Our region has been fortunate to have many people who have worked to collect, preserve, and make available the rich history of our area. Below is a list of a few of the noteworthy historians in our area.
Robert Sellar
Robert Sellar (1841–1919) was a Scottish-born Canadian editor and author who
became the influential, often controversial, voice of English-speaking Protestant farmers
in rural Quebec.
Early Life and Career
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Sellar immigrated to Canada at age 15. He began his
career as a printer and typesetter for the Toronto Globe under George Brown. In 1863,
at age 22, he moved to Huntingdon, Quebec, where he founded the Canadian
Gleaner (later the Huntingdon Gleaner). He remained its editor for over 50 years until
his death.
Advocacy and Views
Sellar identified as a "Scotch radical," championing 19th-century liberal ideals such as
free trade and the strict separation of church and state. He became famous—and
infamous—for his fierce opposition to the Catholic Church's influence on Quebec's
education and politics. He believed that clerical power was driving Protestant farmers
out of the province, a theme he explored in his most famous work, The Tragedy of
Quebec: The Expulsion of its Protestant Farmers (1907).
Literary and Historical Legacy
Beyond journalism, Sellar was a dedicated local historian. His major works include:
• History of the County of Huntingdon (1888): A detailed chronicle of the
region's early settlers.
• Gleaner Tales: A collection of stories depicting the hardships of pioneer life.
• Hemlock: A historical novel set during the War of 1812.
He died in Huntingdon on November 29, 1919, leaving behind a legacy as a staunch, if
divisive, defender of English-speaking Quebecers. Detailed records of his life, including
his diaries and business papers, are preserved in the Robert Sellar fonds at Library
and Archives Canada
Gerry Rogers
In the 1960's and 1970's, Gerry Rogers was dedicated to collecting our disappearing heritage. At the time of his death, our community members rushed to save his collection of information from destruction and worked through the night to make sure his papers were preserved for future generations. Many of the first transcriptions of cemeteries in our area were done by Gerry Rogers, helping to keep the information from many tombstones that have since disappeared or have become illegible.
Robert Hill
An author and historian who has written extensively about our area.
Burt Lang
Robert Burton Lang, affectionately known as Burt, was a devoted member of the Chateauguay Valley Historical Society (CVHS), where he served on the Board of Directors for many years. His contributions to both the Historical Society and the community were invaluable. Burt was a passionate historian with extensive knowledge of the Valley and was always eager to correct anyone who presented conflicting information. His true passion lay in local history. In addition to his dedication to the CVHS, he published several reference books and spent many hours scanning The Gleaner newspaper, as well as the annual Journals for the Historical Society.
There is an abundance of information available on his various websites, which provide resources for genealogy in the Chateauguay County and Southwestern Quebec. These resources
include Protestant church registers, cemetery records, monument inscriptions, and information about 19th century settler families, as well as maps and place names. His websites, books
and other informational material are a treasure trove for our researchers and anyone interested in exploring their family history or simply obtaining historical background.
It is important to emphasize that this is only a part of Burt's overall legacy and his dedication to the Valley, which was plentiful and varied. He will be fondly and deeply missed.
The Valentine Project: Bill Brady, Bill Henderson, Norman Valentine & Warren Sadler
In the beginning
It began simply enough... Bill Brady, Bill Henderson, Norman Valentine and I, Warren Sadler, encountered each other as we searched out our ancestors among the original settlers along the valley of the Chateauguay in a particular set of eleven microfilms held at the Archives nationales du Québec. We traded information about our shared history, as we do with all of our newly discovered cousins. When we completed our researches we combined our results to the effect that each had all we knew about our mutual ancestors.
Are we there yet?
Then one day, purely by coincidence, Norman Valentine (Texas) and I (British Columbia) both stopped by to visit Bill Henderson at his home near London, Ontario. Sitting at his computer that evening, Bill demonstrated to us the effectiveness of a voice recognition program and proposed that we should at least try to put together a searchable index of the entire eleven microfilms in the set. Norman, back home in Texas, found that he could produce fairly reliable copy by this means. The four of us consulted extensively to define a record set that we hoped to create. Bill Brady and I tried to work out a practical means to transform unformatted text to columns and rows of data in a table. Norman began reading records to his computer, his wife Shirley proofreading the results. I made a spreadsheet with appropriate columns. When the variety among the datasets defied our efforts to find a relatively automatic solution, Bill Henderson and I began building a database by copying and pasting snippets of data from Norman's raw text. We did this one record at a time, with nearly thirty thousand records! We got that part done, and you would think we would have been satisfied. How long did it take? I do not remember, but far too many years.
Building a website around the resulting database was relatively easy, and the earliest version of SWQuebec.ca was soon made available to the public. But in the process of transcribing the records, certain omissions became apparent. Some records had missed being microfilmed; entire books had somehow been overlooked. This time it was Norman who insisted on filling in the blanks, and Burt Lang, in Howick, was enlisted to locate and copy missing records. He found records. And books. And microfilms. And more books! While this was going on, Gina Smith, in Ottawa, added her genealogical research skills and her access to Archives Canada to our team. There are now more than 57,000 birth, marriage and death records in our database, with more still being added.
