WORLD CONFERENCE ON RECORDS AND GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR ARCHIVAL AND LIBRARY SOURCES: SYSTEMATIC MEANS OF LOCATING MATERIALS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND UNTAPPED SOURCES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 20
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2006
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: August 5, 1969
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
WORLD CONFERENCE
ON RECORDS
AND GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR
Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.
5-8 August 1969
ARCHIVAL AND LIBRARY SOURCES:
Systematic Means of Locating Materials throughout the World
and Untapped Sources, What do'we do about them
with special reference to searches for sources of Canadian interest.
By
Robert S. Gordon, B.A.
"Record Protection in
an Uncertain World"
COPYRIGHT?AypIO edA 7 eaSle ZOWANQFA OFGIIASRQR73FQWZA1?9+ %IQQI,40006A,~EA A
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
Systematic Means of Locating Materials throughout the World
and Untapped Sources - What do we do about them
with special reference to searches for sources of Canadian interest.
By
Robert S. Gordon, B. A.
Acquisition of manuscripts and records is one of the most important functions of an
archival repository. It is immensely challenging, often frustrating, but ultimately rewarding. By
expanding its holdings an institution offers better service to researchers, and adds to its stature
as a reputable research centre. There is no archival repository on the face of the earth that
would willingly turn down an accession of records relating to its sphere of interest. Most of the
institutions actively search out and acquire documents, which are gathered painstakingly,
laboriously and patiently. The really outstanding archives however conduct their searches and
acquisition programmes systematically.
I am with the Public Archives of Canada, which ranks among the top dozen archival
institutions in the world. Our holdings now exceed 60,000 feet of shelf space, which translated
to pages would number more than 100,000,000. We also have 25,000 reels of microfilm, 'of
which 11,000 are original negatives. In addition, as official repository of the Government of
Canada, the Public Archives has custody of more than 100 miles of shelf space of departmental
records. I said in addition, because the Public Archives has a dual function; it preserves the
records of the Canadian Government, very much like the National Archives of Washington, the
Public Record Office in London, and the Archives Nationales in Paris. At the same time it
collects private papers of individuals, records of institutions and business corporations in the
same fashion as does the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, the British Museum,
or the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I am explaining this dual function of my institution as
it has important bearing on the subject of this paper. And since I do propose to partially draw,
on my knowledge and experience with the Public Archives, the unique character of the
institution is highly relevant to this topic.
It was a sign of professionalism when archival institutions began to recognize that
systematic searches were a cornerstone of a successful acquisition programme. I am somewhat
at a disadvantage to speak about this trend outside of my own institution. I do know however
that archives in my own country are presently devising programmes to avail themselves of the
benefits of methodical searches. Indeed the systematization of searches has become more and
more evident all over the world, particularly during the last decade when graduate programmes
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
at the various universities were expanded. The number of newly-formed archival institutions,
very often extensions of university libraries, increased in proportion. This resulted in fierce
competition for sources, and prices for manuscripts skyrocketed. This trend is particularly
pronounced in the field of rare books, and auctions I recently attended confirm it beyond
doubt.
There is basically nothing new about systematic searches for manuscripts and records.
Such searches date back to the days when archival sources were under the tutelage of libraries
or museums. Indeed, they were conducted from the days the historians began to look for
evidence to support their theses. However, before I become too deeply involved in the
question of systematic searches, I ought to say that I propose to focus the attention on
searches for written historical evidence (manuscripts and records), rather than specific types of
records, such as genealogical sources. Very few archival institutions make clear a distinction
between genealogical and non-genealogical records. Moreover, a precise delimitation of
genealogical records, as opposed to general historical material, is very difficult. Very few
archives have definite policies in this respect; it is simply more convenient to gather records
indiscriminately. In the course of compilation of the Union List of Manuscripts in Canadian
Repositories, which is a'national catalogue of archival holdings in Canada, I was impressed with
the fact that genealogical materials were found in the possession of institutions that were not
created for that purpose. Subsequent examination of the National Union Catalogue of
Manuscript Collections, which is your counterpart of our Union List, shows that a similar
situation exists in this country. Most archival insitutions, as we know them today, collect
records and manuscripts whenever and wherever available. This aspect must be stressed with
some emphasis as it will be a factor when planning systematic searches.
Now I have mentioned the words "systematic searches" several times. Perhaps this will be
a good time to take a closer look at this term. What do we mean when we speak of systematic
searches? Are we talking about a plan that is orderly, thorough, coherent and premeditated?
Or are we talking about a methodical execution of such a plan, or both? Can one indeed apply
a scientific method to a basically humanistic discipline such as history? Moreover, do we
actually have evidence that systematic searches have been conducted in the past with any
degree of success? When the Benjamin Franklin Papers were found in a tailor's shop in Paris,
were other tailor shops examined as part of the search? And before the tailor shops, what
other logical places were searched for these papers, unsuccessfully? I am reasonably certain,
even without knowing the facts, that searches for the Franklin papers were made in all sorts of
logical places. It is basic common sense to look for materials in places where they are normally
or customarily located. If you were born in England, and you are looking for your birth
certificate, the customary place to find it is the Somerset House in London. Failing that, you
ought to write to the church where you were baptized. Several years ago we obtained the birth
certificate of Brig. General James Wolfe, the hero of the Plains of Abraham. The certificate
showing that Wolfe was born in 1727 was obtained directly from the rector of the church in
Westerham where Wolfe was baptized. I am suggesting to you that there is nothing systematic
about searches for sources which are located in places where they ought to be. If such searches
pre-suppose a formal programme of methodical examination of institutions, government
agencies, or other archival repositories for sources, which, because of their nature are expected
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
to be located there, then we are not talking about searches in the conventional sense of the
word. One does not search for one's nose. When we are talking about programmes such as
searches of church registry offices, court houses, municipal assessment offices, registries of
vital statistics, offices of shipping companies (for passenger lists), custodians of census records,
military personnel offices (for muster rolls and pay lists), registry offices for land titles,
naturalization or citizenship courts or registration agencies, immigration branches, passport
offices, and many other establishments involved in processing claims, requests, applications,
petitions, registrations etc. of persons in this everincreasingly complex beaurocratic society,
can we actually talk in terms of systematic searches? We certainly to talk about searches,
particularly in cases where the institutions holding such records have no adequate finding aids.
And how many of them actually do? There are many precedents for this type of searches. The
host society has without doubt the most impressive record of such searches.
