1906 to 1912 Records from the Geo Haynes Funeral Home, Shawville, Quebec

Serendipity. Go to a local archives or the local history section of your public library and you're liable to find some unique items squirreled away, virtually forgotten on some obscure shelf. Orphans, neglected and mostly unloved, too small to attract the attention of a digitization project, they can be diamonds in the rough which when polished up lend sparkle to your family history.

Last year Gloria Tubman was poking around in the Pontiac Archives in Shawville, Quebec, when she discovered a box of original records in a fragile state, about 80 pages from the Geo Haynes funeral business. There was information on the deceased, the cost of the burial and payments, where buried , etc. Some pages missing, the handwriting was hard to decipher as some was entered in pencil, some in ink, and some had been written over.

Gloria has completed a transcription, a copy of which is now in the Pontiac Archives. Wouldn't it be great if it, like those other gems in your local archive, became more widely accessible.