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Rivière-des-Prairies was a municipality that was annexed by Montreal, Canada in 1963. On January 1, 2002 it became part of the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles–Montréal-Est. On January 1, 2006 Montréal-Est demerged, and the borough became Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles. The borough has high concentrations of Italians in many neighbourhoods, and Haitians in the others.
[edit] HistoryThe Rivière des Prairies (Prairie River) was formerly known as Skawanoti, which means "the river behind the island" in the Huron tongue. It was Samuel de Champlain who renamed the river, in honor of one of his companions, Francois des Prairies, who went astray during an exploratory expedition. Anglophones have taken over the Amerindian name and call this river "Back River". Until 1671, it had been impossible to think of establishing a parish on the side of the Prairie River because of the threat of Iroquois penetration of the island of Montreal by this means. In order to put an end to the incursions of the Iroquois and at the same time to strengthen the defences of the end of the island, Monseigneur Dollier de Casson, superior of the seminary, a Sulpician priest and Lord of the Island of Montreal, set up two fiefs in 1671 and granted land to a number of settlers who could become soldiers if necessary to defend the area. The fief owners were Phillippe de Carrion Dufresnoy and Paul de Maurel. The first land conceded by the Iroquois was taken once the Battle of Rivière-des-Prairies or La Coulée Grou occurred in July 1690 between 25 French and a hundred Iroquois. The formation of a village began in 1731. A map of the time shows two streets and three houses to the west of the church. Rivière-des-Prairies was formed as a municipality on July 1, 1845. Between 1929 and 1933, Rivière-des-Prairies obtained its electricity from Montreal Light Heat and Power. After World War II, there was a shortage of housing in Montreal and several families settled in Rivière-des-Prairies. In 1954, Rivière-des-Prairies obtained its statute as a city. At that time, it was composed of 6,500 inhabitants. Little by little, land was sold, housing development increased and as a result, the demands of the citizens grew: a sewage system and an aqueduct, etc. were needed, leaving the town of Rivière-des-Prairies in debt. It was then placed under the care of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs in July 1961. In 1963, Jean Drapeau, mayor of the city of Montreal, approved the annexation so that Rivière-des-Prairies became an integral part of the city of Montreal as part of the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles–Montréal-Est. [edit] Research tips[edit] Maps and Gazetteers
[edit] French names for placesBecause French is the one official language of Québec, WeRelate employs the French names for places within the province. Many placenames will be similar to their counterparts in English, with the addition of accents and hyphens between the words. The words "Saint" and "Sainte" should be spelled out in full. Placenames should be made up of four parts: the community (or parish, or township, or canton), the historic county, Québec, Canada. You may find placenames red-linked unless you follow these conventions. [edit] Local government structureThe Province of Québec was made up of counties and territories. Counties in Québec were established gradually as the land was settled by Europeans. Each county included communities with some form of local governement (often church-based). Territories referred to the undeveloped sections under the control of the government in charge of the whole province at the time. The communities included townships and/or cantons, depending on the English/French makeup of the county concerned, and also included ecclesiastical parishes with somewhat different boundaries which could overlap with local townships or cantons. Ecclesiastical parish registers have been retained and are available to view (online through Ancestry). Since the 1980s many small townships and parishes are merging into larger "municipalities", often with the same name as one of their components. Beginning in 1979 the historic counties of Québec were replaced by administrative regions and regional county municipalities (abbreviated as RCM in English and MRC in French). Regional county municipalities are a supra-local type of regional municipality, and act as the local municipality in unorganized territories within their borders. (An unorganized area or unorganized territory is any geographic region in Canada that does not form part of a municipality or Indian reserve. There is a list in Wikipedia.) There are also 18 equivalent territories (TEs) which are not considered to be RCMs. These are mostly large cities with their suburbs, but include 4 very large geographical areas where the population is sparse. The administrative regions (above the RCMs in the hierarchy) are illustrated on a map in Wikipedia. The regions are used to organize the delivery of provincial government services and there are conferences of elected officers in each region. The regions existed before the change from historic counties to regional county municipalities. The above description is based on various articles in Wikipedia including one titled Types of municipalities in Quebec NOTE: WeRelate refers to Québec communities as being within their historic counties because this is the description which will be found in historical documents. FamilySearch and Quebec GenWeb follow the same procedure. However, it is always wise to know the current RCM as well in order to track these documents down in local repositories and also to describe events which have taken place since 1980. Because the former or historic counties and the modern regional county municipalities can have the same names but may cover a slightly different geographical area, the placenames for Regional County Municipalities or "Territories Equivalent to regional county municipalities" are distinguished by including the abbreviation "RCM" or "TE" following the name. Historic counties (which were taken out of use in about 1982) were made up of townships or cantons. The two words are equivalent in English and French. Eventually all the Québec cantons in WeRelate will be described as townships. Many townships disappeared before 1980 with the growth of urbanization. If the word parish is used, this is the local ecclesiastical parish of the Roman Catholic Church. Parish boundaries and township or canton boundaries were not always the same. The WeRelate standard form for expressing a place in Québec is township/canton/parish, historic county, Québec, Canada,
[edit] CensusesCensuses were taken throughout the 19th century in Quebec (or in Lower Canada or Canada West before 1867). Surprisingly most of them have been archived and have been placed online free of charge by the Government of Canada (both microfilmed images and transcriptions). All can be searched by name or browsed by electoral district. The contents vary. Those of 1825, 1831 and 1841 record only the householders by name, but remaining members of each household were counted by sex and by age range. From 1851 through 1921 each individual was named and described separately. The amount of information increased throughout the century, and in 1901 people were asked for their birthdate and the year of immigration to Canada. Unfortunately, enumerators were required only to record the birthplace province or country (if an immigrant). Specific birthplaces have to be discovered elsewhere. The links below are to the introductory page for the specific census year. It is wise to read through this page first to see what will be provided on a specific census, and what will be lacking. Links to the records follow from these pages.
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