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Archives centres are open by appointment

BAnQ’s archives centres are open to users, but only by appointment, except the ones in Gatineau and Quebec City, which are closed.

However, staff at the Gatineau and Quebec City facilities, as elsewhere in Québec, will continue to process requests by email, phone and by online appointment.

For more information, go to our FAQ page.

Advitam

Recherche avancée Aide

Pistard vous permet de consulter les fonds et les collections d'archives conservés par BAnQ ou l'un de ses partenaires.

Inscrivez un mot ou une expression à rechercher (par exemple : un sujet, un lieu, un événement, un nom de personne ou d'organisme, etc.).

Si vous souhaitez entrer plus d'un mot ou d'une expression ou si vous souhaitez chercher parmi les archives d’un centre en particulier, optez pour la recherche avancée.

Généalogie

Aide

Cherchez simultanément dans les 17 bases de données publiques de BAnQ en généalogie.

Vous pouvez restreindre les résultats de la recherche en cochant seulement les bases de données qui vous intéressent à l’aide de l’option « Limiter la recherche ».

La recherche se fait à partir du nom de famille (au moins 3 lettres) et du prénom (optionnel).

BAnQ Vieux-Montréal

Territory covered: Montréal, Laval, Lanaudière, Laurentides and Montérégie regions
Year of inauguration: 1971

REFLECTION OF A METROPOLIS
Archives of a remarkable historical wealth

Carte postale.

Ice Shove Commissioner Street, Montréal, H. C. Leighton Co., [circa 1900].
Laurette Cotnoir-Capponi fonds (P186, S9, P177a).

Located on Viger Avenue, in the imposing complex including the building of the former École des hautes études commerciales, the Montréal archives centre is part of the network of 10 Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) archives centres, located throughout Québec.

The centre preserves numerous public and private archive fonds. This site is a must for genealogists and people researching family history; the Montréal archives centre's consultation room can hold more than 200 people. It offers an imposing collection of materials of a genealogical nature, a large portion of which has been inherited from the Salle Gagnon of Montréal's central library. The centre's library includes more than 15,000 reference works, 100 periodical titles and a collection of 20,000 microfilms. Reading and copying equipment, including readers/digitizers, are made available to the patrons.

Each year, hundreds of patrons from the educational and professional sectors use the services provided for research concerning the history of their family, locality or region. Patrons also include historians, biographers, media representatives, producers, editors and lawyers. Efficient staff members guide them in the use of the wide range of materials preserved there.

The Montréal archives centre has more than 24 linear kilometres of archives forming a coherent collection of fonds of a remarkable historical value and continuity. These archives can be used to trace the evolution of Québec society from the time of colonization to the present day.

 The collection includes:

A group of children circa 1881.

Children of the Lacoste
and Globensky families,
with snowshoes, 1881?.
Landry family fonds
(P155, S1, SS2, D51).
Photo: William Notman.

  • civil archives (19% of the archives preserved), including tutorship and curatorship files, probated wills, civil status registers and notaries' records (wills, marriage contracts, inventories made following death); these archives are among those that are most often consulted by researchers interested in tracing their origins, ancestors and family histories;
  • judicial archives (46% of the archives preserved), which contain the files of the civil, penal and criminal cases brought before the courts from the time of the creation of the Montréal Baillage (balliwick) in 1644 up to the time of the Québec Court (1988);
  • private archives (18% of the archives preserved) from the major families that have left their mark on the history of Montréal and Québec, such as the Papineau, Lacoste, Mercier, Gouin and Gérin-Lajoie families; from politicians, which provide a view behind the scenes of power, including René Lévesque, Claude Ryan, Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard; from the cultural world, represented by the archives of playwright Marcel Dubé, painter Ozias Leduc, singer Pauline Julien, author and humorist Claude Meunier, poet Émile Nelligan, novelist Jacques Ferron, choreographer Fernand Nault and many others; from companies (Consolidated Bathurst Incorporated, Charbonneau et Lamothe Ltée); from social or popular groups such as the Fédération québécoise du guidisme et du scoutisme or the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire;
  • government archives (17% of the archives preserved) demonstrating the role played by the State in several fields: the archives of the Grands Voyers (road inspectors), those of the various public inquiry commissions, the organizing committee of the 1976 Olympics, Radio-Québec (now Télé-Québec), and many other organizations.

 

More than 8,500,000 images preserved at the Montréal archives centre come from the archive collections of amateur or professional photographers, including:

  • Studio O. Allard;
  • Point du Jour Aviation (rural environment);
  • Denis Brodeur (sports);
  • Antoine Desilets (media photographer);
  • Daniel Kieffer (theatre);
  • Conrad Poirier (reporter-photographer);
  • Gabriel Desmarais (Gaby);
  • the collections of the artists of the Office du film du Québec, including Gabor Szilasi; and
  • caricatures by Chartier, Gagnier, Phaneuf, Pijet, Berthio and Girerd (8870 drawings).

  

The architectural archives collections include 110,000 drawings of projects for religious, public and commercial buildings, as well as private residences. Several collections include maps and plans (73,000 items) which researchers can use to determine the locations of the lands owned by their ancestors or to track changes in the occupation of a territory.

Certified private archive services

Consultation room.

Consultation room of the
Montréal archives centre, 2005.
Photo: Alain Michon.

Région de Montréal

 

Région Montérégie

 

Région Laval, Lanaudière, Laurentides

 

  

Contact information

People standing in front of a biplane in a field.

A biplane in a field, July 4, 1915.
William Murray fonds (P401, S1, P374).

BAnQ Vieux-Montréal
Édifice Gilles-Hocquart
535, avenue Viger Est
Montréal (Québec)  H2L 2P3
Metro Berri-UQAM or Champ-de-Mars

Opening hours
Tuesday, Friday and Saturday,
from 9 am to 5 pm
Wednesday and Thursday,
from 9 am to 9 pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

Iconographic, cartographic,
architectural and audiovisual archives:
By appointment, from Tuesday through Friday,
10 am to 12 noon and
from 1 pm to 5 pm
(icono.cam@banq.qc.ca or 514 873-1101, extension 6351)

Telephone: 514 873-1100 or 1 800 363-9028, option 4 then option 1
Fax: 514 873-2980
E-mail: archives.montreal@banq.qc.ca

Activities information:
animation.archives@banq.qc.ca
Telephone: 514 873-4300