Robert Paterson, LJI Reporter

Brome County has a long and rich history. Although Quebec counties are an extinct entity – replaced by the municipalité régionale de comté, ours being MRC Brome-Missisquoi – the memory of Brome County lives on through the Brome County Historical Society. While the organization has a new public face as the Musée Lac-Brome Museum – a tourism-friendly label and facilitating highway signage – BCHS remains its legal name.
The 126-year-old institution is best known for its permanent display of a century-old school classroom, 19th-century household artifacts, and a First World War Fokker biplane, as well as temporary exhibitions such as the current Through the eyes of children: Finding Home in Brome County (the story of the British home children). But behind the scenes is a rich trove of documents, photographs, diaries and multimedia that comprise the BCHS archives.
Headed by Archivist Anne-Marie Charuest and located in the Old Courthouse on St. Paul’s Road, the archives are focused on the history of the area’s pioneer families and their personal and professional activities. The relationship between the archives and museum exhibits is closely linked, says Charuest. “A museum exhibition cannot exist without objects and artifacts, but if there is no information relating to the ‘why, where, what and do’ of the objects and artifacts, the exhibition is incomplete. That’s where the archives come in.”
Charuest was named BCHS Archivist in 2020. She holds a master’s degree in archival science from Université Laval and has more than 20 years’ experience as a professional archivist. She was joined on the team a year ago by Assistant Archivist Marc-Andre Lussier, who holds a BA in history and a certificate in archives sciences. A part-time member of the team is Tristan Caron, archivist with the Ville de Bromont,.
The archives include original pioneer papers from before Confederation, microfilms of census and church records, county records, family group charts, genealogy files and cemetery inscriptions. A highlight is thousands of glass-plate photo negatives of individuals, families, buildings and properties. Although not classified as official archives, the archivist team is also responsible for a large collection of books and newspapers. In addition, some of the Town of Brome Lake’s historical documents are also stored, under contract, on BCHS premises.
An important milestone for the archives was reached in 2018, when the BCHS archives were accredited by the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec (BAnQ). This is a demanding test as it sets a high bar for quality and authenticity of the materials kept, complying with professional archival standards for the origin and quality of items, as well as storage requirements and staff qualifications.
The Courthouse has had a fireproof vault for nearly 140 years, thus meeting a key storage baseline. A major project has been underway for the past five years to examine, record and store archival materials, which are carefully wrapped and stored in thoroughly waterproof protective boxes. The task at hand is mammoth, and may take 10 or more years to complete, given the more than two centuries’ worth of material to process, Charuest said.
Once items are recorded under the new system, the related information becomes public and is posted to the Archives webpage (https://www.townshipsarchives.ca/brome-county-history-society?sf_culture=en). There currently now are more than 200 entries on the website. The public is invited to search the online database and place a request for information, as outlined on the archive website. However, due to resource constraints, priority is given to the museum’s needs and to professional research projects. For example, Charuest’s team currently is preparing material for an upcoming Lac-Brome Museum exhibit on the families behind the names of various roads in the area.
While archives are shelves of seemingly dormant paper documents and photo plates, they provide an invaluable window on our forefathers’ lives, Charuest says. “Knowing who lived before us not only gives a brighter perspective on who we are now, but also offers answers to how they managed their destiny and what they did with the natural resources,” she says. “Looking through the archives, we realize our ancestors probably experienced the same positive and negative situations as us but had other ways to deal with them. It gives us a sense of humility and respect.”