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Sainte-Geneviève was a municipality located on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Québec, Canada. It is now part of the Borough of L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève in the City of Montreal, created on January 1, 2002. The municipality, a small village populated by traditional Quebec-style dwellings and colonial mansions, is located on the northwest shore of the Island of Montreal along Gouin Boulevard, overlooking the Rivière des Prairies and the Île Bizard located to the north. It is surrounded by the former municipality of Pierrefonds to the west, south and east. The Cégep Gérald-Godin (a French-language public college) and the Église Sainte-Geneviève, built in 1844 and designed by renowned Quebec architect Thomas Baillargé, are located here.
[edit] History before the merger of 2002[edit] Catholic parishThe signing of the Great Peace of Montreal (with the Iroquois) in 1701 allowed the French habitants to colonize the western part of the Island of Montreal. In 1720 a road was built, and the Sulpicians mapped out the area. In 1739 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec approved the establishment of a canonical parish dedicated to Saint Geneviève. The following year a chapel was completed. The first church was built in 1751. Antoine Faucon, a priest in the Saint-Sulpice order, participated in the construction of the village's first church. The present building dates from the years 1843 to 1847. [edit] Civil parishThe establishment of the civil parish of Sainte-Geneviève, which was named after the church, occurred in 1845. On June 9, 1859, it was recognized as the Municipality of the Village of Sainte-Geneviève. In 1893, it was connected to Ile Bizard across the Rivière des Prairies by one of the Jacques Bizard Bridges, which replaced a ferry. [edit] Division Into MunicipalitiesWhen the Paroisse de Ste Genevieve was established, Sainte-Geneviève included the territory of the cities of Roxboro and Pierrefonds. Sainte-Geneviève's territory also included the city of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. Several successive divisions reduced the size of the town of Sainte-Geneviève significantly. In 1904, Sainte-Geneviève-de-Pierrefonds became independent from Sainte-Geneviève, followed by Roxboro in 1914, and by Dollard-des-Ormeaux in 1924. In 1935, the two villages of Sainte-Geneviève and Sainte-Geneviève-de-Pierrefonds were merged and once again became the village of Sainte-Geneviève. The name of Pierrefonds then disappeared until its reappearance in 1958, the founding date of the former city of Pierrefonds. In 1959, the Village of Sainte-Geneviève was recognized as Ville Sainte-Geneviève. [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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