But do we actually limit ourselves to searching only the logical places? Do we only look
for parish registers in the registries of the respective churches? Or do we go beyond the logical
places? You know from your own experience that church registers have a habit of turning up
in the most unexpected places. The archives of the Hudson's Bay Company in London has an
impressive collection of these registers. My own institution is not generally expected to collect
church records. While I am talking to you our printers are releasing a 21 page publication
entitled "Check-List of Parish Registers". This publication lists more than 95 separate parish
registers of every known denomination in Canada. Yet very few researchers suspect that we
have these documents. When we compiled the Union List of Manuscripts, to which I already
referred, the most important question facing the editors was the extent of coverage of the
300-odd archival repositories in Canada. Should the holdings of all these institutions be listed
in the ULM? The formula at which we arrived at that time, and which is still valid, was that
coverage should not be extended to archives containing homogeneous material, material which
is normally found in their custody. We stipulated that we had a right to assume that
researchers looking for records of, say, the Diocese of Montreal would contact directly the
archives of that Diocese, or searching for the business records of the Bank of Montreal, would
write to the archives of that Bank. Needless to say that we made every effort to list the
materials that were not normally found in that repository. For example, we listed the fur trade
journals, that were found in a Diocesan archives, and parish registers that are in the possession
of a university archives.
But I think that I have flogged that horse long enough. Still a word or two about the term
"systematic". Those of you who are in the acquisition field can name numerous projects of
systematic searches for records. I would like to offer you four examples of systematic searches,
which I hope will enable me to demonstrate the progress that has taken place within the last
100 years.
In 1873, one year after the Public Archives of Canada was created, Douglas Brymner, the
first Dominion Archivist mailed some 500 circular letters to prominent persons all over the
world, but mainly in Canada, Great Britain, France and the United States, asking them to
present the papers of their illustrious forbears to the Canadian archives. The recipients were all
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
persons of great stature whose forbears played important roles in the affairs of Canada. Fifty
years later, Arthur Doughty, the second Dominion Archivist, gathered the descendants of these
families at a gala banquet in London, and later in Paris, to repeat the same request.
In the 1950's the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan distributed to all elder inhabitants
of the Province questionnaires requesting information on their genealogical background,
significant happenings in their communities, and on any other interesting highlights of their
lives in the Province. Every senior resident of Saskatchewan was systematically canvassed in
this connection. The response was very rewarding, and the Provincial Archives acquired
virtually thousands of "case histories" of pioneer experiences. About the same time the
Provincial Archives of Ontario embarked on an even more ambitious project of systematically
collecting the papers of the early residents of Ontario. A virtual door-to-door search of the
rural and small-town area of Eastern Ontario was made (which is still continuing) yielding large
quantities of original correspondence, diaries, and business records of the early pioneers of that
area. The key to the success to that venture was the choice of the searcher, who, being a native
of the area, had an easy access to the homes of the residents.
A brief analysis of the four projects leads me to suggest, something that I expect to
demonstrate to you later, that there is a pattern in the application of scientific method tolour
systematic searches. The first searches, as one may expect, were conducted in the logical
places. The records of the Colonial Office were found in the archives of the PRO where they
were supposed to be; the Papers of Sir Charles Bagot were found, as one may expect, in the
possession of his grandson, Joselyn Bagot. When this phase of our searches was exhausted, we
turned to other places. Like the Archives of Saskatchewan and Ontario we began to canvass all
possible persons and institutions.
In 1965 a team of archivists at the Public Archives, with whom I was actively associated,
began to examine the better-known programmes for acquisition of private manuscripts and
public records with the view to improving our own system. As the result of these investigations
my colleagues became convinced that our vast searches particularly in Europe, could be
progressively systematized. In particular we began to look for ways and means to eliminate the
element of chance. In this connection we re-examined the entire programme for acquisition of
public records, and made important revisions in our searches for private manuscripts. By 1967
we developed on paper the rudiments of what is now known as the Systematic National
Acquisition Programme, which was immediately nicknamed, SNAP. I said on paper, because
the SNAP programme was so comprehensive that it soon aroused considerable controversy,
particularly on the part of archival institutions that resented this encroachment on their
domain. I am glad to say that these fears are proving groundless, and that the programme, in
fact, is beginning to benefit all provincial archival repositories in Canada. But it is not my
intention to discredit the traditional searches which had yielded in the past such rich harvests
of archival sources. There is something almost nostalgic about searches of little-known local
libraries, museums and historical societies, of forgotten monasteries, medieval mansions and
castles, of bat-infested attics and mice-inhabited basements, of forgotten nooks and crannies of
old houses with a "for-sale" sign. Then, there were the more respectable searches of such
store-houses of archival treasures as the Public Record Office and the British Museum in
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
London, the Scottish Record Office in Edinburgh, the Archives Nationales and the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and in those formidable fortress-like archives in Spain and
Italy.-Then there were the searches of estates, book sales and auctions. But the most exciting
of them all were, and still are, the searches for collections of individuals in the possession of
the family.
These searches took us all over the world. In many ways Canada is a good example of a
country that had to expand its searches beyond the border. Before 1867, the date of
Confederation, the destiny of Canada was controlled, first from Paris, then, after 1760, from
London. Other important decisions affecting the history of Canada were made in Washington,
and to a lesser extent in Madrid. It is no accident therefore that the most important records
affecting Canada were the records of the Governments of France and Great Britain. In the field
of manuscripts and other private papers, particularly the papers of outstanding individuals who
helped to shape the policies of our country (especially the various civil and military governors),
the searches often had to be carried out in France and England. Most of the governors and
military officers, as well as other top administrators, came from these two countries.
Needless to say that when the Public Archives of Canada was established in 1872 with its
now famous budget of $4,000, the most immediate attention was directed to searches for
French and British records relating to Canada. Indeed, the first important accession was a large
collection, consisting of some 250,000 pages of records of the British Military and Naval
Authorities in Canada, covering the period from 1757 to 1899, which were located in an old
warehouse in Halifax. There records were ready for shipment to England when Douglas
Brymner, the first Dominion Archivist, skillfully talked the War Office in London in to placing
them in his newly-minted archives in Ottawa.
Rudimentary and sporadic as they were, Brymner's efforts already bore the stamp of his
systematic mind. With his meagre $4,000 he managed in his first year to visit all provincial
capitals in Canada. His tour took him to Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, St. John and
Fredericton. The following year, in 1873, he sent out 500 circulars to persons reputed to hold
important collections of manuscripts. This was part of a large master plan to gather all
significant private papers.
While Brymner was paying lip service to sources in Canada, his active mind was busy with
plans for European searches. The wealth of the Public Records Office and the British Museum
in London, and the Archives Nationales in Paris was too obvious to escape his attention.
Moreover, important searches in these institutions had already been made. In 1845 The
Executive Council of the Province of Canada voted #200 to Louis Joseph Papineau (while in
exile) to copy significant documents from the French archives in Paris. Six years later George
Faribault was commissioned to transcribe documents of Canadian interest from the same
source. In 1859 the- Legislature authorized J. P. Merritt, and later on George Coventry, to
prepare transcripts from the British sources. In Rome, Rev. F. Martin was making copies in the
Vatican archives about the same time.
