About This Quebec Lower North Shore GenWeb Site……

In order to know where we are going, we need to understand from whence we came. This GenWeb site provides the people of the Quebec Lower North Shore that opportunity to visit the past.

The peopling of the Quebec Lower North Shore once received little if any mention in the history classes of the Coast’s formal education system. This very colorful history is a source of great pride for the people and deserves to be recognized: the area was inhabited by aboriginal populations before the birth of Christ; it saw some of the first European explorers and colonists to Canada, and; it rooted a number of families that have spread throughout North America. Today’s population is the blending of Aboriginal, European, Acadian, Newfoundland, and Quebec settlers and is a fine example of multi-cultural coexistence.

Back fifty years ago, family history was "alive and well" in the minds of our elders, kept ever vibrant by the wonderful stories of "bygone days" that they told over and over. With their passing and the onslaught of modern communications, story telling has ceased and family knowledge is generally limited to the present period in the "now" generation. There is a need to reverse this trend as well as to raise the level of awareness of how the bloodlines of this once isolated populace are interconnected.

The same technology that lead to the demise of the art of story telling now presents itself as a tool to research, reconstruct and record the history of our ancestral families.

The objectives of the GenWeb site are:

1) to develop family trees for the 100 plus families that settled this area,

2) to provide sources of information (cemetery lists, census, articles, parish records, etc) to aid researchers in "making connections",

3) to portray details (stories and pictures) of the areas’ matriarchs and patriarchs, and

4) to provide "tidbits" of information that add colorful blossoms to the trees.
 
 

These objectives cannot be accomplished solely by the Coordinators of the Quebec Lower North Shore GenWeb Project. We need and welcome the input of the whole multi-cultural population to make this a vibrant and useful source of information. The existing English information is gradually being translated into French by the Site’s French Coordinator; additional translators are welcome. Regarding translations in other languages (e.g.. Montagnais), any support is welcomed.

The following are examples of the types of information that are needed:

1) Cemetery / Burial marker transcriptions and locations

2) Church records of burials

3) Family statistics (year and place of births, deaths, marriages; names of parents, grandparents, children, etc)

4) Pictures and stories of the founding matriarchs (mothers) and patriarchs (fathers) of all Communities

5) Family tree information, if already assembled

6) Records and notes such as those from Family Bibles

7) Pertinent web sites
 
 

The Coordinators will credit all sources of information. It can be sent to the Coordinators by e-mail (click here / cliquez ici) or posted to the following address: Sharon Chubbs-Ransom, P.O. Box 167, Harrington Harbour, Quebec, G0G 1N0 . Originals are not necessary; copies or electronically scanned documents are all that are needed.

Posted to the GenWeb: 24 March 2002; 20 March 2006