Our Valued Sponsors
Initially we paid no attention to the expenses we were accruing, but once we committed to the cost of establishing and maintaining a website, and servicing the public interest with a resulting demand for copies and other research assistance, we reluctantly decided to seek financial support for our project. A policy was decided, a Donations' page designed and published. We are grateful for the support provided voluntarily by interested individuals and groups and are pleased to acknowledge our benefactors, such as the Chateauguay Valley Historical Society and others, who have given generously to see this work continued. They are recognized on the website under the 'Sponsors' button. Without their help this public-service resource would have long since disappeared from the Internet.
We are not done yet
Soon after publishing the births, marriages and deaths data we added a 'Pioneer Families' section to the web-site, containing listings of our own nineteenth century ancestors and their descendants, and we invited others to contribute their own results. As a result there are now more than one hundred lists of descendants of original settlers along the Chateauguay among our Pioneer Families' pages, each complete with a link to the provider. Under the heading 'Sellar's Notes', you will find an index to the priceless records written by Robert Sellar of his interviews with the first settlers; these were collated in preparation for the writing of his History of Huntingdon County and the Seigniories of Chateauguay and Beauharnois. They are full of personal information omitted from the History. There are maps too, under 'Maps and Places'. People want to see their ancestral homes and we have done our best to provide plot plans across the region. These and other resources have been added to the web-site at www.SWQuebec.ca as we have discovered them, and we are not done yet. All of which goes to explain the simple narrative About Us' as it appears on our web-site. This reads: "Norman Valentine (1934-2009), Chief Instigator, read every Church record aloud and kept our noses to the grindstone for more than a decade. Shirley Valentine, whose forbearance and cooperation in this can only be observed with awe. Burt Lang, diligent Seeker among Archives, Churches and Burial Grounds. Gina Smith, Genealogist extraordinaire. Warren Sadler, Webmonger, who turned the resulting mass into bits and bytes. Bill Henderson, whose suggestion it was to extend beyond our own researches and include every record in the original eleven microfilms, for which we may never forgive him. We have since more than doubled that content, mostly from dusty old books, previously ignored."
Gina Smith
I got interested in genealogy long ago before the internet. My grandparents were all born in England and Wales so researching them wasn't going to be easy. So I decided to start with my husband's family (the Smiths) since I had much easier access to Quebec records. So the only connection I have to the Chateauguay Valley is that I married a guy whose ancestors settled on the Outarde Concession in the 1820s. But I like solving puzzles and that's what genealogy is. I connected with Warren Sadler 30 years ago as we were both researching the Sadlers and through him I met Burt Lang and then Ken Steffenson. I helped with some of the data on the parish registers as I found in my own research that there were many records in the Montreal parish registers that involved people from the Valley. Either they had lived in Montreal before settling in the Valley or the Protestant ministers in Montreal did a circuit around the Valley doing mostly baptisms in a different place every day or two. I copied that information and sent it to Warren for inclusion in the database.
Robert McGee
Robert McGee (1942–2014) was a prominent historian and genealogist based in Huntingdon, Quebec, known for his extensive contributions to preserving the history of the Châteauguay Valley.
Historical Work and Contributions
McGee was a key figure in the Châteauguay Valley Historical Society and is most frequently cited for his scholarship on local heritage and military history. His major works include:
• A Companion to Robert Sellar's History of the County of Huntingdon: Published in 1987, this essential reference provides an index, maps, and lists of settlers to navigate Robert Sellar's 1888 foundational text.
• The Fenian Raids on the Huntingdon Frontier, 1866 and 1870: A historical account of the military conflicts along the Quebec-United States border.
• Community Advocacy: Beyond writing, he was a vocal defender of the English[1]speaking community in the region and a collaborator with local municipal governments on heritage projects.
Biographical Details
• Background: Born in Huntingdon in 1942, he attended St. Joseph Teachers College and the University of Montreal.
• Legacy: He passed away in September 2014 at the age of 72 following a tragic traffic accident in Huntingdon. He was widely remembered by local leaders as a "gentleman" and a dedicated "citizen engagement" advocate
Betty MacKenzie McKay
An dedicated historian in Hemmingford area.
Alister Somerville
Author of several history books for our area.
Ken Steffenson
Although he has never lived in Southwest Quebec, Ken Steffenson has been interested in the history and genealogy of the area for many years as the result of a family history written in the 1890’s. He is cousin to many people in the area as his ancestors were Scottish settlers in Dundee and St. Anicet.
Ken created the Huntingdon County GenWeb in 1998, with the intention of making historical and genealogical information freely available to interested persons. He was friends with Burt Lang, Warren Sadler, Bill Henderson and Norm Valentine. Ken and Burt shared a love of the cemeteries in the area and together they visit most of them. Recognizing that the headstones in the area were becoming increasingly illegible and minimally documented, Ken took on the project to photograph and transcribe all the cemeteries and headstones in Huntingdon Country. With Burt Lang’s help to locate the cemeteries, Burt developed similar projects for the other cemeteries in the Valley.
While still investigating some genealogy mysteries related to the Chateauguay Valley, he’s now more focused on extracting genealogic details from 17th century Danish records.