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
With Brymner's appointment, Ottawa's pre-occupation with the European archives was
intensified. In 1872 Abbe H. Verreaut, Principal of the Jacques Cartier Normal School in
Montreal was commissioned to go to Paris to undertake a thorough survey of records in the
French archives. Paris turned out to be a veritable treasurehouse of documents. The field was
particularly bountiful in the period from the founding of Quebec to the Treaty of Paris of
1763. In these "happy hunting grounds" Abbe Verreaut began his methodical searches in
1874. Before he left Canada for France, Verreaut read everything he could lay his hands on.
He examined the existing finding aids to the French sources, and he made wide use of the
printed guides. When Verreaut set foot on the French soil, he had in his pocket a detailed
itinerary, and rigid timetable, which took him systematically from one end of the country to
another. Among other places he visited Lille, Brussels, Liege, Metz, Paris, Rouen, Bordeau,
Marseilles, Toulouse, Anney, Chamberg, and Grenoble. I would like to spend a few minutes to
highlight this famous trip, as it resulted in a vast programme of copying documents all over
France. It also generated our interest in other European countries, and took our researchers to
Spain, Italy and Germany, and even drew our attention to materials in the custody of the then
Imperial Russian Archives in St. Petersburgh.
Verreaut's first stop was in Lille, and brought him into contact with the Archives
departementales, which roughly speaking corresponds to our provincial archives. The
departmental archives turned out to be exceptionally rich in sources, particularly on the early
settlers of Canada. As Faribault and Tangay before him found out, our knowledge of the early
Norman and Breton settlers of Canada had to be gathered painstakingly from masses of
disjointed accounts and , records in the custody of these local archives. In some areas,
particularly in Normandy, our patient and persistent searches produced impressive collections
of data, which now form one of the most important sources of the early history of settlement.
Indeed some of our transcripts have become unique, as the Second World War reduced to ashes
the originals in some French archives, particularly in Caen and St. Malo.
Abbe Verreaut stopped in Lille, which contains the departmental archives of the Counties
of Flanders and Burgundy. As many of the Jesuit missionaries came from that area, he,found
many records of their activities in Canada. He was particularly pleased when he found in the
papers of the Archbiship of Cambrai the Memoire sur la vie de M. de Laval, premier eveque de
Quebec. Brussels yielded more material on the martyrdom of the Jesuits; most of it in the
papers of the Duke of Burgundy. Liege and Metz were disappointing, even though Verreaut
systematically searched all known archives and libraries in the area. Paris was next on the
itinerary. It would take me a separate paper to describe the searches that were conducted in
the various repositories of that historically wealthy city. I will however single out the Archives
de la Marine, and one or two problems that would typify the work of our man. According to
Abbe Tangay, who visited these archives in 1867 the early Acadian registers of baptisms,
marriages and burials were supposed to be in the custody of the Archives de la Marine. The
custodians at the archives told Verreaut that these registers could not be found. Could not be
found? Well, such terms did not exist in the vocabulary of our archival agents of one hundred
years ago. Verreaut simply refused to accept it. And so a lengthy search began. It was not until
ten years later when Joseph Marmette, another in the long list of indomitable French-Canadian
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
archivists, found the registers in the Archives des Colonies, along with a veritable motherlode
of genealogical records of civil and criminal proceedings of what is now part of Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The period was from 1711 to 1758. But the gem of
the find was the 1661 census of New France, the earliest on record.
But I must not digress. Like a fox in a hen-house, Verreaut began to gorge himself on the
sumptuous sources in Paris. It is difficult to be systematic in a place where everything that you
touch turns to important historical manuscripts. Verreaut was in the enviable position of being
able to choose sources that were of maximum significance and that satisfied his own particular
field of interest. The discoveries of the vast continental areas south-west, west and north of
Quebec, the missionary work among the Indians, and the administration of New France were
high on the priority list. The names of Cartier, Champlain, LaSalle, Governor Frontenac,
Bishop Laval, the Jesuit martyrs, the fur traders, and a host of other famous pioneers came to
the surface from under the thick layer of dust. The words, EUREKA, must have been heard
many times in the ancient walls of the French archives.
There is a story of a very old archivist of the Florentine archives around the turn of the
century whose only finding aid was his extraordinary scent of the ancient paper, ink and glue.
Blind as he was, the archivist was able to sniff his way through shelves of bound volumes to the
manuscripts that were requested. There is some evidence that our searchers in Europe began to
develop similar scents for materials of interest to Canada. At one stage in his searches Verreaut
discovered a substantial gap in the records of Archives des Colonies. Piecing together evidence
that he gathered from various sources, he learned that the offices which contained the records
were ransacked by a mob during the Revolution. Papers were thrown out the window, and lay
scattered on the street. An attache of the Russian embassy, which was located near-by, a man
by the name of Pierre Dubrowski, was seen gathering the valuable papers, thus saving them
from virtually-certain destruction. Having access to safe transportation, Dubrowski sent these
records to his home office in St. Petersburg. In 1874 Verreaut was able to confirm that the
missing papers were indeed in the Russian Imperial Archives in St. Petersburg. (1) Following
up on this find, Verreaut also learned that another Russian, a Zaluski, saved from destruction
in Paris other valuable records. Another batch of records of the French Secretary of State, our
agent was able to learn, was sold in England, along with the entire library of the Bishop of
Constance. Searches showed that these papers were bought by Lord Harley, and subsequently
presented to the British Museum as the Harleian Collection.
Like all good archivists our searchers kept their eyes open for genealogical records.
Members of the Carignan-Salieres Regiment, brought to Canada in 1665 to stop the devastating
Indian raids, were ultimately settled along the Richelieu River. Verreaut was elated when he
found the paylists of some 20 companies of that regiment. But is was in Rouen, and in other
northern port cities that genealogical records on the early settlers were found. The settlers of
New France came mostly from northern France, so it was natural that our agents singled out
these areas for systematic searches. In comparison, the survey of Marseilles, Toulouse, and
Grenoble were disappointing. Very few of Canada's pioneers came from that area. Bordeau was
however an exception. Intendant Bigot was a naive of that city, and searches of the local
archives produced considerable amount of information on him.
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
While Verreaut was covering France, Brymner found his Eldorado in London. Hardly was
the. ice off the St. Lawrence River, when the Dominion Archivist boarded ship for England. It
is almost embarrassing to follow him through all the repositories of records in London. The
sheer wealth of material was overwhelming. But what of it? "Water, water everywhere but
nothing to drink." What can an archivist do with a left-over of $4,000? Nothing concrete! But
one can plan. Planning is inexpensive, and Brymner, being the person he was, did a lot of
planning that year. He visited every conceivable institution holding documents. The sequence
of his visits is immaterial. The Public Record Office was probably first on his list. In his report
to the Minister, Brymner prophetically wrote that the searches in the PRO will probably never
end. Today, almost 100 years after that original survey, which already yielded several million
pages of transcripts, and twice as many microfilm reproductions, we are still searching for, and
finding, new exciting sources.
