
Date:
Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:28:21 -0700
From:
"Gary Boivin" <gboivin(a)telusplanet.net>
To:
QUEBEC-L(a)rootsweb.com
This appeared in The Montreal Gazette on March 19 2004
*********************************************
In search of roots
$70-million project launched. Roman Catholic Church to open
genealogical centre that will trace Quebec's family trees back to
1600s
ALAN HUSTAK
The GAzette
Friday, March 19, 2004
Families throughout North America with Roman Catholic roots
in Quebec should find it easier to trace their ancestry once the
diocese of Quebec opens a $70-million historical archives and
genealogical centre in Quebec City.
The fundraising campaign to build the centre was initiated
yesterday by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the archbishop of Quebec,
and Abdou Diouf, a former president of Senegal and now the
secretary-general of the Francophonie, the international
organization of French-speaking countries. The launch took
place during a breakfast at Montreal city hall.
Both men are honorary patrons of the foundation, established to
consolidate 350 years of church records under one roof.
With the closing of various churches in the diocese in recent years,
many historic parochial and diocesan documents - including birth,
marriage and death certificates - are stored in warehouses.
Without proper care, they are in danger of disintegrating.
The Quebec diocese has records that go back to 1658. That's
when Pope Alexander VII and King Louis XIV of France named
François Laval the first bishop of the colony of New France. At
the time, the diocese included all of North America east of the
Mississippi River.
The diocese of Baltimore, for example, the first diocese in the
new republic of the United States, was carved out of the Quebec
diocese in 1789.
Plans call for the archives to be housed in the Quebec Seminary
building, in the heart of the provincial capital's Old Town.
An estimated $20 million will be spent to renovate the buildings,
another $20 million to catalogue and restore the collection and
$30 million to finance the centre's operating costs for the next 60
years.
The centre will be promoted as a tourist attraction, and will
include a multimedia room that will feature a film about the history
of the Quebec diocese.
The fundraising committee hopes most of the money it needs will
come from corporate sponsors, but will solicit some government
funding.
"The research centre will be a multifunctional place, open to
university students, tachers and the public at large who want to
conduct historical or genealogical searches," André Noreau, the
foundation's founding president, said yesterday. "We also hope
to put some of the archives online."
Noreau said he hopes the centre will be operating by 2008, the
400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.
Although Montreal was originally part of the Quebec diocese, its
church records will remain in this city. Canon law requires each
diocese to maintain its own parish information and historical
records.
According to church spokespeople, the proposed centre will be
one of the most important archives in Canada because it is the
prime source of information about the church in Canada from 1647
to 1826, when the diocese of Kingston, Ont., was established.