There is something fascinating about military records. Brymner already acquired a
complete set of records of the British Forces in Canada. No wonder that one of his stops in
London was at the War Office. There, he uncovered large masses of valuable records relating to
the War of 1812, among them important genealogical material. Marmette found the Acadian
registers in the Archives Nationales, Brymner found similar registers of vital statistics among
the military records. The garrison chaplains, at one time, were probably the only clergymen
available, and were required to record the births, marriages and deaths of most of the
protestant population of Canada during the early part of the British rule. Further searches
revealed complete sets of muster rolls, paylists of soldiers, as well as petitions from the.
American loyalists wishing to settle in the British province. In the Tower of London Brymner
found additional records of this type, which he carefully ear-marked for transcription at a later
date.
But it was the British Museum that became his highlight in London. The mere name is
enough to impress any collector of documents. It was the Mecca of the 19th century for all
historians, archivists, genealogists and related researchers. Brymner might have rubbed
shoulders with Karl Marx, and could have been mistaken for him as both had sported equally
impressive beards. Beyond this the similarity ended. Brymner was a collector, and probably
had little time to compare beards. He had just learned that the British Museum acquired (back
in 1857) the papers of General Sir Frederick Haldimand, perhaps the most important single
source of evidence relating to the American Revolution. Theodore Roosevelt referred to these
papers as "among the most valuable of the hitherto untouched manuscripts" which "give for
the first time, the British and Indian side of all the northwestern fighting". (2) Brymner was
quick to realize the true value of this collection. Its sheer size, forty feet of shelf space, or 232
volumes, more than 100,000 pages, commanded tremendous respect. But the collection was
not for sale. Indeed most of the other sources that our agents found in London and Paris could
not be obtained in original form. But the answer to this problem was already available. When
Papineau was sent to Paris to search for documents of Canadian interest, he was given a grant
to enable him to transcribe the more important papers. So it was to be transcription for
Brymner too. Long, patient copying by hand, page after page, volume after volume, collection
after collection. I have already mentioned that we have now on our shelves several million
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
pages of these handwritten copies of French and British documents. You can imagine the
patience that went into this work. Day-after-day the clerks were transcribing the documents,
many of them in the old English and French script. Many mistakes were made by these patient
scribes. One of the more famous is recorded in the Haldimand Papers where a passage reading
that "a priest was called in to administer supreme unction" was transcribed by one of the more
careless clerks as "a priest was called to administer supreme suction". But such mistakes were
not frequent. It took Brymner three years to finish the Haldimand Papers, which included also
the preparation of a detailed calendar. This project became a pattern for other collections, and
for the mammoth "Q" Series - the Despatches from the Governors of Canada to the Colonial
Office.
Before I proceed any further with descriptions of our searches I ought to draw your
attention on one aspect of this operation, namely the gathering of papers of private
individuals. You may well wonder why so much attention is being given to these papers. The
fact is that the papers of prominent politicians and other important public figures often
contain public records. Time and again our searchers in Europe and on this continent have
uncovered in the private papers complete sets of official files, departmental reports, census
returns, army or militia paylists, petitions for land grants, claims for losses arising out of war
damages and even parish registers. How did these records fall into the hands of private
individuals? The answer is simple. In Canada, in Great Britain, and to some extent in the
United States many public officials have acquired the habit upon retirement from office of
taking with them the records of their office. It is not uncommon to find that a former minister
of,. say, a methodist church, a retired colonel of a regiment, a magistrate, or a pensioned-off
registrar of vital statistics have kept the records that were entrusted to them during the tenure
of their office. The papers of General Haldimand, for example, contain the most
comprehensive set of paylists of troops under his command. The same papers also contain
exhaustive lists and records of persons who remained loyal to the British crown during the
American Revolution. The papers of William Claus, at one time Deputy Superintendent
General of Indian Affairs, consist of practically all the official records of his office. The habit
of retaining official records upon retirement from office is particularly entrenched on the part
of elected officials. In Canada, the records of Office of the Prime Minister (and of other
cabinet ministers) become the private property of the incumbent upon departure from office.
While much of this material is of political calibre, there are also complete records of official
transactions of the office. Fortunately for us most of the Prime Ministers of Canada displayed
a true sense of responsibility by placing their papers in the Public Archives. Except for one
Prime Minister (out of fourteen), all papers of this highest office in the country are now in our
custody. The sole exception, the papers of the Rt. Hon. R. B. Bennett have been however
made available to us for microfilming. I brought this aspect of our political life to your
attention as I feel that you will agree with me that the national archives has an obligation and
responsibility to search out, acquire and preserve these papers using whatever means there are
at its disposal. The history of Canada since 1867, when the various British province federated
into the present nation, is documented most significantly in the papers of its Prime Ministers.
In the past, these papers were seldom transferred directly from the offices of these politicians.
As a matter of fact, the agents of the Public Archives had often to locate the living descendants
of these famous Canadians, and in some cases were only able to acquire these papers after hard
and protracted negotiations.
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
But we must rejoin Douglas Brymner whom we left in the British Museum elated over the
discovery of the Haldimand Papers. I am not going to bore you with a long list of his
discoveries in England. His English and French search operations were proceeding successfully,
and vast copying programmes were already underway. So he began to look for other worlds to
conquer. In 1883 he started to correspond with Pascual de Gayangoz about the Spanish
sources relating to Canada. In the process he learned that some of the early Florida and
Louisiana records had been sent to Cuba, and that the Spanish Government ordered them to
be sent to Madrid. Out of this exchange the Archivo General de Indias, in Seville was found to
contain important correspondence relating to Jacques Cartier and Sieur do Roberval. In the
National Archives in Madrid it was possible to obtain transcripts of correspondence relating to
Jacques Cartier and Sieur de Roberval. In the National Archives in Madrid it was possible to
obtain transcripts of correspondence between the Spanish ambassador in London and the King
of Spain relating to the Seven Years' War, the War of the American Revolution, and the War of
1812 The Provincial Archives of British Columbia, acting on their own initiative, located in
the Spanish Foreign Office and the National Archives in Madrid impressive transcripts of
records relating to the exploration of the Pacific Northwest, and the Nootka Sound incident.
In Italy our inquiries were concentrated mainly in Vatican which opened its archives to
the public in 1881. But only records prior to 1846 were made available for copying.
Consequently our transcripts from that source cover the period from 1608 to about that date.
Employing the services of Archbishop Taschereau and Abbe Casgrain, Brymner was able to
examine the restricted Archives of the Gesu. (3) In 1932 at the request of the Dominion
Archivist the Holy See opened to our researchers the Secret Archives, and permitted a more
liberal copying of documents. Outside of Vatican our searchers found numerous references to
Canada, mainly in relation to the extensive fishing operations of the Italian fleet.
Scotland, Ireland (particularly the Northern Ireland), Cermany, Russia, Netherlands,
Belgium, Mexico, Hawaii, and many other countries, have been at various times scrutinized for
possible Canadian records. We have acquired many interesting documents from these countries.
In addition, more by accident than as a result of any systematic effort of ours, we acquired
originals, or copies of records from Japan, Australia, Poland, the West Indies, Turkey, and
other countries. The United States always occupied a special spot in Ottawa's planning. There
was a boundless confidence on the part of Canadian archivists that the records in the various
American archives were safe, and our searches could be delayed until Europe was thoroughly
covered. Moreover the existence of Canadian materials south of the border was well
documented, and access to bona-fide researchers was always liberal. It is relatively easy to
travel from Montreal or Toronto to Boston, New York, Detroit or Chicago.
Similar reasons might have motivated our planners when they played down domestic
searches during the early years of the existence of the Public Archives. Then too, Canada
unlike most other countries was externally-oriented. As mentioned already, the most
important records prior to 1867 were those of France and Great Britain. Still it would be
unfair to burden the early archivists with a reputation of having neglected the purely Canadian
sources. Extensive searches were made from the start of our corporate existence. Our list of
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
accessions for the first ten years is quite impressive. The response to the 500 circulars that
Brymner mailed out in 1873 was exceptionally rewarding. But it was not until 1880's that the
Public Archives embarked on an active programme in Canada. Quebec, the cradle of Canada, in
spite of the ravages of the Seven Years' War, still was a rich and rewarding hunting ground for
historical material. When the Union List of Manuscripts was being compiled in the 1960's, our
editorial office received numerous returns from that Province. In spite of all these discoveries I
am firmly convinced that Quebec still holds rich troves of hidden sources.
A new impetus was given to our Canadian searches in 1884 when a discovery was made of
the Acts de Foy et Homage, covering the period from 1667-1674. The Acts de Foy were the
records of grants of land under seigneurial tenure, together with all sorts of related papers
containing very vital genealogical information. But a shiver of anxiety was spread in the
archival and historical profession. The Acts were found in a collection of the Jesuit Estate
records, in a damp basement, covered with mildew, the fringes already in decay, Segments of
these documents were beyond repair. The example of neglect filled Ottawa with fear for the
safety of similar documents elsewhere. Brymner took the initiative in writing to various
custodians of public records and archives impressing upon them the need for care and
preservation. In a letter to Sir Ambrose Shea, one of the key political figures in. Newfoundland,
and subsequently a Governor of that Province, the Dominion Archivist earnestly asked his help
to "collect and preserve the records of that the oldest Colony of England". (4) In New
Brunswick the records of the Executive Council were rescued from near-oblivion, and
subsequently placed in- a temporary custody of the Public Archives. These records are now
being returned to the newly-created Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.
But even records in Ottawa were deteriorating. When the Dominion of Canada was
created in 1867 many departments and agencies of the old Province of Canada came to an end.
In 1867 there was no Public Archives, and records of defunct agencies were lying dormant in
the basements of old buildings. Searches for these records began from the day our institution
was created. They are still going on today. The story of these searches is a saga of patience and
endurance. It is a story of hard work and perseverance; of many days spent in attics and
basements of old government buildings in Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa; a
story of getting lost in a maze of underground corridors and chambers, infested with rats, bats
and silverfish. I served my archival apprenticeship in these surroundings, with many hours
spent in damp cellars full of mildew, dust and cobwebs. Systematic searches in those days
menat, among other things, that one came provided with a plan of building, and worked his
way methodically, examining every room, nook and cranny. "Systematic" also meant that
rooms labelled "nothing but junk", or "nothing of value" had to be investigated with
particular care. Old government buildings are notoriously full of forgotten basements and attic
rooms. Some 12 years ago I was asked to prepare a report on the historical significance of
architectural carvings which dorn the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. An old guide, who for
50 years had conducted tours through the Buildings was retiring, and we wanted to preserve
his unique knowledge. Like an old locomotive doing her last trip, the old man took me all over
the building, regaling me with fascinating stories of the past. In the course of my tours I came
across numerous rooms full of old and valuable records, which were somehow bypassed on our
previous "systematic" searches. So our of this came another "systematic" search of the
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
venerable old building, yielding another batch of records. As you may surmise, since then we
conducted other searches there, always finding something new.
It seems to me that we are adding new support to our earlier contention that there is a
progression in the systematization of searches. Or as George Orwell might have said, "some
searches are more systematic than others". In 1873 all roads led to the Public Record Office
and the British Museum. Some twenty years later, when Brymner re-visited London (in 1892),
the searches were extended to include the Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Church
Missionary Society, the Hudson's Bay Company archives, the Moravian Brethren (Unitas
Frantrum), the Secretary of State for Scotland, and many other institutions holding records.
By the end of his reign, he amassed a respectable collection of documents, with some 400 feet
of transcripts of records which he so laboriously copied in Europe.
But it was Sir Arthur Doughty, the second Dominion Archivist, and the only Canadian
civil servant for whom a statue was erected, who added a new dimension to our domestic and
world-wide searches. Doughty was a born collector. His first, the most lasting, ambition, was to
make the Public Archives of Canada the richest repository in the world. During the 30 years of
his tenure as Dominion Archivist, 1904-1935, he'easily quadrupled his holdings. His drive to
acquire documents was so strong at that time it tended to obscure his loyalty to the aims and
objectives of the institution. He was possessed by the ambition to continuously add to his
holdings, and his yearly reports to the Minister brign out this trait very forcefully. There are
quaint stories of Doughty's exploits in acquiring documents. Watson Sellar, a former Auditor
General of Canada, once encountered Dr. Doughty on a London Street looking as if he had
just swallowed a canary. So in Sellar's own words, "we headed for a pub and the story. He
(Doughty) learned that an official gallery had decided to donate a painting of Jacques Cartier
to Canada and Doughty had gone around to make certain it was Abbe Cyprien Tangay, whose
monumental Dictionaire genealogique des fami//es conadiennes, which was published in seven
volumes, is still the most
He was too late; the National Gallery had been written and the picture was already crated
for shipment. "They showed me the box in the shipping room. It was already labelled, so I
scrounged around and got a duplicate and had a young lady type our address. When the place
was empty at noon, I slipped in and pasted it over the other one. Eric Brown (of the National
Gallery) will have the letter, but I'll have the picture, and possession is eleven points of the
law." (5) This unorthodox accession procedure appears to have worked, as the painting of
Jacques Cartier now hangs in the Public Archives.
There was no doubt that Doughty meant business when he took over the Archives.
Searches for documents were immediately promoted to the top of list of archival priorities.
The sadly neglected domestic searches were given fresh impetus. In 1905 Doughty obtained
the services of one of the most resourceful teams of archivists that ever collected documents.
The men were hand-picked, and after proper orientation and instruction were allocated
specific search territories. Rev. P. M. O'Leary, who became a legend in the various church
archives in Quebec, brought to Ottawa large collections of parish registers. O'Leary's success
(5) Watson Sellar: Intimate Memories in the Government Service, Globe and Mail, 12
September 1960.
12
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
was based on the support he managed to elicit from the church hierarchy. His field trips were
invariably preceded by warm letters of recommendation written by the Archbishop of Quebec.
O'Leary capitalized on this good-will, and the rich harvest of records was ample evidence of
the success of this approach. Needless to say that the prelate's palace did not escape the
scrutiny of our agent.
Ontario and the West were given to Robert Laidlaw who, with the help of Dr. Bain of the
Toronto Public Library, systematically visited all parts of his large domain. His itinerary
included, in addition to libraries, museums and churches, also the court-houses, municipal
archives, and historical societies. His production was exceptionally bountiful, and most of our
present documentary sources from Ontario may be traced back to his efforts.
But it was Dr. James Hannay who was the prodigy of the team. His were the maritime
provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Hannay, like Doughty
was a collector by temperament, and he took his work seriously. The stories of his exploits in
the East still haunt the memories of the various provincial archivists whose territories he was
systematically denuding of historical sources. When he said that he left no stone unturned, he
meant it literally. His special hobby was the compilation of tombstone inscriptions. And he
was only doing it because he was not allowed to cart away the originals. In 1962 when I visited
many of the places that Hannay covered some forty or fifty years ago, I discovered that his
name was still remembered by older residents. Again the inventories of our holdings, both
originals and copies, contain numerous references to sources which he so painstakingly
gathered.
While the O'Leary-Laidlaw-Hannay trio conducted the remarkable searches in the field,
another type of archivist was toiling at the headquarters. Placide Gaudet, an eminent Acadian
genealogist, was compiling a comprehensive Genealogies des families acadiennes. on the parish
,registers that Hannay was transcribing in the Maritimes, and on a vast amount of information
that he amassed while personally searching the various church registers. Gaudet followed in the
"steps of another famous French-Canadian predecessor, Abbe Cyprien Tangay, whose
`monumental Dictionaire genealogique des families conadiennes, which was published in seven
volumes, is stillthe most authoritative work on family histories in French Canada. Gaudet left
behind him more than a million index cards containing genealogical information on Acadian
families. The demand for this information has not abated since the index was placed in our,
reference rooms.
However all of these searches seemed to lack a suitable framework. Instinctively Doughty
knew that much more could be accomplished, more important persons reached, and more
impressive collections acquired if the whole operation were to be placed on a higher pedestal.
What he was looking for was a high-level patronage, an active participation in planning and
execution of the searches by influential persons, and an aura of social respectability. He was
,deeply impressed with the work of the British Historical Manuscripts Commission which
master-minded the searches in Britain. The reports of that Commission in particular served a
very useful purpose by focussing attention on important sources of documents. Why not set up
a similar institution in Canada, he asked himself? An excellent occasion presented itself in
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
1907, the year before the celebration of the Tercentenary of the Founding of Quebec. The
Government duly impressed with things historical needed little prodding, and on 17 April
1907 it 'passed an Order in Council establishing the Historical Manuscripts Commission to
"shape and execute a?systematic plan for prosecution of all those activities that are carried out
under the auspices of the Archives Branch". (6) The wording of the Order in Council was
sufficiently general to enable Doughty to use it as he saw fit. The membership of the
Commission was chosen carefully, including such heavyweight historians as Adam Short, Abbe
Gosselin, S. M. Wrong and others. With the backing of the Commission, Doughty was now able
to start planning more comprehensive searches at home and in Europe.
Since the days of his predecessor no major change was made in the technique of
European searches. New the time was ripe, and Doughty was ready to try something new. Well,
not exactly new. His experience with a system of agents, each responsible for a certain area,
was certainly working out very well in Canada. The team of O'Leary-Laidlaw-Hannay (to
which he later added other agents such as Milne and Mitchell) produced impressive results. So
why not try it in Europe? His first appointment was Henry P. Biggar, who already established
his reputation as an authority on the early explorations in Canada, and had been conducting
independent searches in the archives of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Eventually Biggar
became Canada's chief Archivist for Europe, and as such was able to control Canada's vast
acquisition programme. The Paris office was expanded to include such names as Victor Tantet
and Edouard Richard. Here and in London new, more sophisticated techniques were
introduced. Instead of sending his archivists to negotiate with owners of papers, Biggar, and his
boss in Ottawa, managed to interest highly-placed and socially-influential persons to do the
negotiations on behalf of the Public Archives. One of the favourite sayings of Doughty was:
"Why bark yourself, if you can get a dog to do if for you; they normally do it more
efficiently"; It was Lord Minto, the former Governor General of Canada, who in 1908
convinced Captain Hope of Kirkenbright in Scotland to permit the copying of the famous
Selkirk Papers. This turned out to be a luck move as the originals of these valuable documents
were subsequently destroyed by fire. The PAC transcripts have now the status of originals.
This source, the Papers of the Earl of Selkirk, founder of the Red River Settlement, the
present Province of Manitoba, is the most important early historical evidence of that Province.
During the next thirty years the searches for private papers in England, and on the
continental Europe, were conducted with a missionary zeal. In those years the Public Archives
acquired the originals, or copies, of papers of such famous persons as Marquis de Montcalm,
Brig. Gen. James Wolfe, James Murray, Sir Jeffery Amherst, Viscount Townshend, the Earl of
Dartmouth, the Earl of Chatham, Lord Shelburne, Sir Guy Carleton, Bishop Inglis, Sir John
Graves Simcoe, the Earl of Dalhousie, Lord Durham, Sir Charles Bagot, Joesph Howe, The
Baring Brothers, Sir George E. Cartier, Sir John A. Macdonald, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, just to
mention a handful of French, British and Canadian figures who helped to shape the destiny of
Canada.
These rich pickings did not come to Canada as an accident. There was a mastermind
behind all this. There was also a systematic plan that made it possible, The plan was a stroke of
a genius. Why not organize all prominent families in England and France into an Association
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
dedicated to preservation of records of their glorious past? With this aim in mind, Doughty
approached several influential families in England and France with the view to organizing such
a society, composed of descendants of persons prominent in the affairs of Canada. The
response was cordial and rewarding. Lady Minto, the wife of the former Governor of Canada,
wrote on 25 May 1923 to HRH the Duke of Connaught saying that Sir Campbell Stuart (a
friend of Doughty) suggested "an effective means of assisting the Canadian Government in its
efforts to obtain all the information possible relating to its history. . . ." She went on to say
that " there are undoubtedly numerous memoirs and documents preserved in family archives,
which would form the basis of an adequate history of the Dominion, and some of these might
be published from time to time in suitable form." (7) The Duke of Connaught replied the
following day to say that "an association such as proposed should be of real service to Canada.
Through its members would be made known sources of history which are unsuspected . . .". (8)
Accordingly, a Canadian Historical Society was formed listing among its objectives the
research to discover historical sources and the preservation of records. No lesser eminence than
His Majesty the King accepted the patronage of this society. The membership included the
names of virtually all governors-general of Canada. At the inaugural banquet of the Society,
which was held in London on 7 November 1923, the Prime Minister, Mr. W. L. Mackonzie
King, made a strong plea to the founding members "to discover the sources of information to
enable (the Archives) to secure important documents. (9) Mr. King suggested that there must
have been in the hand of the members of the regiments which came to Canada, and their
descendants, records and diaries, which have been brought back to England, and are now in
possession of their families. If the Society, the Prime Minister argued, could be the means of
bringing to light these various documents, it would be of great help to Canada. (10) This plea
was supported by several prominent speakers, among them, Sir Winston Churchill.
About the same time a similar society was organized in France. Once again it included the
most distinguished families. The president of the Republic consented to accept patronship, the
Duke of Levis-Mirepoix became the president, Marquis de Montcalm agreed to preside over the
Council of Families. Biggar was made the secretary of the two chapters, and Sir Campbell
Stuart, the indefatigable champion of searches for manuscripts, was elected the Chairman of
the Executive Committee. The two societies became a powerful tool in the hands of the
Dominion Archivist. Searches for sources were now often conducted for us by members of the
societies, yielding a rich harvest.
In 1935 Doughty was knighted and became Sir Arthur. He had already retired from
office, but habits are hard to break. There is a story that when Sir Arthur was received at a
luncheon at Buckingham Palace, he was impressed with the gilded menu of this memorable
occasion. Convinced that this document must be preserved for posterity, Sir Arthur quietly
"accessioned" the menu, and with the air of a cat that just swallowed the canary went on
eating his luncheon. But Doughty's reputation for unorthodox searches were well established
by that time, and his hosts must have known about it, or else saw him posket the document.
At the end of the luncheon the Monarch presented Sir Arthur with another copy of the menu
with a comment that "all important documents should be kept in duplicate".
(7) A. G. Doughty, the Canadian Archives and Its Activities, 1924, p. 17
(8) Ibid, p. 18
(9) Ibid, p. 34
(10) Ibid, p. 34
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
Doughty was succeeded by Gustave Lanctot, whose tenure of office coincided with the
Second World War. Very little in the way of searching was done outside of Canada. So when in
1948 Dr. W. Kaye Lamb, the fourth Dominion Archivist took over the helm, he had a difficult
job of re-building our research organization in Europe. Doughty's French and English societies
of 20 ties and 30 ties were allowed to die; their usefulness had ended. Moreover, Dr. Lamb had
a style of his own, which soon began to assert itself in all archival functions. To begin with, he
was conscious of the new postwar generation of historians and researchers. No longer were
scholars willing to wait 100 years for the papers to be opened for public scrutiny. They wanted
them now, and up to date. The walls of restrictions began to crumble before the onslaught of
determined researchers. The 100-year rule gave way to the 50-year, which in turn was replaced
by the 30-year formula. But even this liberalization is not satisfactory to researchers, and
demands for further reduction in the waiting period are voiced strongly and insistently.
When Dr. Lamb became the Dominion Archivist, there were few historical sources in our
custody for the period since 1867. Perhaps his most important single contribution to the
institution was that he systematically began to fill the huge void. He started with the papers of
politicians; the colonial secretaries, the governors, the prime ministers and the cabinet
members. His yearly trips to London and Paris became something of a legend. Like a Santa
Claus, he came one a year loaded with valuable papers. He easily tripled our holdings during
the twenty years of his tenure. Like Doughty, Lamb had his agents. But he preferred to do the
complicated searches personally. This approach proved particularly effective with the
heavyweights of Canadian politics, business, military and religious life. Lamb's strength was his
ability to impress upon the prospective donor the propriety of placing his papers in the Public
Archives. He managed to convey the impression that the existence of these papers at the Public
Archives constituted a form of recognition of contribution of the individual. If was as if a
permanent niche was created for such an individual, which would forever commemorate his
worth to the Canadian society.
Kaye Lamb was also a magician with a microfilm camera. In the annals of application of
this new medium of copying, his name should be inscribed in gold letters. It took Brymner,
Doughty and Lanctot 75 years to copy the 2,000,000 pages of documents which they located
all over the world. During the twenty years of his tenure, Lamb not only microfilmed the
originals of these hand-written transcripts, thus providing researchers in Canada with a true
image of the originals, but he was able to unleash his cameras at sources in Europe, and on this
continent, that his predecessors did not dream of. The camera operators went systematically
through the records of the Colonial Office, Admiralty, War Office, Foreign Office, Post Office,
Treasury, the collections of the Hudson's Bay Company, The Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel, the Church Missionary Society, the British Museum, The Scottish Public Record
Office, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, just to mention a few institutions in
Great Britain. Similar programme was developed for France. Altogether this operation
produced for us more than 11,000 reels of negative microfilms, and twice as many positives.
Translated to pages this enormous wealth may be measured in more than 16,000,000
exposures. From private sources we acquired copies of papers of Edward Ellice, Lord Elgin,
the Duke of Newcastle, Viscounts Cardwell and Monck, the Earls of Howick, Carnarvon,
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
Granville, Kimberley, Derby, Aberdeen, Minto; the Marquis of Dufferin and others. The
originals of papers of Sir Robert Borden, Arthur Meighen, W. L. Mackenzie King, Louis St.
Laurent, John G. Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson, all of them prime ministers of Canada,
were also added to our holdings. The domestic programme was just as active. Four cameras
were hard at work in Ottawa filming the papers that were not available for deposit in original
form. The same cameras were also engaged in protective microfilming of our own materials and
for which there was demand by other archives and learned institutions. These films are now
being used for inter-library (owns all over the world.
It was also during the last years of Dr. Lamb's tenure that a formula was developed that
finally allowed us to move into the field where our previous searches were unsuccessful. I am
talking about the hundreds and thousands of archival repositories all over the world that had,
and still have, rigid restrictions against copying of their sources. Most archives jealously guard
their collections, and many are outright hostile at any suggestion of making copies for other
institutions. Some of them have numerous collections that are of vital interest to the Public
Archives. At the same time, we are conscious of haveing in our possession papers that may be
of similar interest to others. So we started a barter trade: Quid pro quo. Several of these
exchanges have already been made, others are being negotiated.
Now I have spent considerable time talking about searches conducted by us in the past. It
would be manifestly unfair to leave you with the impression that this is where we stand now.
The needs of scholars change rapidly. The popularity of subjects fade. New interests develop.
The number of historians writing about the War of 1812 or the Civil War is dwindling. The new
breed of historians, political scientists, sociologists, economists, right down to behaviourists,
quantificationists and other modern chips of the old blocks, are looking for new evidence. The
prestigious despatches from governors, important minutes of meetings of state councils, and
heavyweight correspondence of top politicians are losing their lustre. More and more we find
that researchers are looking for a different type of evidence. Census returns, assessment rolls,
parish registers, account books of unnamed general merchants, price lists of goods, schedules
of duties on imports, and a variety of other records seem be be gaining favour with the
scholars. This changing demand for new sources has not escaped our attention. Indeed our
acquisition programme is being continuously adjusted to accomodate these needs.
I would like now to present to you the programme which we developed in Ottawa during
the last two years, the SYSTEMATIC NATIONAL ACQUISITION PROGRAMME, and to
which I had already referred earlier in this paper. What is the purpose, the objective of this
programme? To begin with, our team sat down to define the aims of our institution. What type
of material did we collect in the past? What sources are in demand at the present time? What
other institutions accumulate similar sources? Competition is a sign of health; it could also be a
handicap as it may impair the efficiency of research, particularly when related materials are
scattered among several repositories.
There was no problem in defining our objectives. We are a public research institution
dedicated to the acquisition, preservation and making public of historical sources relating to
the , development of Canada as a nation. By statutory obligation, tradition and future
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
requirements we search for, and acquire, manuscripts and records, covering the entire spectrum
of Canada's political, military, economic, religious, social and cultural history. Some of these
activities are naturally limited by the federal nature of our government, and by the existence
of provincial and local archives, which have a legitimate sphere of interest. This sphere of
interest has been recognized, and is an important factor in our SNAP programme.
Our first duty is to acquire and preserve the records of the federal government, and its
predecessors, the various crown corporations, national organizations, institutions and business
concerns, and individuals who occupied either elective or appointive positions with the federal
government or its various ramifications. We are also interested in the records of, institutions,
and papers of individuals who made important contributions in the field of business, finance,
education, arts and science, particularly if these contributions made an impact onn the whole
country, or on a large part of it.
But these are generalizations. We needed more precise definitions of the sources we were
to search for. Who were the persons whose papers we wanted? What positions did they occupy
in public or private lives? Did other incumbents of these positions merit inclusion in our
programme? How low in the political, military, religious or social scale we had to descend
before the papers became devoid of any meaningful evidence? Should only the ,papers of
ministers, generals, bishops, chairmen of boards of corporations, university presidents and
above be preserved? Or should we go below to deputy ministers, colonels, canons, presidents
of corporations, deans of faculties? And how does one measure an author, an artist, or a
musician? The number of books published, paintings completed, symphonies composed? These
questions still agitate our minds, and there is an enoumous grey area between the elite whose
papers are historically significant, and the ordinary citizen who may not have any at all.
The same criteria applies to records of institutions, organizations and business
corporations. Here an additional question arises. Assuming that the institution is significant,
what portion of its records should be preserved? For how long? There was no easy answer to
these questions. However we were able to obtain some guidance from precedents. We reviewed
in some detail the frequency of use of similar materials in our search rooms in Ottawa. We
compared the rate of circulation of these sources over lengthy periods of time, and patterns
began to emerge. We have now definite proof that some sources were high on the popularity
list, while others were notorious dust-gatherers. Some of the "old-timers, such as the
Haldimand Papers retained popularity with researchers throughout the entire period under
investigation. On the other hand the Count Nesselrode-Bodisco correspondence which was
transcribed from the Soviet State Archives in Moscow was never consulted while in our
custody. Neither did any researcher look at the Hantzsch Journal, which we copied from the
original in Dresden, Germany.
The Register of Dissertations, which is a list of graduate theses at the various universities,
and which we compile at the Archives, gave us further guidance. By analyzing trends in
historiography and related disciplines, we were able to identify othe; areas for which our
sources were inadequate. More specific suggestions came from our reference archivists who
face frequent inquiries about our sources, and the feasibility of undertaking research projects.
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
 Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3
It was no surprise to us that, in spite of our rich holdings, our sources for some areas were
decidedly poor.
The arduous task of systematically identifying persons, families and various organizations,
institutions and business companies, that fitted our criteria, was gathering speed. Our files grew
in number and size, and although we are still a long way from our goal, the project is already
yiedling some results. Some preliminary contacts were made, and as most of our candidates
were still in the prime of their lives, their papers were understandably not available for the
archives. This did not matter to us. We were "playing long shots". The contacts we established
were important to us and would pay off later. Our plans were to approach our targets more
than once. At the pinnacle of their career, while going into semi-retirement, and when moving
into complete retirement. In our communication we offered advice on how to protect their
papers, how to arrange them meaningfully, and where to fill out gaps with recollections. The
ultimate purpose of this procedure was to convince these individuals to make provision in their
wills for transfer of their papers to the archives.
Perhaps you may see now where I am driving at. Our aim was to eliminate, or to reduce as
much as possible, all searches for sources. We also wished to eliminate the demeaning aspects
of these tasks. I am speaking now of situations where over-zealous searchers, in an effort to
obtain the custody of papers of a deceased person badgered and harassed the bereaved widow,
often befoe the body was given a funeral. Maintaining decorum is a noble art, but it has in the
past cost the Public Archives several important collections. The SNAP programme, we hope
will make it unnecessary to bother the widows, as the papers would have been committed to
an archives by then.
In the case of corporate bodies our approach is somewhat different. Based on the theory
that it is less painful to cut a dog's tail gradually, we suggest a piecemeal transfer of records,
say every time the administration under goes a major change, or at specified periods of time.
Coupled with this suggestion is a request to allow us to destroy the historically marginal
materials. In fact he becomes designated as the official repository of records of that corporate
body, and will receive all future transfers as a mater of procedure.
I already imposed upon your patience for longer than is prudent. In conclusion I ought to
say that the programme which I first unfolded before you as an important "retroactive"
corollary, which is really a highly systematized extension of the searches of former Dominion
Archivists. Using the new criteria,-we are reviewing our entire holdings in an effort to fill out
the many gaps. This programme is tremendously complex, and is probably a suitable subject
for a separate systematic treatment.
Approved For Release 2006/09/25 : CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140006-3